25 Random Things About Me

Ah, another one of those fun pieces of ego-candy: a thing going around Facebook, called "25 Random Things About Me." I have really enjoyed reading the ones that my friends have written, but I'm still too much of a coward to post such a thing on Facebook where God-knows-who is looking at this list of stuff I'd rather reserve for friends. Of course, you could say the same thing about a blog, but to tell you the truth, I think a lot fewer people read the blog...and I think I know at least 90 per cent of you. So... since I enjoyed "y'all's," as they say down here, here's mine. Or "mahn."


1. I have been married to my best friend for over 25 years.
2. Literally everyone in my immediate family were/are musicians.
3. If I could live anywhere I wanted, I would split my time between New England, Taos/Santa Fe, the Pacific Northwest, and the west coast of Ireland.
4. The Buddhadharma changed my life.
5. I wish that I could live closer to my family, or they could live closer to me.
6. I have stood on the Great Wall of China.
7. I wish I had more time to actually practice the instruments I sort of play.
8. I’ve probably read Lord of the Rings about ten times, starting at age 12.
9. I love my job.
10. Within a 3-year period in the mid-90’s, I lost my Dad, I lost two teachers who were very dear to me, I lost a beloved cat, and I lost interest in finishing the doctorate I am now trying to finish.
11. I used to do astrology charts.
12. I love watching The Weather Channel.
13. When I was a small child I had nightmares so bad I often woke up screaming.
14. When I was a teenager I used to listen to the local AM radio station break out the Top Ten every Thursday night, then write them all down on little pieces of paper and save them in a box in my desk.
15. The names I had picked out in case I’d had kids were Melanie, Lauren, Clayton and Gavin.
16. Over the course of my youth I was deeply obsessed with several rock bands including the Beatles, Yes, and the Moody Blues.
17. I have never broken a bone, but I don’t have a gall bladder.
18. I absolutely love cats.
19. I believe that I lived in Boston during the American Revolution.
20. When I was a kid I could be an obnoxious know-it-all and my sister used to say “Thank You, Angela Brittanica.”
21. I am scared shitless of getting cancer. (Yes, I already had that done.)
22. I taught Sunday School when I was a teenager.
23. I was in my third grade class in Ludlow, MA when Kennedy was shot; I was making Christmas cookies in Cambridge, MA when Lennon was shot; I was teaching music in an alternative school in Salem, MA when the Challenger went down; and I was sitting in my house in Lubbock TX when Coyotebanjo called me from some morning meeting at the Buddy Holly Center in L to tell me about 9-11.
24. When I was a little kid I put home-made library check-out cards in all my little kid books.
25. Chocolate really does Change How You Feel.