Eight Things You Don’t Know About Me
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: May 17 2007
Very early this morning I was tagged by Christine Wells to post eight random things you don’t know about me, and that I’m willing to admit. So here I go:
1. I’m a rabid Minnesota Vikings football fan. Don’t call me when there’s a game on TV and certainly don’t call me if they’ve lost. I’ll be in bed.
2. I failed grammar all through high school. A’s for my writing and F’s for my grammar. To this day I’m never sure when to use “then” or “than” (which you may have noticed), where to put commas, or how the heck you diagram a sentence (or why).
3. I love, love, love coffee and could drink it all day long. But I almost exclusively drink decaf.
4. My office is blue and green with a pink bathroom. Trust me, it looks better than it sounds.
5. I helped to start and run an independent newspaper in college.
6. I never read a romance novel until I was asked to do a reader’s report in my first publishing job interview. Apparently I did well. I aced the report and got the job. The author was Pamela Morsi.
7. I was a Girl Scout until I was 16 and finished all there was to do.
8. I cry at the drop of the hat–movies, books, the RITA’s. Any time people clap or cry I will inevitably join right in. And yes Christine, I’m sure I teared up when you won the Golden Heart.
Now I’m supposed to tag eight others to share those things about yourself that few know. I trust that eight of you will pick up the ball and run with it.
Congratulations on being nominated for a Thinking Blog Award! See my blog for details.
What an interesting list!
I’m a weeper too – LOL
In fact, I just (well, not “just” it’s from last Friday, ’cause I haven’t been home) posted a chapter from the book of humor essays (which I’ll be shopping around soon – prepare – lol) about crying at all things sentimental.
Enjoying your blog a lot. I’ll be polishing up a query!
Hope you have a great day!
Finally, someone who did as bad in English grammer as I did; yet, I went on to follow a career in Journalism for 45 years.
Way to go!!!!!!!!!!!! You’re my kind of person.
This is fun!
1. I aced Math and Physics in school. Both of my parents were accountants, so I guess I’m predisposed. When I told my Physics teacher I was going to major in English, he told me it was a waste.
2. I was painfully shy in school, but was great a public speaking. I won a contest to be my class’s commencement speaker. Somewhere along the way it switched. Now I’m comfortable one-on-one, but I hate speaking to groups.
3. I have a serious addiction to Pop Tarts (specifically cherry frosted ones). I recently learned that this too may be inherited from my father. I CANNOT have them in my house.
4. My husband has turned me off of most sports (except Penn State football – go JoePa!). It’s on in our house so often, that I OD’ed a long time ago.
5. I’m one of the few girls I know who lived in New York, but hated Carrie from “Sex in the City.”
6. I love crafts, but now I have a closet full of supplies I haven’t touched in years. I made cards (created my own wedding invitation), taught myself to knit, and beaded quite a few necklaces. But now it all just lies dormant at the bottom of that closet.
7. I’ve never been a big fan of sitcoms/comedies, but I live for “The Office.” I laugh myself to tears every week.
8. When I was a kid, I never had the typical schoolgirl crushes on Shaun Cassidy or Ralph Macchio. No… I went for the older men. Parker Stevenson, John Schneider and (sigh) Bruce Boxleitner. “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” was my favorite show.
Oooh, okay. I can’t write about my sports preferences because anyone who knows me knows I am a Red Sox fan. In fact, I’ve even made custom “red sox” jewelry to wear to defend my team from the slings and arrows of my outrageous Yankee fan husband. So…
1. I love thrillers, but sometimes I get so tense that I have to read the end first, then finish the book.
2. I love to read romantic suspense, but often skim–or even skip–the sex scenes.
3. I’ve never read War and Peace.
4. I like all dogs more than most people and most dogs better than all people.
5. I have more needlepoint canvases than one person could complete in two lifetimes.
6. I, too, cry at the drop of a hat. I have to read many books while my husband is downstairs watch TV or he’ll freak out and think there’s something really wrong.
7. I’m a bit of a misanthrope.
8. I adore modern folk music.
Ha, Kim! I can’t stand Carrie from SITC either, although I do like the show. And I’ve been a fan of The Office since the beginning, too — I own the English Office series, which is just plain unbelievable. So good.
(Okay, thinking: one time I did like Carrie was when she was drunk and threw the shoe at Berger. That was hilarious.)
And here’s ONE thing most people don’t know about me: I love love love Doris Day. Damn she was funny. Especially when she was playing drunk.
Sensing a theme here…
My life’s an open book, but…
1. I love to fish. I don’t even mind cleaning my own fish–and my husband’s, too, since that’s the only way he’ll agree to go with me!
2. I’m an excellent seamstress. I used to make all my husband’s shirts, including the wool ones out of Pendleton wools–mainly because he’s so tall I could never find them to fit him.
3. I used to bake all our bread and canned most of our food. This was, of course, before becoming an author. Now I have no time to be “earth mother.”
