5 Random Things About Me

As if you don’t know enough.

#1.  I have approximately 9.8 fingers.  When I was three, my brother and I were playing with the side door to our garage (or the “Man door” as we like to call it here.  Or the “Woman door” if I am using it).  We were passing a jump rope through the hinge of the door.  I don’t know why we were doing this.  I was three.   I don’t pretend to know the inner workings of the minds of three-year-olds, not even when I was one.  Anyway, as I passed the jump rope to my brother, the door slammed shut on my thumb and snipped the tip of it off.  I screamed and ran around like a chicken with my head cut off.  Or a three-year-old with her thumb cut off.  We never retrieved the tip of my thumb to try and stitch it back onto my body.  My parents joke that the dog ate it.  BUT THAT’S NOT FUNNY.

Here’s a picture:

I used about 14 different photo effects
to make a close-up of my thumbs appear less horrifying.

I also challenge any one of you to take a close-up photo of your thumbs
and make it look anything but horrifying.

Okay.  You’ve seen it, you know the story.  Stop staring at my thumb.

* * *

#2.  When I was young we had this series of Time-Life books called “Mysteries of the Unknown” about all kinds of unexplainable things like psychic powers, paranormal activity, aliens, and secret societies.  One of them was about dreams, and it contained step-by-step instructions on how to put yourself in a trance and have an out-of-body experience.  I lay in my bed many nights trying to accomplish this.  I remember being very aware of the particular instruction not to sever the silver cord that connects your trance self to your real self, because if you did this you would float away into the unknown and your body would die.  I was too scared to actually achieve a trance state because I wasn’t sure about the floating part.  Also I wondered if I really wanted to leave my nice warm room to explore the cold, dark world outside.

I was kind of a dumb kid.

* * *

#3.  In the fourth grade my friends and I got caught looking up bad words in the dictionary.  Except the dictionary we were using didn’t have words like “tit” or “shit” so we had to settle for “teat” and “anus.”  We still got in trouble.  I’m sure it was the giggling that tipped off the teacher.  Either that or the scream-whispering of words like “tit” and “shit” coming from the group of nine-year-olds huddled next to the bookcase in the middle of the classroom.

* * *

#4.   Despite having a blog, I am clueless about computers and the internet.  I don’t know how it all works.  At all.  I don’t understand what the big deal is about Twitter.  I’ve never learned anything about coding or SEO or social media presence or any of the things that real bloggers talk about – it’s all totally foreign to me.  I read articles about blogging and the internet and I can read the words but I can’t figure why any of them are important.  I update Java once a week like it is the glue that holds my online life together.  I don’t even know what Java is.

* * *

#5.  I have this thing about fingernails.  I always envied people who had gorgeous long fingernails and wanted some of my own, and for years I tried to grow them out and paint them and care for them like every good girl of the 80s should.  But my nails aren’t particularly strong and I have short nail beds, which ensures that they will not grow much past the tips of my fingers without breaking and splitting. So, after trying everything to grow my nails to a luxurious length and failing, I have come to terms with the fact that I will never have gorgeous long fingernails.  So I just started clipping them instead, and love them more than ever.

By the way, in my research to grow out my fingernails I found out what they are made of, which sort of grosses me out: “A nail is a horn-like envelope covering the dorsal aspect of the terminal phalanges of fingers and toes in humans, most non-human primates, and a few other mammals. Nails are similar to claws in other animals. Fingernails and toenails are made of a tough protective protein called keratin.”

Horn-like envelope.  On the end of each of my 9.8 fingers.

* * *

I am required by internet law to choose 5 bloggers to write five random facts about themselves.  I don’t want to.  I don’t know who likes to talk about themselves as much as me.  Ha ha ha, I totally do.  But I’m certainly not gonna call them out.  So, go on.  Pick yourselves.

Sigh.  The internet.  It's hard.  

*******