When Jason tags you, how are you supposed to say no?

The rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged me. (Here.)
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog. (I would like to hope that publicly linking them is enough.)
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So, six random things, after the jump.

1. When I was in sixth grade, I checked out a few books on hydroponics for a class project and fell in love with the idea that you could grow plants anywhere. I figured this would be my ticket to permanent habitation of a space colony -- everyone knows astronauts need fresh vegetables, right? For the next three years, my bedroom doubled as a lab for different growing solutions. I had to use aquarium gravel as the growth medium through which I diffused nutrients, because my parents were heartless enough to refuse me my request for hooking up a perforated pipe system along the ceiling. My pleas about trying to suspend plants to simulate zero-gravity growth conditions fell on deaf ears.

2. I can play the piano. I cannot, however, read music. From fifth through seventh grade, I took piano and sweated my way through lessons and recitals via the playing-by-ear method.

3. When I got Isabel from the San Francisco SPCA, her name was "Mona," and I figured that being a girl named Lisa with a cat named Mona was asking for bad jokes. I was going to name her Maximum Cat, but my coworker Hugh suggested "Isabel" and that seemed more fitting. I didn't really share the whole my-cat-needed-a-name story with my family, so it was a little eerie when my mom got a cat five years later and christened her Maximum Cat.

4. I love to sing in the car. I mean, I really love to sing in the car. I have often gone a few miles out of my way on car trips because I wanted to finish singing along to a song before I reached my destination. However, I am irrationally, painfully self-conscious about singing in front of other people. Someone made fun of me for belting along to "A Groovy Kind of Love" one day; for the next two years, even when humming along to the radio alone in the car, I would remember his cackling amusement and just go silent and red with embarrassment. So if I sing along in the car while you're in it, know that you're in very select company. And please do not make fun of me to my face.

5. Because my hair's been chlorine-damaged since elementary school, I never realized it's got a lot of natural curl. Getting a perm in the ninth grade was a surprise for everyone involved.

6. The last time I was in Kaua'i, I was swimming at Ke'e beach when a distressed swimmer called for help. He had gotten tired from fighting the undertow, and was sinking under the water. So I swam him back to the shore and handed him over to his wife, then went back out to keep snorkeling. (I wasn't tired.) Neither the man nor his wife said thank you, and later, when I was sitting on my towel and they were leaving the beach, they very noticeably refused to look at me. I realize that saving someone's life is its own reward. However, I was a little piqued over those people's rudeness.

As for the taggers, here are the lucky so-and-sos: Ben at Infinite Monkeys; Kerry at Atomic Librarian; Auntie Maim at Pixie Dust and Bottle Rockets; Polly at O the Bloggies!; Rebecca at Larocque and Roll; Amanda at FUCheese.

Comments

[Polly]

Here's mine--I don't know six people with blogs, though!

[Rebecca]

Done! It took a while to think of six.

[Julie]

I sing my lungs out in the car too! And I've passed the trait along to my girls, who are 5 and 2. We don't listen to kiddie songs, so they're mostly jamming to '70s rock. My 2-year-old really has the Roger Daltrey shriek down pat.

It drives my husband nuts. Hee.

[Shotrock]

I have no blog. What does a loser like me do? ;)

[Jecca]

I was all set to squee a big "Me, too!" on singing in the car with all those details, but am too flabbergasted by those people's refusal to thank you for saving the guy's life. Unbelievable.

[Auntie Maim]

Thanks for the tag! Here's mine!

I love your hydroponics story. I, too, got totally obsessed with things I was interested in at that age -- I still know a really weird amount about pigeons and their keeping and breeding. My parents regret not letting me get pigeons. I think it's the smartest thing they ever did.

[amanda]

Oh, I'll try and do this this weekend -- thanks for the tag! Also, I totally do not know six bloggers... or even more than two!