8 Obscure things meme

Thanks Julie for tagging me for this meme that has kept me up nights. I had the worst time coming up with 8 things you don't know about me, which is funny considering, well, none of you really know me at all. It was tricky to come up with something you might find remotely interesting. Here's what I got:

First, here are the rules:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.
5. Eight is a magic number. Not three.

1.The fact that I love the beach is no secret. I'd rather be there than anywhere else in the world. I've spend much of my life on the shore or on a boat. The weird part? I can't swim.

2. I can't wear contact lenses. Apparently, my eyeballs are shaped funny which precludes me from wearing them without them feeling like hot flaming barbed wire pokers. I've tried every brand they make. And each year I try the new ones that promise to be even more "breathable" than the ones before. So I wear glasses all the time instead. On my wedding day, I refused to wear glasses so I was just blind the entire day. I am too scared to get the laser surgery.

3. I played the clarinet in school for 8 years. I made it up to second seat at one point. I was also in the marching band and was asked to be the drum majorette but I chickened out because they didn't have a majorette uniform in my size and one of the mom's volunteered to make one (talk about teenage social suicide). I quit the band altogether to take typing in my senior year. My conductor was heart broken. Considering I can type about 85wpm, I'm glad I took the typing course. Not so much use for the clarinet in my current position.

4. I am a daydreamer. If I am stuck somewhere with nothing to do, like a car or train ride, I can make up entire stories in my head. If I'm listening to music, I'll pretend I am performing the song in front of an audience. Or I'll play out a scene in my head about running into an old boyfriend, or recreate a conversation I had where I get to really say all the things I wanted to say the first time. Or sometimes I'm the heroine in a favorite book or movie. I have favorite daydreams that I'll think about for a while until I come up with a better one. This also helps me get to sleep.

5. Though I consider myself a very rational, sane person, I sometimes have difficulty separating fantasy from reality, particularly when it comes to celebrities I favor. For example, I do not want to see Jim Krazinski in any other role than Jim from the Office, so I don't watch or read any interviews with him because it will spoil the illusion. I don't read about my favorite bands/musicians because I want to always feel like the songs I connect with are just for me - I don't want to find out if they are really jerks, or if the song had a totally different meaning. I need these people to remain the way they are in my head.

6. I originally wanted to be architect. A family member convinced me to be a civil engineer, because you can be an architect and get paid more. I went to school for 3 years to do just that, and then much to the dismay of my parents (and their bank accounts) I decided I hated it. I had to really struggle just to get a C, and while I'm all for a woman being in a male dominated industry, I just couldn't hack it. I switched schools, and switched majors (Accounting) and crammed the rest of remaining credits into another year and half, taking all summer and winter sessions. Thank God I did, though. I met my husband within the first month at my new school. He still has the first note I passed him in Government Accounting over 15 years ago.

7. In my freshman year of college, I almost joined a latina sorority, even though I am not remotely latin. I grew up in schools that were at least 75% minority, so when I got to college, I connected more with those I was familiar with (the fact that I met some people who had never met a black person before college completely blew me away). The only reason I didn't go through with it was that I started dating a guy who's ex girlfriend was the president of the sorority. It would have given new meaning to the word "hazing". I'm gutsy, but not stupid.

8. Related to #2, but deserving to be listed on it's own - in college I preferred to go to latin and african-american frat and sorority parties instead of the typical beer funnel fests thrown by the "white" ones. They were so much more fun than their anglo counterparts. Less drinking, more dancing. Therefore, while others were rocking out to the new grunge scene - I was sweating it up dancing to hip hop and house music, and watching step shows (like this)- hard to believe, but this whitey white girl knows all the words to FAR too many rap and hip hop songs (who's that....browwwwnnnn - 5pts if you know that one too). Alas, my talent goes unappreciated, because I married the whitest man on earth. He especially dislikes it when he gets in the car turns on the ignition and finds that I left my XM radio channel "The Rhyme" blasting. Oops. My bad!

I'm not tagging anyone else, I don't want anyone losing any sleep on my account. Play along if you'd like. Someone else tagged me on something similar, but I seem to have forgotten who that was. Sorry!

Today 3 inches of rain was dumped on this city in under 2 hours. This had disastrous effects on our subways, trains and traffic. It is almost a 100 degrees out, and the humidity is so high it feels like pea soup out there and it is even difficult to breathe. My commute this morning was torturous, not to mention what my hair looks like. I am going to get in my car, pump the air up to max, turn on my hip hop and brave the commute home. Pray for me.