7 randomistic facts about Unhinged
Monday, February 04, 2008, 7:42 PM

Jodi over at Will Work for Noodles tagged me for this meme on January 11. I didn't realize so many weeks had passed. I've fallen into a time warp again. Wasn't it just New Year's Eve when my fsking neighbors were screaming and banging pots three hours after midnight really came and went on the east?

Sorry it's taken so long to respond, Jodi, but I'm here to spread the wealth now. And hah-hah, I almost typed better late than never, but it's a cliche and I've been reading your blog, some of your reader's blogs, and Editorrent, and I.

Just.

Couldn't.

Type it.

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About the meme:

1. Link to the person who tagged you;
2. Leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours;
3. Post the rules on your blog;
4. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog;
5. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post;
6. Include links to their blogs;
7. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

And here we go.

1. I have seen The Tooth Fairy.

When I was little, I had a bunch of teeth pulled because my mouth was too small for all the teeth that grew in there. By the ripe age of twelve, I was an old hand at the dentist's office. Getting a single cavity filled was more painful than getting three of my baby teeth pulled at once. Besides, they don't give you a nifty little treasure chest for your teeth when you get a cavity filled. I loved that little plastic treasure chest and the sound of my teeth rattling around inside it, but The Tooth Fairy has it now. I was half asleep when she came and I'm not sure what made me waken, but I remember seeing a glittering silver presence beside my bed. As soon as I saw it, the light flattened into a floating ball and rolled right out of the room. When I put my hand under my pillow to feel for the little chest, it was gone and in its place was something flat and crisp: a newly-printed five dollar bill.

For the longest time, I could never understand the laughter of adults when I told them this story. It wasn't supposed to be funny, dang it. I'd seen something no kid was supposed to see: I'd seen The Tooth Fairy.

2. I was born without a roof in my mouth, known as a cleft palate.

For the first few weeks of my life, Oogie had to feed me with a goat's bottle, which had a nipple long enough to reach past the hole. People could look into my mouth and see the inside of my nose. Before the age of six, I'd had three surgeries to close the hole in the roof of my mouth. I still remember the pain from the last surgery, and the feeling that there were knives in my throat. Also, Oogie made me eat beef broth and for the longest time, I couldn't eat beef broth.

I still have a wee little hole up there, just big enough for the tip of my tongue.

3. I married a guy named Ken. So did my sister. And so did my mom.

Mom got divorced from her Ken when I was about three years old and after that, he wasn't really a part of our lives. By the time my sister got old enough and wise enough to marry her Ken, there was little confusion about which Ken was being addressed since Dad wasn't around. And when I met my Ken, I gave him the nickname of Kendal (because his name was Ken and he was a doll), so there was no confusion there.

And now there's really no confusion because we're all divorced from our Kens.

4. I have a guardian angel. According to the Ouji board, her name is Kym.

I first discovered I had a guardian angel in the winter of 2004 while driving during a wind storm that was blowing drifting snow across the road. I was going maybe 25 m.p.h. when my car began see-sawing across both lanes of traffic. On one side of the road was a small ditch, on the other was a creek protected by a metal guard rail. There were no cars behind me, and no on-coming cars. It could have been reeeally nasty if there were.

So I'm see-sawing across the road in slow motion, wailing and pumping my brakes gently, when the car just as gently goes nose down into the ditch. It was so gentle that the air bag didn't even deploy. There were no sounds of squealing tires, no grinding metal, just a crunch of tires sinking into snow. I found myself laying across the steering and driver's side door (in my seat belt, of course), but the driver's side was blocked, so I climbed out the passenger side door. In flat leather shoes, I climbed inelegantly up the ditch of snow and stood at the side of the road like Alice in Wonderland. I had no cell phone, my shoes were not winter-fied, and I was about a 30-minute walk from home.

Not one minute later--not even that--a sheriff in an SUV pulls up and asks me if I need a lift. Accident or not, everything happened perfectly. I could've been in a head-on collision, or I could've ended up in the creek.

5. The first story I ever remember writing (and illustrating) was called Herm the Germ.

It was a kid's educational story about germs, one germ in particular: Herm. He was green, had little antennae on the top of his head, and liked to hang out in Pepsi cans. I think I was in the fifth grade at the time. I got an A+ and my teacher asked if she could have it for display purposes. Can't believe I gave it to her! Friggen waah.

6. For one-and-a-half years, I ran my own home-based business.

It was called Aardvark Creations and I specialized in desktop publishing and graphic design. I created a bunch of logos for print and the web, did a number of newsletter layouts, print ads, brochures, business cards, and three 4-color catalogs. Macromedia Freehand was my program of choice, although I dabbled in Adobe Photoshop and Pagemaker, also.

I still have a portfolio of everything I did, as well as my company card, brochure, letterhead, postcard, invoices and envelope--every piece of company material that went out had Saam the aardvark on it. Yeah, he looks like a donkey, shaddup. I had a lot of fun creating that stuff. Sometimes I really miss it, but all that designing drove me more crazy than I needed to be, dang it.

I was in the midst of creating a kick-butt website when I decided having a business took more time and effort than I'd counted on. Not only was my work always there at home, but I also had to actively recruit new business and I've never been much of a salesperson.

7. I've had a recurring dream since childhood.

When I was a little girl, I had this thing about flying like Superman. What I really wanted to do was just hover above the tree lines, or on top of the clouds. This fascination evolved into a terrifying dream flight along The Golden Gate Bridge. In my dream, I follow the dips and curves of Golden Gate, and my heart's in my throat at each descent. I have no control over my body, it just goes up and down the curves of the bridge. The cars below look like ants, and the tops of the bridge are shrouded in clouds. I always wake up with a jerk on one of the downswings, heart a'racing.

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The meme says I should tag seven people, so if you're reading this and haven't done it yet, I taggith you.

I tag everyone and no one in general! See me rebel.
7 Did the Unhingey Jiggy Engage in Unhingenosity
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