Twenty Five Random Thoughts

With only a few days to go before the dreaded wrist surgery that will surely leave me helpless and insane, here are some random items I thought you should know.  I hope you’ll make your own List ‘o Randomness and send it to me.  I’ll feature it … you … while I’m recovering.

1. When I was three I learned to skip.
2. When I was four I got sick and was bedridden for the next five years.
3. When I was seven I thought I was Nancy Drew and if someone would only let me out of bed, I’d prove it.
4. When I was nine I wanted to be a nurse — in Africa.
5. We didn’t have a television until I was twelve.
6. We also didn’t have a car and either walked or took the bus.  You could do that in Portland.
7. I sucked at Latin and probably should have taken Spanish.
8. My husband and children are the greatest people I know.
9. Until they figured me out, I got to sit with my camera on the floor of a Phoenix Suns game, a press badge clipped to my shirt, a ridiculous grin on my face.
10. Everything I’ve published has been by accident, by coincidence or very much unintended.
11. Among other things, I survived a brain tumor.
12. I’ve been bald twice and am now working on the third and final balding of my dear little head.
13. Of the poets and novelists I’ve met, every single one is kind, gracious … and if you look closely (just around the eyes) you can see they’re each still stunned at their good fortune to be published writers.
14. Being an intentional writer is very different from an accidental word-flinger.  Just look at the sorry state of my query letters for proof of this statement.
15. I once caught a large stream trout with two feet of string, a hook and a salmon egg, thoroughly enraging my ex-hubby and all his fancy fishing gear.  Now you know why he’s my ex – one, for leaving me at the edge of a stream with nothing but a piece of string, and two, for being mad at me for catching a fish with that silly piece of string.
16. I’m suspicious of anyone who has black-and-white, my-way-or-the-highway answers to complex questions.
17. I love Seattle except when it rains … and rains … and rains.
18. Bunnies cavort in my yard.
19. I’d rather eat my own eyeballs than have to choke down a bowl of good-for-me oatmeal.
20. I limp.
21. I’m blessed with life, love, good friends, excellent doggies and all the boxed wine I can consume now and then.
22. If you add a drop of chocolate to your Starbucks nonfat, no foam latte, it removes the bitter taste.
23. The older I get, the more I’m amazed at how the body manages all its little symbiotic cellular relationships.
24. I share my birthday with Edgar Allen Poe … and Dolly Parton.
25. I thoroughly believe any new president needs more than a week and a half in office before people start picking on him.