4. I helped build a church for a Navajo congregation in Four Corners, Utah in the summer of 1966.
5. I loved diagramming sentences in high school, and will still do that to help myself work through an awkward paragraph.
6. I kept pet frogs, snakes and lizards as a kid and was forever rescuing mice out of traps and setting them free.
7. I worked as a florist all through high school and college.
8. I cry through all the sappy, romantic, sad, emotional, depressing parts of all the books I read–including my own when I’m writing them. Camille’s Dawn (Wild Nights anthology) took me a whole box of tissues to finish!
Claud–
Doris Day is great. But only when paired with Rock Hudson.
I’m with you on that whole diagramming sentence thing. My wife cries at OnStar commercials so I’ve experienced that trait as well.
how the heck you diagram a sentence (or why).
Trust me, there’s no good reason to diagram a sentence. (Yes, I am a “suck the joy out of life” English teacher, and I’m 100% sure on the diagramming thing.)
Okay, I’m trying to avoid cleaning my office. I’ll play 🙂
1. I have never been drunk in my life. Even if I wanted to get drunk, I couldn’t, because alcohol puts me to sleep.
2. Harrison Ford once read & autographed a piece I wrote about him (though, sadly, not in my presence).
3. I opted out of regular high school English classes as soon as I was able, and spent three years in an alternate class where we got to make up our own assignments.
4. I was living in Guyana during Jonestown.
5. I have been to every continent except Australia and Antarctica.
6. I can’t admit it to my kids, but I really like Weird Al. Especially in concert.
7. I rarely cry over books for adults, but constantly lose it over children’s books. Also over songs, Hallmark commercials, and children’s movies. My children make bets on how long it will take me to start.
8. I was never a Girl Scout, but I was a Girl Guide, and earned my Canada Cord before becoming an assistant leader.
This is so cool. I’ve found out a lot of interesting, quirky things about people, doing this meme. My 8 things are posted on my blog.
I’m a coffee addict too, but I must admit I hit the hard stuff. Need something to keep me awake after all those sleepless nights with the baby.
And how sweet of you to tear up at the Golden Heart ceremony, Jessica. Wish I’d been there.
Hi Christine-
It was too dark in the auditorium for me to see if Jessica was crying, but I can tell you one thing…she definitely squealed. I’d’ve never pegged Jessica for a squealer…
Kim, that’s so funny. Jessica is normally so cool and unruffled, it gives me great pleasure to hear that she squealed.LOL
And I don’t like Carrie Bradshaw either:)Strangely, that doesn’t stop me watching the show.
I got tagged a few days ago, so the answers are on my blog, but I’ll copy and paste here…
1. I spent 20 minutes backstage with Garth Brooks in 1992. I won a contest on the radio for a limo ride to the concert and two backstage passes, plus great seats up front at the concert. It was my oldest son’s 15th birthday and he was a huge Garth Brooks fan, so it was a great birthday present. And Garth was great. He autographed a bunch of stuff for us, showed us the pictures of his first little girl (we were one of the first to see them), and he treated my son like an adult.
2. I graduated from college at 35, after I’d already had four kids. The youngest was just a year old when I started back to school.
3. I used to be an avid scuba diver. The best place I dove was off the coast of Hawaii. Nearly killed myself, though. We’d been at 70 feet for nearly an hour, the deepest and longest I’d ever been down. The water was so clear, it looked like we were only 10 feet below the boat. When the dive master signaled me to ascend because my air was running low, I forgot to do a decompression stop and went straight to the top. Luckily I remembered at that point and descended back down to 15 feet and stayed there for a while.
4. I have a huge Beanie Baby collection I don’t know what to do with, thanks to my mom.
5. I’m a pack rat. A huge pack rat. This is my year to clean up my act. Started clearing out my bedroom closet this week.
6. I make pets out of all of my animals, even the cows. They’re all named, and they come running when I whistle.
7. I’m a night owl. I don’t even start writing until around 10 p.m. and usually don’t go to bed until nearly 3.
8. I’m hooked on 24, House, Jericho, CSI: Las Vegas. I hate reality shows, don’t watch American Idol, Survivor, or any of those. Don’t like sitcoms. I don’t like reading books where the author writes in short, choppy sentences. Love thrillers.
Christine and Kim, I’m with you in the “don’t love Carrie” club! I found her to be far too willing to go with the flow. Certainly a woman her age should have recognized Big for what he was and run away long before he married (and certainly not been involved with him after!).
I originally tagged Donna MacMeans, who tagged Christine, so my own 8 things are posted on my blog. Jessica, one of my 8 is that I’m a registered Girl Scout. I have a Cadette troop right now. Congrats on your Gold Award. I love this game!
Hey, Caren! Great to see one of my Romance Bandit buddies here. So you’re to blame for starting this meme!
With Carrie, it’s more her preoccupation with the superficial that bugs me. I mean, *of course* shoes are important, but not to the extent of bankrupting myself for a pair of Jimmy Choos. But then I’m hopeless. I go shopping for clothes and come away with a more books for my TBR pile.