Rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.
(To do this, go to "notes" under tabs on your home page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people [in the right hand corner of the app] then click publish.)
1. I am from a tiny place called Briar Ridge, KY. Our address for the longest time was "Rural Route 4" and our closest neighbors were a clan of hillbillies who did everything from shoot while drunk to making moonshine, and the dog catcher. Now that land borders a nature preserve and is turning into a suburb of the sprawl of Louisville, with neighbors and neighborhoods popping up all over.
2. My first pets were a border collie/sheepdog mix named Buster and a tom cat named Taffy. Taffy never got fixed and went crazy at times. Once he bit part of the cartilage of my ear off, causing me to have to get stitches. I begged dad not to kill him and he didn't just because he loved me too much, although he would've killed it. To this day you can still see the chunk of my ear gone, if you look close enough and compare the two.
3. My heart was broken a lot in my early years because I was born a liberal optimist in a backwards part of the world. Kids taunted me, parents thought I was a bad influence and no one seemed to understand me. I found a way to feel good/deal with this through writing.
4. I think we didn't have a phone in my household until I was about 7 or 8. One of my aunts had one that we used--a party line, remember those!--and we had to walk the path to her house to accept/place calls until we got our first, hot black rotary--woot, woot!
5. I thought I was a hippie (instead of a redneck) and then I went to a hippie school to find out I wasn't one. I hate bad drum circles and I like taking showers. I *can* be communal but to a point. Some people you DON'T wanna be sharing close quarters with, ha!
6. Even though the kids in college were pretty cool, I still felt out of place slightly. I continued to write, wanted to be a writer, had an obnoxious writing professor/advisor who I allowed to rip me apart to the point that I just stopped writing. I regret that, but all the same, I learned from it.
7. I decided I'd pursue a dream I had since I was about 6: becoming an archaeologist. So I switched majors and went to study in Kytoto, Japan. This was a good time for me and one of the best things I ever did for myself as I developed more independence and esteem as a woman.
8. I was once romantically linked to a Czech who became an American citizen. He was 39 when I met him at 18. I ended up having a long-distance relationship with him and ultimately moved to Denver permanently, where he lived. One NYE he said his resolution was to have a baby with me. Two months later, I left him with nothing to my name and started out officially "on my own."
9. I slept around a lot as a young woman. I keep wondering why, if I really enjoyed it (at times I did) or if I did it out of hate of myself (at times I did). I don't find it bad nor good because women are expected to be saints over sluts more often...and men who sleep around usually get praised for their prowess. All the same, I was assaulted and I never did much about it and that sucked. But I learned how to move past it all and become stronger so it is all for the better. I don't mind telling people because dammit, it's the truth and I believe in the truth. Speaking of which...
10. Another reason I bring it up is because I refuse to feel shame or guilt! I grew up in a very traditional, conservative Southern Baptist home in which sex, homosexuality, etc., were the worst things ever. I refuse to play along with this. I view sex as natural and overall positive if people would just talk about it and be real with each other.
11. I don't believe in god. I may get slammed but...how can people believe in god when there are SO many religions, active and from the past, that claims to know what you need to know or do to get to a heaven, or advance to another level, or whatever they think. I think it's a figment of the imagination...nothing more than a tool for people who are weak. It *can* be a positive tool and I've known some great spiritual people...but for the most part, come on, god is something you can never know! When you die, when we die, we'll all find out. Until then it's just a guess at best.
12. My family didn't know I didn't believe in god until after my dad died of cancer and I finally just said I didn't believe in god or church functions. My sister, for the longest time, would talk with me about it every time we spoke and would say things like, "What's going to happen in heaven? We'll all be reunited in heaven with dad...but you..." and she didn't know what to make of where I'd be. She couldn't accept hell but heaven was certainly out of the question, given her dogma. All the same, once saved always saved, the Baptists say, and I was baptized of my own cognizance when I was 8, so hey, maybe I'm safe, either way?
13. When my dad died it was a really terrible thing. I really loved him. He was one of the most generous and hardworking people ever and he didn't deserve the way cancer took him. All the same, I felt relief because I knew he'd no longer feel pain. Before his passing, I was convinced I could save him given if I could find the right combination of natural therapies. But he didn't want to bother. We fought, my whole family fought. After he died and I went back to visit for the first time, we still fought, my brother saying things I never thought I could forgive about how bad I'd treated dad before he died. All of this is some of the saddest stuff in my life. And I feel like I can't connect with my uber-religious Southern family. It is something I can accept but at times, it does pain me, that loss...it solidified with my father's death.
14. Writing is therapeutic for me. Even now, as I write this, I can't help but cry a bit and it actually feels good because it's releasing a lot of other stresses I've been feeling trapped under lately. Writing, making music, painting, whatever your bag...you have to do it...it keeps you sane, it keeps you human. Without it we are animals!
15. Love saves us. I met my husband at a particularly pivotal moment. I felt when I first looked at him that we'd met before. It sounds pretty cliche and all but I never thought we'd be where we are today, given how it all started! I'd like to romanticize that I saved him but in a way he really saved me. Love saves us. Learn to love.
16. Ok, enough of this sap, really I'm a total arrogant bitch! :) I do have sharp edges and a soft underbelly. I am the quintessential crab. I will pinch, grab, nag, all of it. I have a sarcastic humorous edge that people either love or hate. But my intentions are all true to being positive and kind.
17. I have a low tolerance for certain things: lack of integrity, not handling your shit, not being able to remember details I've told you a thousand times. This has been a difficult thing, given I work in the music business. Musicians teach me patience...while
18. Management just makes me want to kill myself. One of life's ultimate mysteries to me is how people of such incompetence are in charge. WTF? If anyone has a hold on WTF, hit me up. Otherwise, it's something that continually comes up in my life and with which I find it very difficult to deal!
19. I am bisexual, even if you didn't guess by some other references already. I don't go around touting this or anything but it is something that people may or may not know, and I don't necessarily hide it as I flirt and get flirted with, etc. I've never come out to my family because that will just never go down well, trust me. I would prefer to be able to but it's just not on my top list. However, I wouldn't lie if they asked me. But they never will. I'm married and that makes them happy...if only I'd have kids!
20. I'll never have kids. I may get urges and my hormones may play tricks on me but are you joking? Me with a kid. Yeah. Sure.
21. I hated bluegrass when I was growing up because it was all around me and most of what I had to hear of it was Christian-themed. But today, here in Colorado, bluegrass is the bomb. Some of the best musicians EVER are bluegrass. They gotta play fast and hard and have chops unlike any stupid emo band or jam band. I hate emo and I hate jam bands, particularly the Dead and PHISH. Yuck.
22. I am a Reiki master. Oh yeah. I went through a New Age phase of life after my ho phase, trying to find the truth to the mysteries of life, trying to go back to those hippie elements of myself. I used to attend a Star Mountain Center to be a Star Shaman too...I have master Reiki certification and have pounded drums in the kiva while visualizing my chakras. I don't really do that now, lol!
23. I wish I could be Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Robbins. They're the best at what they do and always have been and always will be major influences on me.
24. If I could make a complete living off my writing, that's what I'd be doing. In a way, I'm doing it but not in a way that I love all the time. I'm happy at times writing what I write while other times it feels forced and unpleasant. Perhaps I will one day, though, and be very happy!
25. I long for freedom. It's probably at the core of everything I am and do and what compels me. I want to be able to express myself without judgment, to get up and go to bed whenever I want, to come and go anywhere and everywhere as I please, to not be under the thumb of some boss who wants to control me and demand I be in front of a computer from such-and-such hours. FREE!
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