My ten secrets

Okay, heartinsanfrancisco tagged me, so I'm supposed to write down ten secrets about myself. I'm going to just self-define "secrets" here to mean anything I want it to, since although I do keep a blog where I send lots of personal thoughts out into the world of teh intarnets, there's still plenty about myself I don't tell just anyone. So with that caveat, here are 10 secrets about me:

1. This is my 300th post! (mwahahaha, I'm counting that!)

2. My first crush was Teddy Ruxpin. Yes, the animated teddy bear.

3. When I was five, I noticed a fire behind our neighbors' house. I started yelling "fire!" and my mom rushed over to the window and then called 911. They were able to put it out before it did any serious damage to the neighbors' property. To celebrate, they invited the neighborhood for a barbecue. That's rural Tennessee for ya...

4. One time when we were kids (I think I was around 9 or so, and my brother was about 7) my brother captured an earthworm and decided to keep it as a pet and kept it in an old plastic container with lots of dirt. I found the worm's home and I took him out and murdered him. My brother was so hurt and upset, to this day it still makes me want to cry that I did that.

5. I had my first boyfriend when I was nine years old. I didn't like him very much, but he had a Nintendo and I didn't. He was my first kiss -- and I don't mean a fake kiss, I full-on frenched him. One time I came over while he had some friends over, and he wouldn't let me play with them. So I stormed out and proclaimed that I wasn't going to kiss him anymore. He ran out after me and apologized, but I had another boyfriend I liked better anyway, so I dumped him. And yes, I did say nine. As in single digits.

The following Christmas, my brother and I split the cost of a Nintendo using Christmas money from our grandparents, so it all worked out in the end.

6. Animatronic robots are one of my biggest fears. I'm not kidding; they're right up there with zombies, spiders, and eternal damnation. If I ever fell out of the boat on the Jungle Cruise, I'd probably have a heart attack. When I was a kid, I'd scare myself by peeking under the curtain at Chuck E. Cheese because those dead-looking robots are just plain freaky as hell.

7. My uncle has creeped me out for years. When I was about 12 and we were visiting his family, I caught a glance of his collection of porn tapes. Don't ask me why he left these out in plain sight; he had young kids (daughters, in case anyone wanted to make the argument that maybe he didn't see anything wrong with letting his sons see it (wrong wrong wrong)). Anyway, he also has kind of a weird twitch in his eye that sometimes looks like a wink. And so for years I never wanted to be alone around him. He just creeped me out.

8. I seriously considered killing myself once, before I gained real-life perspective on existence. It was the summer after my first year of law school. I'd gone into the final quarter with law-review-shoo-in grades, and came out with a C and a low B, among other grades. I literally sat in my apartment and sobbed for three days straight, and actually, seriously contemplated killing myself. This is the harm that our hyper-competitive society does to people. I bought into the myth that grades and academic achievement were objective measures of competency and, therefore, value. I now understand that this is not the case. And this is why I can't *quite* call myself a Western Capitalist anymore, even though I am pretty materialistic.

And even though I've grown up a lot from that dark, terrible place, I'm still haunted ever so slightly by regret that I didn't "succeed" the way I planned to. What can I say? I'm a recovering Type A. They need to develop a support group for people like us.

9. I still kind of want to be a movie star. Supposedly this is true of "everyone" in Los Angeles. Well, at least I admit it.

10. It sounds trite, but my best friend really is my mom.

So I didn't see any rules about how many people I'm supposed to tag... I'll just go ahead and tag odderie, lak, drew, roonie, and special sauce. Your turns!! :)