Random Things

The blogger whose writings inspired me to start this blog, Laurie at A Chronic Dose, honored me this week by tagging me for the "7 Random Things" meme. She said she chose me because she thought I'd "have really interesting entries for her list of seven things."

Hm. Well, I'll do my best here. :) When I was lying in bed last night having trouble getting to sleep, I mentally wrote this post. Of course, it's almost 24 hours later, so I've forgotten most of what I thought of.

1. My second major in college turned out to be religion when I took all of a favorite professor's classes just for the fun of it and then realized I only needed two more classes for a double major. By junior year, I thought seriously about attending rabbinical school, and even applied senior year. The school, however, thought I needed a year out in the real world before entering rabbinical school, and by the time I finished my first year with the AP, there was no way I was going back to school for five more years.
2. I once bought a book on how to write erotica because a friend, who was also a reporter (but not at the AP!), told me about the great money she earned doing it. I never even tried it after reading the book and, er, doing some market research.
3. I'm somewhat notorious among people who worked for the AP in the mid-90s as the reporter who was told by an interviewee that she needed Prozac because all Jews are depressed -- "It's in the genes!" Read the sidebar I wrote on the psychologist nicknamed the Pied Piper of Prozac here. Funny how the mainbar doesn't seem to be anywhere to be found on the Web, but the sidebar continues to survive after all these years! (I didn't give him the nickname; I "borrowed" it from an NYTimes reporter.)
4. My husband and I had a long-distance relationship (200 miles) for 4.5 years before I finally moved to Portland to be with him. It took us another two years to get around to getting married.
5. When I met my husband, I warned him that I was just getting over a bad breakup and that he was going to be my transitional fling. I made a point of telling him that our relationship would never last and he should be careful not to get too attached. Yeah, that was nearly 13 years ago. He still reminds me of that and asks when I'm going to be out of my transition.
6. I did my sixth-grade (and seventh-grade) career report about being a journalist. I really wanted to do it on being an author (i.e. writing books and not newspaper stories), but our assignment had very specific bits of information we had to include, and authors' careers varied so much that it was too complicated, so I went with journalist instead, which was much easier. That was the first time it occurred to me to become a journalist.
7. I made up quotes for a story I did for a journalism class in college. The guys I was supposed to interview for it bailed out on me at the last minute, so I got info about them from a mutual friend and wrote the story anyway so I wasn't late with an assignment. It's amazing how good the quotes can be when you're making them up. Of course, that was the article that impressed the prof so much she wanted to submit it the college newspaper, and I had to fumble for excuses why I couldn't submit it there. That awkwardness made me swear off ever doing that again, and although I know reporters who have made up quotes for stories, I've never done it. (Although I have fixed grammar to clean up quotes occasionally. When I worked in West Virginia, my bureau chief said it was cruel to quote people in ways that make them look like idiots if they're not in public life, i.e. celeb, politician, etc., and don't know better.)

Ok, the next part of this challenge is that I now have to tag seven other bloggers to do the same thing. I'm new enough to this blog thing that I'm not even sure I know seven bloggers well enough to tag them! I lean toward parenting blogs, so that will be obvious here:

• Sherril, who writes the Invisible Chronic Illness Experience. The hardest part of illnesses like mine and so many other people is that we don't look sick so people often don't realize how hard our illnesses hit us. Her blog makes me think about that aspect of my illness. She's also the one who I first saw mention NaBloPoMo, which was a positive experience for me. Mostly.
• Karli, who blogs here, is a mom I met through a playgroup that spun out of the hospital's new mom group back in early 2005. She blogs about her everyday life and family stuff, and right now is past-due on giving birth to her second child.
• Robert Barron writes How About Two?, the first Daddy Tell All blog I came across when I started exploring blogging this fall. He's a wonderful writer who makes me laugh every time I read his blog, except for the times he makes me cry (which was mainly the earlier posts that I dug back to find because I didn't understand why he was only writing about one child when his title suggested two). If he hasn't already packaged them up and tried to sell a book to a publisher, he should.
• Dr. Rob writes Musings of a Distractible Mind. Since I spend so much time with doctors lately, I find it interesting to hear what a doctor has to say. Sometimes he's very humorous, sometimes very serious. Unfortunately, he seems be taking a break from posting lately but I'm hopeful he will be back to it soon. His Nov. 7 post about how to answer patients who ask how he's doing when he's having a rotten day was very thought-provoking to me. I also hate having people ask how I'm feeling lately because I'm boring everyone, even myself, when I go into any detail about how I feel. It's so much easier to say "fine" or "OK" than to give a thoughtful answer, and that's all most people want anyway. Plus, if I've managed to forget for the moment how crappy I feel, why does anyone want to remind me by making me think about it? (I know that isn't anyone's intention when they ask the question. They ask because they care about me, for the most part, or because it's part of our social programming for small talk among strangers.
• Knudsen's News is just funny. I've only recently discovered it (thanks Dr. Rob!), but I'm enjoying it a great deal. And hey, everyone needs a smile sometimes.
• Okay, Being Five isn't really what I think of when I think about what constitutes a blog, but it's really really funny and I hope someday the artist gets picked up for major syndication if s/he wants to be. Very fun. I even emailed my local newspaper, which has been trying out new comic strips, and told them this one was better than any of the ones it's been trying out.
• Kristie's Now Quite What I Had Planned is another parenting/family blog I enjoy trying to keep up with. I don't even remember any more how I first landed on her blog, but she's an entertaining writer and someone I think I'd enjoy writing.

Whew! I think I actually came up with 7 blogs to tag! I wasn't sure I was going to there! And now it's their turns!

Here are the rules:

1) Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.

2) Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.

3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.

4) Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.