Five things you don't know about me

Charlene Li tagged me and frankly, I'm flattered to be in such impressive company. The idea behind this game of "tag" is that you share 5 things about yourself; things that are not widely known. Then you tag 5 more people.

I have the memory of...um, some animal with a short memory...I used to know what it was but now I don't remember. What were we talking about again? Anyway, let's see if I haven't already shared some of these things anecdotally in some other posts. Dang, it's hard to be interesting and relevant. Or in this case, at least interesting. Here goes:

1) My childhood disappointment. I can't read music. I sang as a child (choir, solos, etc) and took piano lessons, but I cannot, for the life of me, read music. During piano lessons, I learned to play by ear until we moved to Pennsylvania and a more astute piano teacher would stop me mid-song and ask me where I was on the page. Previously, in junior high, I decided to (or was made to) take up clarinet. I would figure out each note and write the letter of the note above it in the book. When I accidentally left the book behind in the music room, I was totally busted. And that is where my relationship with the clarinet ended. The reason why this is all such a disappointment to me is that I love to sing and have thought about taking voice lessons (not as in preparation for performance, but just because I like to sing). For the time being, I am going to have to be content belting it out in the car. I believe that the fact that I can't read music has to do with me lacking skill in understanding spatial relationships. I am also challenged by maps or driving directions that tell me to turn North/South/East/West. I literally have to picture myself on a map of the United States facing Canada to make that work. I also think this has something to do with my complete lack of balance. I can lose balance standing still in one place. I suspect that my brain doesn't process the physical relationships between objects well, especially when one of those objects is me.

2) I have a chicken in each room of my house. I know that this sounds a little weird. Initially it started with a small collection of chickens in the kitchen (hey, it sounded like a good idea at the time). That idea came from the passing down of my father's childhood cookie jar which was, you guess it, a chicken. When I decided to downsize my chicken collection, I noticed that some of them actually looked better in other rooms. The carved wooden ones are my favorites. It's not a "theme", just an interesting feature of my decorating taste.

3) When I was a little kid, I put a popcorn kernel into each nostril and woke my parents in their bed just so they could watch me snort the kernels into my sinuses. I was probably 3 years old and I believe at the time I thought it was funny. I still kind of do. But the trip to the navy medical center and the digging that ensued changed my mind about that.

4) I have a very high tolerance for spicy food. I love it...the spicier the better. When I traveled with some family members through Thailand, we discovered how to get the restaurants to lay on the heat; you say "Thai hot, not American hot". I have inherited this from my dad. A suitably spicy meal should result in some facial sweating. So needless to say, not every dinner companion is going to see me order something spicy (never let them see you sweat).

5) I started to go gray early in life so I began coloring my hair at 23. A few years later <cough><cough>, I can tell you that I am about 50% gray in the front and it's hard to tell what that other color is in between the gray, but it's some kind of brown. Once you start coloring your hair, it's hard to stop. And even though you could not pay me enough to go through my twenties again, and I have hinted at my age, I have not divulged the exact number because I want to give myself the option of avoiding answering the question in the future. The best advice my mom ever gave me was to keep my face out of the sun. Between that, the hair color and the fact that I refuse to dress my age, I do not feel compelled to come clean about the year of my birth publicly. It's not a big deal, it's just nobody's biznass. If you ask me, you may get a "29" and a wink. ; )

OK, now for the tagging. I have decided to tag five bloggers in the recruiting space that I enjoy. Yes people, my love comes at a price:

Shannon at Exceler8ion

Harry Joiner, Marketing Headhunter

Joel at Cheezhead...snarkier than me, even

Tim at But Less About Me...I believe we share the same sense of humor

Dave Lefkow...he doesn't blog very often but is someone I trust