Life, Knitting and the Pursuit of Roller Coasters

My college roommate, Tandaina (I’m so not used to using that name, C!) tagged me for one of those random things meme’s, this one has 8 random things and since I haven’t done one yet (and its my first specific to me tag, woohoo), I’ll do this one.

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3.At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

So, here are my 8…

1)I’m a late blooming nerd. I had all the underlying traits to go that way in elementary school on through high school (heavy reader, good at math, etc), but didn’t truly embrace my geeky side til I started college. So, while I have a lot of the skills, I feel like I’m still culturally playing catch up to my peers.

2)I have been online in some capacity since 1994. I first got onto a freenet (leo.nmc.edu) in Traverse City as a way to keep in touch with a long distance boyfriend in high school. A weekend with friends visiting for New Years got me into that freenet’s irc, and my online presence took off from there. I met a lot of great people in that irc (many of them in real life also as it was primarily people in the state of Michigan) and chatted with them daily for years before the group kind of dissipated. I still keep in regular contact with a few of them. Despite some changing of hands and new naming conventions, that freenet still exists and I still have my original account there.

3)I am a mess. I’m a piler not a filer; I love to cook and hate doing dishes; I’m a packrat; And I tend to wear stuff straight out of the dryer after a “fluff” round in the morning. I’m mostly able to keep on top of the messy bad habits within reason, but when I slide, my place is often eligible for an appearance on that “How Clean is Your House?” show on the BBC. Which, coincidentally, is what I watch for motivation to actually get up and work on keeping it in a manageable state approaching clean.

4)However, once I latch onto something and really get into a hobby or a collection or anything really, I can organize it to within an inch of it’s life. My coaster count spreadsheet is a true sight to behold. So is the CD collection. I obsess over my netflix queue. I’ve set up a spreadsheet to track reruns of TV series I want to catch up on with the Tivo. So, things like Ravelry are right up my alley.

5)I have a hard time falling asleep, but I have no problem going back to sleep. I can have the alarm go off in the morning, get up, use the restroom, start a load of laundry, feed the cats and still crawl back into bed for another hour or more of sleep before getting up for real.

6)I’ve never lived outside of Michigan. I was born and raised in Muskegon, went to college in Kalamazoo, and have been living and working in Jackson since then. I’ve always dreamed of living elsewhere and I’ve made a few attempts to find work elsewhere, I just haven’t quite made it out of the state yet.

7)I’ve never been stung by a bee. I’d like to keep it that way.

8)With all the traveling I’ve done to support my coaster hobby and just travel in general, I’ve visited 37 states. And yet somehow, I’ve never once set foot in NYC.

That’s 8…

Not sure who to tag really, so I’ll leave that part open ended. I’ll wander back with a more full post later in the week as I should be overwhelmed with good blog fodder tomorrow.