Why Do I Feel Compelled To Post This

Some potentially-embarrassing little-known mostly-irrelevant things about myself:

• For several years (I won't admit how many), I thought the term 'cowlick' was actually callick.  I have no idea why.

• I have various facts about the human skeletal, immune, and lymph systems memorized and I can sing them to the tune of "La Cucaracha".  I sang it for Tim while I was writing this, and he looked at me like I had sprouted a second head.

• When I was a kid, I went through an LM Montgomery phase (well, what girl-child didn't).  In the third Anne of Avonlea film, there is this one scene after Anne invites Katharine Brook home to Green Gables - you know, Anne's up on a ladder picking apples, and Katharine is standing below her in a severe, stiff-necked pose, right arm at an angle, right hand on hip.  At this point in the film, I distinctly remember asking my mom, "Why is she standing like that?" (No idea.)  And my mom said, "Because she's mean."  I'm not sure what my mother meant by that, nor does she remember having said it, but nevertheless, it has had lasting impact on me.  To this day, I cannot stand like that without thinking, "Oh, gosh, I'm being a bitch."

• Once, when I was about 11, my family went on vacation in the Outer Banks (as was our habit), and the vacationing kid next door got a crush on me.  The night before we left, he sent his parents over to ask my parents for a phone number.  This was incredibly disturbing to me as a child.  I hid in the stairwell and refused to come down.  My apologies, Travis.  Or whatever your name was.

• I usually watch movies for one of three things: it's book-like (you can feel the novel in the movie), it has Bruce Willis in it, or I like the leading lady.  My favorites are Maggie Gyllenhaal, Emily Blunt, Helena Bonham, Meg Ryan, Emma Thompson, and occasionally Jennifer Aniston because she's just so gorgeous.  Where actors are concerned, I don't usually care unless they are (you guessed it) Bruce Willis, or extremely talented. I think Geoffrey Rush is the most talented actor I've ever seen.

• Last year, while living alone in a cabin in the NE GA mountains, I had an incredibly embarrassing encounter with the US postal service.  They decided to deliver some package at 10 pm (incidentally, it was addressed to my parents - once they'd discovered that I was related they stopped venturing down my parent's horrendous driveway and left everything on my doorstep instead).  Naturally it was pitch-black outside, and all I could see were two bright headlights parked at the end of my road.  Then, all of a sudden, the African American postal service employee popped out of NOWHERE right in front of my screen door and I screamed.  Literally.  Screamed.  I am not a racist in any sense of the word, so don't misunderstand me - but I seriously could not see anything until he appeared and it was, possibly, the second most terrifying thing that happened while I lived there.  The first being The Bear Incident.

• I tend to hate all photos of myself (possibly because I've spent a lifetime making stupid faces for cameras), but I recently decided to face my fears and take the occasional self-portrait.  To be honest, it's the fear of dying and being eulogized as some weirdo (I mean, who wants to be remembered by a series of "I-ate-something-sour" faces?) that really got to me in the end.

I am now going to post this without re-reading and/or editing.