But seriously, pals, I've played enough icebreaker games where you have to identify yourself with a word that starts with the same letter as your first name to know that the letter J offers slim pickings. (Ok, ok, so I did actually just polish off a bag of jellybeans. BUT I'M SICK OF TALKING ABOUT JELLYBEANS. Also jumproping, jam, and jubilation.)
So here are five things you might or might not know about me.
1) I've gotten my ears pierced three times. Not for any cool extra holes, mind you, but because I apparently have magical healing powers and my holes close up unless I leave earrings in constantly. Like, years after getting them pierced, we're talking. So I sleep and shower with earrings in. Enough is enough.
2) I'm 5'10". I used to hate that about myself (oh my god, before all the boys in my class got their growth spurts? I wanted to die. I used to sit around all summer dreaming that this would be the year all the boys came back taller than me.) Now I love it, except when shopping for pants. Happily, my husband doesn't care when I wear heels that make me an inch or two taller than him (because he's awesome.) Tall girls: it gets better.
3) My first attempts at writing fiction of any length was Ally McBeal fanfiction, when I was like...13? 14? (I still do not understand how my mother, who wouldn't allow a single R-rated movie till I was 17, decided that Ally McBeal would be the one time she would listen to "everyone else is watching it!") Eventually, I expanded my repertoire to include West Wing fanfiction, and my magnum opus was a crossover between the two series. (To my eternal chagrin, it is still on the internet. Let this be a lesson to you, kids: the internet is forever.)
4) I have weird, weird taste in music. Well: more specifically, I just have no shame. I own the complete works of one Taylor Swift. I have a truly excellent '90s playlist (well...more like '96-'99) that I break out at parties (people my age have been known to SCREAM with joy when I crank that sucker up). I'm dismayed at how well I do on SongPop's "Today's Hits" category now that we have a car and can drive around listening to the radio. And of course, I have a truly geeky knowledge of American musical theater, particularly Sondheim/Schwartz/(Jason Robert)Brown.
5) I am a proud ex-pat Schenectadian. I really, really want people to know that about me. I already know that I can't see The Place Beyond The Pines in a movie theater (at least not one outside the Capital District) because I will not be able to control myself. YOU GUYS, THEY SHOT IN MY HIGH SCHOOL. AND MY CHURCH. There's a scene in the trailer that appears to be a baptism RIGHT WHERE I WAS BAPTIZED. I can't even. Anyway, Schenectady is not just some sad-sack town where banks get robbed (although they do, a lot.) It's a strange, amazing town and I love it forever. Also, reading a quote from the director of The Place Beyond The Pines in this article made me realize Schenectady and Pawnee, Indiana have a lot in common:
“The movie is all about legacy, and one thing about Schenectady is that is has a real past, a real history. If you look at the police badge, there’s like a burning building with a bunch of Indians chasing these Dutch people out with spears. That happened in Schenectady; there was massacres in the 1600s. And I feel like whenever I go there, they tell you about the massacres. It was a good place to talk about American legacy and everything that doesn’t go away,” he said.
YUP. (Actually, we mostly talk about the horrendously named Lawrence the Indian, who was friendly to the settlers. I was always told, growing up, that he did some kind of Paul Revere midnight ride to warn the settlers before one of the massacres and/or giant fires, but now I can't find anything to corroborate that. Whatever the case, he's a local landmark now, and we love him.)
I love this post. :) I laughed out loud at the warning that the internet is forever and what prompted that comment. Hilarious! Quick question: What are your thoughts on "Jump Around" by House of Pain. I love that song so much it's embarrassing. :P When I saw the trailer for The Place Beyond the Pines I totally thought of you right away and meant to ask you what you thought about that. I remember you mentioning that that was where you were from. I can't even imagine a movie being set where I grew up. That would just be so surreal and weird. There's no way I could watch it with anyone who hadn't grown up there because I'd squee through the whole bloody thing.
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