Ann from the Books on the Nightstand blog and podcast tagged me with the “7 Things” meme, in which you are supposed to post seven random things about yourself. Believe it or not, it’s a bit harder than it seems. Anyway, here goes:
1. As much as I love watching hockey, to the best of my recollection I have only been on ice skates once in my life. I remember going to a rink in my hometown once early in junior high and getting horrible blisters despite basically skating on my ankles. Haven’t tried it since and doubt there are many rinks around that are interested in teaching a fat old guy with bad ankles.
2. Not only don’t I ice skate, I have gone downhill skiing twice in my life, have never used cross country skis or snowshoes and haven’t been sledding since my youngest entered middle school. Given that we hit 24 below this week (without wind chill) and frequent wind chill temps colder than that, ask me again why I’ve lived here all my life.
3. For more than 30 years I have slept almost exclusively on a waterbed. The only exceptions were summer jobs and the like where it was a pain to disassemble and move the bed. They’re absolutely wonderful in the winter (particularly ones like this one) and great for bad backs and aching joints (which I seem to resemble). Of course, it used to be every town had two or three waterbed stores. Now it’s damn hard to find a waterbed locally.
4. The best job I ever had in my life was a college work-study job. Somehow, in the summer of 1977, I lucked into being the game room attendant in the student union. Now between the fact there’s hardly anybody using the game room in the summer and I’m a lifelong pinball addict, it was a dream come true. I spent the summer getting paid to sit by the cash register (giving me the time to read The Hobbit and the entirety of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) or, if no customers were around, playing pinball or pool for free.
5. The backyard of the house I live in abuts a five acre abandoned cemetery established in 1892. The exact number of bodies buried there is unknown but between then and 1906 there were between 15 and 50 burials, including a civil war veteran, a husband and wife, and “numerous orphans.” Only the civil war veteran’s grave is marked and the neighborhood legend is the other grave markers were wood and burned in a prairie fire. Thus, it now is basically prairie that the county mows during the spring and summer.
6. My favorite bookstore in the U.S. is Green Apple Books on Clement Street in San Francisco. In addition to being able to spend hours wandering its shelves, the surrounding markets and cafes are far more original Chinese than Chinatown.
7. I am mostly a second generation American. My maternal grandmother immigrated with her family and my maternal grandfather by himself from the Ukraine (they were Black Sea Germans from Russia). My paternal grandmother came from northern Germany when she was a child.
There you have it. I’m also going to adopt Ann’s variation of the rule and tag three people:
Here are the rules should they decide to participate:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules.
3. Write 7 random things about yourself.
4. Tag 7 people and link to their blogs.
5. Let each person know they were tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry has been published.
Randomness scares people.
Fran Lebowitz
Tim, thanks for playing! It’s heartening to meet another ice-skating dropout. I was on double runners until I outgrew them, and I think I was on single blades exactly twice. I will check out Green Apple books if I get to San Francisco again. Thanks!
You know, Tim, I’ve been tagged with this and was going to tag you in return once I finally got around to posting it. Now I can’t. My options are drying up. I blame you.