MeMeMeMe

Monica tagged me!

The rules:
Once you're tagged, you have to write a blog with ten (10) random things, facts, goals or habits about yourself. At the end, you choose ten (10) people to tag, listing their names and why you chose them. You also have to leave them a comment telling them "you're it," and instruct them to read your blog for instructions. The rules also state you can't tag a person who's already tagged you.

Let's see if I can think of 10 things I haven't posted already.

1. I used to be the newsletter editor for the local chapter of the Cleveland Browns Backers fan club. The internet made the task obsolete, but I did a nice layout and got football news from old-fashioned bulletin boards. I mean, old-fashioned computer BBs, that is.

2. I took sailing lessons the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. I don't remember any of it. That was the same summer I worked on the beach. Man, that was a great summer. Of course, I also worked at Blockbuster, so I didn't have a lot of leisure time.

3. I am hard to live with. Okay, okay, stop laughing, I guess everyone knows that. I get cranky easily, I'm selfish and self-focused, and I hate to clean.

4. I own TWO jars of Foxboro Stadium dirt.

5. If we'd had a boy, he would have been named Mason James. I liked Tasslehoff Nelson Damschroder, but Jim objected. I think Tas is an awesome name for a kid. Points for you if you know the literary reference. :)

6. The "E" on my keyboard is completely worn away. L, O, and S are soon to follow. I guess that's not something about me, really. I mean, what could it reveal? That I use the same most-frequent letters as everyone else? Please don't point out that it spells "LOSE," thank you.

7. I try not to fear things. Like something happening to my kids, or major diseases for me or anyone in my family, or disasters, or whatever. Stuff that's mostly out of my control. I have a theory that fearing things attracts them to us, based only on a lot of people having their biggest fears happen to them. I mentioned this to a psychic once, and she pooh-poohed it, but I don't think it's a bad strategy anyway. I mean, there's no value in getting anxious about breast cancer or child abduction, right?

8. I write romance because I am addicted to falling in love. In real life, I would never change my choices. My husband is the perfect partner for me, I love my life, my children, my job. But there is nothing like the feeling of falling in love. I joke about falling in love with TV characters and shows and movies and stuff, and I do, but that's all superficial. When I'm writing about two people falling in love, I can actually live it. It lasts a lot longer than reading a book does (taking me four to twelve times as long to complete writing than reading). And I can't imagine that ever changing.

9. I don't like to write dark. I like adventurous, upbeat plots, even if the end of the world as we know it is imminent. I don't write a lot of tortured characters or get into the heads of evil people. I have a difficult time killing important secondary characters, and I never write about murder and that kind of mayhem. But I just got an idea for a book, and guess what it has? A tortured hero. Death and evil (governmental evil, even). Mayhem and probably murder, I don't think I can write it without that. And I'm kind of excited about writing it, too. Mostly because of the hero, of course.

10. I hate being wrong. Not to the extent of failing to admit it when I am, because I think in order to have people listen when you are sure you're right, you have to be willing to admit when you're not. But I try hard to make sure what I think I know is correct. Not that this is a unique trait, of course. But it wounds me. For example: I always pronounced "contrived" as "kon-try-ved." My whole life. But then I heard someone say it as "kon-tree-ved," and it had to be someone I deemed "in the know" because I started pronouncing it that way. No big deal when it's in my head, but I used it in front of friends recently, and they made fun of me. Teased me about it for DAYS, including in front of people who had no idea what was going on. I cried inside, and vowed never again to take a chance. I'll find a way to avoid saying words of more than two syllables from now on.

So there you go. Now, to punish by tagging...Megan, Jody, Misty, Vicki, Vicky, Mary, Trish, Jacki, Gail, and Karmela. I picked you guys just by going down my blogroll, so you may or may not be deserving of punishment. :)