10 Whole Things

After some technical difficulties and much help from the wonderful tech savvies in my life (thanks Nell, tim) here it is, 10 things you must know about me (tagged by Nell):

1. I grew up in a house that sat on 10 acres of land. Two acres were open and eight were wooded. I spent every every day during the summers before 2nd grade playing outside with my sister. I remember eating ice pops on the swing set but i don't remember what we did when it rained.

2. I once fell out of a second story window. Actually, it was more in-between falling and jumping. One day, during the summer before i went to kindergarten, my sister and i were told not to leave our room until the entire thing was cleaned. We decided we had to run away. We grabbed two sheets, tied them together and hung them out the window. I, being the youngest, was told to go first. I climbed out holding onto the sheet but when the time came to climb down the makeshift rope i panicked, jumped and let go, falling to the freshly seeded grass below. My sister ran down the stairs yelling, "Andrea's DEAD, Andrea's DEAD!". My mother (seven months pregnant with my brother) screamed so loud that the neighbors who lived 1/4 of a mile down the road came to see what had happened. I was fine, but started to sob when i saw how terrified my mother was upon finding me lying on the ground.
(One other time my sister and I tried to run away, we packed a blanket, water and gum (in case we got hungry). We got to the top of the driveway and couldn't decide which way to go. We instead went to the back of the house and had a picnic with water and gum.)

3. I spent the summer of 1997 in Bar Harbor with my sister, her Mean Friend, and Laura. We lived in a haunted house on Ceder Ave. I'm pretty sure the Ghost was a woman. She would turn the lights off and close windows on us, but she would do scarier things like thrown towels and yell things to men in the front apartment.

4. I used to travel between Albany and Rochester by bus a lot. One afternoon on my way to Rochester a man from Saudi Arabia sat down next to me. Somewhere around Utica he offered me $350 and his hand in marriage. I declined and he got off in Syracuse.

5. I am addicted to vintage instant photography (as opposed to digital i guess- Which i am also pretty addicted to). I have a very extensive collection of photo booth pictures. This fall I dragged my brother on a 4 hour round trip to Northampton so that I could make a special one for Tim on our anniversary. I also like polariods but i haven't pulled mine out of the attic in over 5 years.

6. When i was 13, i went to England for three weeks on an exchange program sponsored by the Rotary Club. While there, i smoked my first cigarette, dyed my hair fire engine red, inhaled all sorts of strange aresol things through handkerchiefs, drank entirely too much, and bought my first pair of doc marten boots. When i got back I had to give a talk to the Rotary club about what i learned.

7. The first concert i ever went to was 10,000 maniacs at the palace. It was December 12, 1989. Natalie Merchant is still one of my very favorite artists.

8. The only famous person I ever ran into serendipitously was Natalie Merchant. It was a fall evening in Hudson and i saw her walking towards my sister and i on the sidewalk. She was carrying her sleeping daughter. I was starstruck and kept walking. Later, we saw her in a modern furniture store sitting on the couch looking through a fabric sample book. She asked her daughter "this is our color, don't you think?". Her daughter and I locked eyes and my heart just melted. I said "hello" and left the store.

9. My Children were both born naturally without medicine, not because I am hard core against it, but because I am so terrified of a large needle being stuck into my spine that i would rather endure 13 hours of child labor to avoid it, for real.

10. I met my husband when i was 14. People call us high school sweethearts but we actually only attended school together for 1 year out of the 16 we have known each other. We had a shotgun wedding. I wore a red dress. This November was our 8th anniversary. It's hard to even consider what life would be like without him.

I think I am supposed to tag people now but Nell tagged all the people I know on the internet. It's late, I will think of something tomorrow.