I don’t normally do these things so I’m not tagging anyone with this because I want to break the chain, but I’m in the mood to comply with the demands of loyal reader InteractiveReader.

Rules: Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1) I played the clarinet in my tiny school band from like 4th grade to 6th grade or thereabouts.

2) I was a green belt in Tae Kwon Do. I was just about to test for my blue belt when my brother and dad got in their accident and then I started high school so I never really got back into it. I can still probably kick your ass though. 😉

3) In going with the “skills you didn’t know I had” theme, I was in the fencing club in college. I only did it for about one year and I never participated in any tournaments, but I did even own my own foil and everything. I gave it to my brother-in-law though.

4) When I am about to start a new book I pause for a second before opening the cover to savor that feeling of “I’m about to start a new book!”

5) I have two main skills in life: the first is an amazing ability to memorize words to songs even though I have the worst memory in the world and the second is the ability to read little snatches of books at a time. If I have a chance to read a sentence or two in a book, I take it! For some reason this drives Sara crazy, she thinks there’s no point in reading unless you can get a chapter in. I don’t know, it doesn’t bother me at all and I remember stories very well so I don’t have to go back and re-read or anything.

6) Speaking of being a weirdo about reading, when I was little I read like a kid possessed! I gave new definition to the term book-worm. I used to hide behind the couch so my mom didn’t catch me reading. Sometimes she would force me to go outside and get some fresh air so I would pretend like I had to go to the bathroom and throw a book out the window and then go outside and retrieve it and hide behind the garage and continue to read. When I ran out of books I would read anything including my mom’s old text books and even the backs of all the shampoo bottles or things in the medicine cabinet. I am not making this up!

7) I used to collect comics when I was a kid, mostly Spiderman, Amazing Spiderman and Spawn when that came out. I still have them stored away so I can be a millionaire when I grow up.

8) When I was little I had this blanket that I took everywhere, and I liked to chew on it. There are hundreds of pictures of me when I was little with that thing. There were actually a couple of them I think and I had them until I was pretty old. My mom couldn’t get me to forget about them so whenever she washed them she would rip off a piece until they got so small I kind of had to give them up. My mom is mean!

Okay, I know I’m done with my 8 things, but that reminded me of two mom stories! The first is that she used to cut my hair when I was little and one time she cut my ear! It probably wasn’t as bad as I remember it, but I still get a little nervous when someone cuts close to my ear with scissors.

The other thing is that one time when I was learning to drive my mom told me that she heard somewhere that if you see a box or a bag in the road you shouldn’t hit it because sometimes that’s how people get rid of unwanted kittens. Whaaaa?!? Why would you tell someone that!?! So now I have a pathological need to avoid any bag or box in the road even if I saw it just blow in and it couldn’t possibly contain kittens. But I just can’t risk it! Imagine the carnage!