7 things...

I recently got tagged by Rebecca from Just A Thought... , to write 7 random things about me. You might remember that I did this tag a few months ago...and I practically bored you to death with facts about food. I must have had food on the brain. I will try to do better this time around...and I thank Rebecca for a perfectly timed game of tag because I am feeling quite unmotivated with this "posting every day" bit of nonsense...and tonight, well, tonight I am especially fumbling along with it. So...without further ado...I bring you my 7 random things about me..as if you wanted to know more! ;)

1. I went to France the summer before my senior year in High school. I went there with several people from my French studies class. I studied French all four years of High school. Do I remember any of it? Ummm...not much. But I loved my few weeks in France. We flew into Paris and stayed there for several days and then traveled down the Loire Valley...visiting Chateau's and eating delicious meals and visiting with the French folk...ending our trip with several nights stay in Nice. Ahhh...a little piece of heaven on earth. I journaled the entire time I was there...every day...and I often find myself revisiting that journal just to breath in a tiny bit of the beauty of that experience. This gypsy soul felt so at home...and I promised myself that I would return for a longer stay. Hasn't happened yet, but I am sure it will, someday.

2. I have a phobia of being asked what my "favorite" of anything is. I don't know why. I just don't seem to have favorites. Although...I will put that label on several things...like my "favorite" dessert being chocolate eclairs...but I don't expect it to stay that way...and I sometimes just say it to emphasize how much I really like something AT THAT MOMENT. Somehow I think that prescribing that word to anything would eliminate the possibility of other things being my favorite...and well, we all know by now how I like to try and keep the possibilities endless.

3. I love language. Some of my most favorite (there I go with the favorites) classes in high school and college were my English classes and my cultural linguistics class and any other class that I had to write or read in. I actually took an extra English class my senior year in high school. It wasn't required and I could have filled that hour with plenty of no brainer classes OR I could have had a free hour and gone home or to a coffee shop or whatever before having to come back...but no...I took an extra English class. I was incredibly involved my senior year and I had before school things and after school things...and I felt like leaving in the middle of all of it wouldn't make much sense. But now that I think about taking an extra English class (it was Shakespeare's tragedies)...THAT is what isn't making a whole lot of sense to me! My major in college was incredibly heavy with writing and reading assignments. Incredibly heavy. I think that I wrote five 20 page essays for my final semester of my senior year and I KNOW that I had a paper due in every class, every week that was about 10 pages long...and that was just the writing. It was a bit ridiculous...but although I probably complained a great deal, I secretly loved it. I loved that I could wait till the last minute and purge an essay that was at least worth a B in one hour. It was some kind of strange self-challenge or warped adrenaline rush. Weird...I know...but I love language and the written word and writing. I do.

4. There are moments that never leave my heart and I visit them often and try to re-live different things about what they have brought to me. A seriously POWERFUL one that helps shape and move me and bring me light is one that I experienced at a camp that I went to in High school. It was called Anytown camp and it was all about people of different races, religions, social statures, genders, abilities, etc...coming together for an entire week and living together and eating together and singing together and being challenged together and discussing really important, powerful things. We had different activities each day that challenged the way we think. Things that made us uncomfortable and that moved us beyond what just "is" in our society into the realm of what "could be". It was an incredible week...and there was much love formed and all these wonderful kumbaya kind of feelings that made you really believe that the world can be a different place. One of the activities we did before we had to leave one another and revisit the "real" world was to form two equal lines (one moved and one did not) and to face one another and hold hands...meeting the eyes of each person who moved in front of us for 2 or 3 whole minutes each, until we held the hands and stared into the eyes of every person at camp...no words could be spoken...not a whisper...and your eyes had to stay fixed on the persons in front of you. Staring at their beauty and their pain and their humanity and seeing their soul and thanking them and loving them all through each other's eyes. Wow. So...I carry that experience with me all the time, even if I don't actually think about it...but sometimes I do. Sometimes it helps remind me that we are all human...and that if I had the chance to just stare into the eyes of the people who challenge me or hurt me or ignore me or who are just simply different...I would see a human...and a lifetime of their own hurts and fears and issues and pain...and I would see their soul making it's way just as mine is.

5. Our house is about 90% furnished by somebody else's "junk". Josh works Saturdays with a company that picks up people's "junk" and dumps it...and he has salvaged so many amazing treasures along the way. We have a bedroom set, an extra antique dresser and night stands, a small table, two over the toilet wooden cabinet things that were still IN THE BOX when people were throwing them out, an entire shelving unit from Ikea that was still IN THE BOX, two bicycles, two bar stools, a barbecue, a lawnmower, computers up the wazoo, a TV, an entertainment center, and who knows what I am forgetting here. It is amazing how much use we have gotten out of it all...when someone was just going to throw it all out! I love having all these "recycled" goods in our home...it really is telling of how one persons trash is another persons treasure! Most everything else we have was either given to us or was bought second hand...and although there are days where I could make a list of what would be nice to have "new"...I really do have a genuine appreciation for what is old and lived in. It all makes me very happy.

6. Speaking of loving old things...I love vinyl records. I have my own collection and, over the years, have coveted my most favorite albums from my parents' collection and even had a donation from my uncle's collection a few years back. There is something about the sound of a record cracking along that fills me up with nostalgia...sending me to the days of the past that I wasn't around for but so wish I was. I discovered my love for vinyl at a young age and started listening to Donovan, The Beatles, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Mama's and the Papa's, Paul Simon, etc. My parents bought me my own record player in high school and I took it up to college with me (along with their collection) and played it throughout my apartment living days. Josh accidentally stepped on the cover and broke my player and then I got another one a few years ago as a gift and Josh broke that one too. That one is fixable... it just needs a new needle...but it is something I keep putting off. I think writing this post is just the motivation I needed to fix it because now I am craving the rhythmic, dusty old sound of a record going round and round.

7. I was in a college production play when I was in the 7th grade. Oliver. I was one of Fagen's boys and I also played an orphan boy. I had scheduled rehearsals a few times a week at the college in our town. It really was a community event. I don't know where I found the nerve to audition...to get on stage and sing a song and recite a monologue...but I did...and I made the cut...and I was so excited about that! It was a lot of fun...the makeup and the family that was formed among the cast members and the singing and dancing and improvising. There is some really good energy on a set with creative people all around you. I don't know why I didn't stay down this road...that was the last real play that I ever did...but I dream of being a part of that kind of production again and dabbling a bit more in the performing arts. I already have the play picked out.

Alright...that's enough from me. If you read all of this...thank you for your loyalty!:) Now it's your turn...I don't want to be the only one "talking"! If you find yourself visiting here and want to exercise a little self-searching...leave me one bit of randomness about YOU...I would love to hear it!