I’m not tagging anyone, but here’s that Things thing, Facebook pals and others.
1. It is very easy to make me feel guilty about almost anything.
2. I am also a champion worrier.
3. I started listening to audiobooks as a way to shut off the hamster wheel in my head and get to sleep at night.
4. I am not as neurotic as 1-3 make me sound.
5. I think.
6. I don’t want kids, but I very much enjoy the children of my friends.
7. I don’t have an office. I write in coffeeshops, at the table, on the couch, at the studio, in bed, etc. Sometimes I think I’d write more if I had a dedicated space, but apparently I don’t think this strongly enough to create one.
8. I am a sucker for intelligent shelter magazines; unfortunately, they never seem to last.
9. I’ve pretty sure I’ve seen more live music so far in my thirties than I did in the entirety of my twenties.
10. I still have the “bouquet” — baby’s breath only — that my friend Kat gave me to carry at my extremely tiny wedding in 1997.
11. I’m not trying for clever artistic effects in my Flickr photos; it’s just that I take them with my phone.
12. I sprained my ankle twice in high school: once while building a house in Mexico with my church youth group, and once while getting ready for a show where I was going to run lights.
13. It’s rare for me to see a first-run movie in the theater.
14. I have no sense of direction, and it delights me when I find out that people I admire (Susan Cooper, Oliver Sacks) share this disability.
15. The only time I got an A+ in ninth grade biology was in the genetics unit, and it was entirely because I had just read Robert Heinlein’s “The Tale of the Twins Who Weren’t.”
16. The worst simile I’ve ever used in a story was when I described something as “spinning like so many coins tossed to determine their fates.”
17. I am the only author I know who has never checked her Amazon ranking.
18. My proudest moment with Spanish comprehension: translating a dirty joke back into English. But I was aided by the accompanying gestures.
19. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between loyalty and a rut.
20. I hate TV-as-background. If the set is on, let it be showing something I want to see, please.
21. I often dread social events where I’ll be meeting new people, but equally often end up enjoying them tremendously.
22. I’d rather get an extra blanket or a sweater than turn up the heat.
23. I enjoy wandering by myself with no one knowing where I am, but this is an increasingly difficult state to achieve, what with cell phones, etc.
24. Oddly, #14 combined with #23 almost never result in my actually getting lost.
25. I am frequently intimidated by the accomplishments of my friends.
Ann
February 1, 2009 at 10:17 amSusan Cooper had no sense of direction? When did you find that out?
I could have written 1-3 and 21. :)
Sara
February 1, 2009 at 2:42 pmAnn, I got to meet her several years ago and we talked about it. If my memory’s accurate, she said, “I don’t have a bump of direction, I have a dent.”
Stephie
February 3, 2009 at 1:11 am3. I did that too once, but then I got lazy of putting em on my ipod (I always seem to be too lazy to get the cable.. wherever it is)
12. sorry about the sprain, but I think it’s really cool that your church was able to go to Mexico!
Mim
February 4, 2009 at 4:52 pm#3: But how do you know the exact place you left off and fell alseep so you can pick it up the next night? Or, like reading a book, do you sleepily set it aside right before drifting off completely?
Sara
February 5, 2009 at 11:00 amMim: I don’t; I guesstimate. But I often get the book in print, too, so I make sure I don’t miss anything. And sometimes I listen to interviews instead; WFMU has great ones with Dorian Devins, and I also like Rick Kleffel’s on the Agony Column.
Jeff C
February 20, 2009 at 6:56 pm# 16: I just read this in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover: “The glancing impact knocked the Falcon into a flipping whirl like a cred chip spinning on a sabacc table…”
#3: Not for audiobooks, but this is kind of cool:
http://www.radiobookmark.com/