8 things

At the prompting of my friend Paul I shall now take part in a meme, and only because it's Paul, and he's adorable and charming and British, and looks just about the same now as he did when he was 10 years old. (And here is where I ought to note that I'd love to reveal my 10-year-old self for all the Internets to see, if only my photographs and scanner weren't being held hostage in a climate-controlled storage facility in the Bronx. But I will say for the record that I look nothing like my 10-year-old self, which is probably unfortunate. I was damn cute back then.)

I shall also crib (partly, not entirely) from Paul's list of topics, because Paul's random choices are good enough for me. And no one said it was against the rules. But to make up for it, I'll go into a little more detail:

1. If my father hadn't decreed that my name was to be Jennifer, I would now probably answer to Megan or Emily, my mother's top choices.

2. The longest train journey I ever took was 24 hours from San Francisco to Seattle, in the summer of 1991. That was two or three hours longer than the ride was supposed to take. For some reason it was very slow going in the forested region between northern Oregon and southern Washington; we stopped and started in the middle of nowhere, sometimes in the darkness of a mountain tunnel. (To amuse myself I played that game where you try to hold your breath all the way through the tunnel — a potentially dodgy game, as it turned out.) I took the trip with my mother, who was along to help settle me in for a summer of dancing at the Pacific Northwest Ballet school. To kill time on the train, we played lots and lots of cards: posoy dos (Filipino poker), crazy eights, go fish, blackjack.

3. In terms of ice cream, I prefer cones to cups, and waffle cones to any other kind of cone (crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and for goodness' sake, they hold so much ice cream!). I am equally enamored of the tartest limone gelato and the sinfully salty-sweet Chubby Hubby. I could eat a whole pint in one sitting, but then I'd hate myself for days and most likely refuse to go out in public.

4. I have arachnophobia, entomophobia and an irrational fear of driving (which is apparently a form of agoraphobia). I'm also mildly acrophobic, which is extremely annoying because I love hiking, and while I'm unstoppable in the "up" direction, this hang-up makes me not so great on the "down" side. (If only someone could retrieve me from a summit by helicopter, I'd be scaling mountains all the time.)

5. I can speak snippets of Spanish and French. I can count in German. I know how to say "cheers" in half a dozen languages; "delicious," "kiss" and "bottom" (as in buttocks, tush, booty) in Portuguese; and only one word of Tagalog: "salamat," which means thank you. I'm most often mistaken for a Spanish speaker, usually at restaurants or salsa clubs, and it is those times when I most rue the fact that (a) I didn't retain more from the Spanish I and II classes I took at community college, and (b) I didn't have the wherewithal to stay for extended periods in Puerto Vallarta or Mérida or Costa Rica or Tarragona when I happened to be passing through. C'est la vie.

6. For a few weeks in 1989 I had 14 very stubborn blisters on my feet — seven on the left, seven on the right — because of an ill-fitting pair of Schachtner pointe shoes. And yet I danced on, through many nights of pointe class and variations class and pas de deux. Then I switched to Blochs with a three-quarter sole (right), and my tootsies were saved.

7. I'm really tired of people asking me, upon first acquaintance, what I do for a living. I know it's a standard line of inquiry, but honestly, wouldn't you rather know something else? My favorite place to run away for a weekend, say? Or my favorite cocktail? And then, perhaps after that cocktail, my favorite author/composer/dessert/sexual position?* Wouldn't that be way more interesting?

8. I always thought I'd live in New York, at least for a little while. Now that I'm here, I am enjoying it — and yet, though I may be here for quite some time, I know it won't be forever. There are too many other enchanting places in the world.

So there! And now, I gather that it's my turn to tag someone. How about ... Aimee and John.

* I exaggerate here, but you get the gist.

Comments

[EiNY]

I find number 7 a little puzzling. I can't imagine meeting you at a party for the first time and asking:

"So where do you like to escape to at the weekend? And what's your favorite sexual position?"

Call me Mr. Boring, but I think I'll stick with: "So what do you do?"

(Sofie might prefer that one too.)

[Tiffany]

#7. No, if I'm just getting to know you, the question of what you choose to do for 40 hours a week, and more importantly how you descrive what you do for 40 hours a week, says volumes about you. It's not the be-all and end-all, but if someone'se just getting to know you, it's a good place to start.

[Kester Cotton]

#2 Is the dodgy game of holding your breath while going through a tunnel any more or less dodgy than tapping on the roof of your car as you pass through an intersection with a yellow light? I've never understood that one, either, for two hands on the wheel would probably make more sense...

[Marc B]

I'm really glad you and I are in total agreement with regard to this whole cone versus cup controversy.

I especially like slurping that last semi-melted bit of ice cream at the end. But that's just me.