Incoming!

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Courtesy of Maripat and Hanna, though with so many people I know blogging it was really only a matter of time before I got hit with this one. And I really don't mind... it gives me something to blog about this morning. (But remind me later - I have knitting progress pics to show you, too.)

So... eight random facts. Well now, let's see just how random I can get, shall we? Sounds like a challenge to me.

1. When I was little, I wanted to be an author. Specifically, a novelist. Then I let Real Life interfere, and accepted that I would never make a living at it, and so let that dream slip by the wayside. Now, I have determined that even if I never actually make a living at it, I am going to be a novelist. (Some time after college graduation I decided that Real Life was way overrated, and have since gone back to my own personal blend of Romantic Idealism. I'll take that over the dog-eat-dog world any day.)
2. If I had entered college with the knowledge that I graduated with, I would have majored in Linguistics instead of English.
3. I almost made it to the top of Half Dome (in Yosemite National Park), and to this day I regret the sense of vertigo that prevented me from going all the way up. (Yeah? You try hiking up a one-person-wide trail with two-way traffic, lots of gravel, and a very steep drop-off. My poor little 13-year-old mind couldn't handle it.)
4. I am a morning person by choice, but given the opportunity will stay up until all hours. Partly because when you're involved in theatre it's often hard to get to sleep at a reasonable hour. Partly because night is when I get new story ideas. Partly because I'll turn on the computer to play a game "just for a half-hour before bed" and next thing I know it's 2 AM.
5. I kicked a guy in the shins once in junior high. He was invading my personal space. Poor guy was probably just trying to get up the nerve to talk to me, or something, but he was being super annoying.
6. I am a firm believer in both fate and free will.
7. I talk to spiders and try to convince them that if they stay outside, I will live and let live. But if they come inside, and get within my reach, I will kill them. This discussion doesn't usually work very well. Perhaps because both M and my dad are the "save the spider" type, and so will carry the crawly things outside instead of letting me kill them. I mean. Really. They are ruining my credibility, here.
8. Books are a not-so-secret not-so-guilty pleasure of mine. I can wander a bookstore for hours trying to decide what I can afford to buy. When I have my bookshelves set up (not at the moment because I am currently living at my parents' home) and all my books out (ditto previous) I can also spends hours re-arranging them so that they are grouped by type, or by author last name, or by genre, or just in a way that looks really cool. And then don't try to put one back in the wrong place, because I will have just spent hours making them exactly the way I want them. I will know.

That was fun. Thanks, Mari!

And now who to tag... Let's see.

1. Sian, who I have been finding out has an insane amount of stuff in common with me, and besides she is the one who made sure I knew I was tagged.
2. Charlie, since she's been absent for so long.
3. Brigitte, in the hopes of getting more stories of the Little Dudes.
4. Crys, since she'll have some things to write about when she gets back from her trip.
5. kendas and
6. springfire, since they have both complained of not having spent time with their flists
7. Also ez_oz and
8. andrea_miccaver who always seem to like MEMEs.