7 Quick Takes Friday: Weird But True

I don’t know if you all had a chance to see Jen’s post the other day, with 5 things we didn’t know about her, and her asking “What was the most formative experience of your life?” to her readers. The comment thread is interesting and in some places, heartbreaking. It’s a beautiful post in its entirety.

Anyway, her words got me thinking about formative experiences, and things you all might not know about me. I’ve been writing here for over 4 years now, but I think there are still one or two skeletons rattling around in ye old closet. Let’s see if I can find 7!

My tattoo. If you’ve been around here since the get-go, you might know that I have a tattoo. If you’re new, surprise! Friendly neighborhood blogger is inked.

And I liked it. I still like it. No, I don’t regret it at all.

I have a tattoo of the rosary on my left shoulder blade/upper back. I got it when I was a senior in college and a friend who had several tattoos went with me. I used to have a picture of me getting it done, complete with my red hair, ripped jeans, and bright aqua chuck talylors, but it was lost in the great computer crash of 2007.

So here’s one from our wedding reception:

That’s me, in the white dress.

Sometimes I forget its there, since I have had it for 8 years and I can’t see it most of the time. I think it is about in the perfect place. I can easily cover it when I need to, and easily show it when I want to.

Running. I have tried running several times. I don’t really like it, but I can sort of do it, and I think I would like it. The problem is, when I try to run for more than about 3 minutes at a time, I break out into hives.

I so wish I was joking.

My body seems to have this problem where, if my body temperature gets above a certain point, I break out into hives. It happens about every other time I run for more than a few minutes. It happens if I spent too much time in direct sunlight on a hot day, even if I’m only walking. So.

The first time it happened was when I was a junior in college and moving things out of my dorm, on a hot day and from the 3rd floor. So awkward.

For 9 years. 9 years. If I immediately stop what I’m doing, I can usually keep them from getting worse. If I keep going, then I need to take benadryl, which we all know results in passing out no matter what you need to be awake to do.

So, running.

Get the Led out!

I am a hug classic rock fan. Big time. It all started with a Bon Jovi cd when I was in 5th grade. Then I stumbled upon a box full of my mother’s cassette tapes (remember those?), full of The Eagles, Eric, Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Led Zeppelin. I was hooked.

When I found Bruce Springsteen, it was all over.

I am convinced that 99% of great music was recorded before I was born, or shortly there after.

If there’s a good classic rock station, that’s all I need. Give me some ZZ Top, ACDC, and a little Queen and I will drive anywhere, cook anything, or clean all the things.

Hey guys, I know it was the ’70’s, but maybe just button the shirts, k? Otherwise, rock on.

I have continuously kept some kind of journal or diary since I was 8 or 9 years old. I’ve burned more than one of them. Far too much incriminating evidence.

Chicago

It looks like this about 5-10 days per year. Best days.

I moved to Chicago a month after I graduated from college, from a town with more cows than people, to the 3rd largest city in America. By myself. I worked as a 6th, 7th, and 8th grade teacher on the south side for just under a year. Yeah.

So not me.

If you replaced that leather jacket and mom jeans with an outfit that doesn’t suck, and then picture that woman running screaming from the building into intensive therapy, then you’ve got an accurate picture of that year. I don’t talk about it on here very much.

But seriously.

Working in that school made me realize:

(1) just how blessed even my life had been, because where I lived and went to school was, at bare minimum, safe.

(2) I am not cut out to be a classroom teacher, though I do love education and educating. With children in a classroom, maybe not so much.

(3) There is so much beauty in the midst of so much suffering.

(4) Children are children, even when the circumstances of their lives have forced them to act as tiny adults.

(5) School dysfunction is very real, and has many factors, which all feed off of and into one another. If a school has a terrible principal, it will be a terrible school, because good teachers will leave. If a school has good, supportive administration, even rookie teachers will be able to succeed, because they will have the support and tools they need. The amount of money that a school has available is only a small fraction of the equation which will determine the success of the school and its students.

Yes, I learned a lot about myself and about life from that experience. The place I lived in was broken into (while I was home) for the first time ever in my 21 years of living. 90% of my 12 year old students had experienced break-ins. Like Pope Francis, I learned a lot from riding public transit through some of the most crime-ridden and economically depressed places in America. I met beautiful people there.

Even though I tell people I “grew up” in Scranton, I really “grew up” in Chicago, where I lived for another two years after I stopped teaching, and where we lived when we got married.

I’m sort of a netflix-aholic. I don’t really watch any shows that are on tv now, except Biggest Loser. I find a series on netflix and work my through it. Since we got Netflix, two months before Maggie was born, I have watched the following shows:

LOST (again)Desperate Housewives

Veronica Mars (sadly no longer on netflix)

Bones

Every episode of just about every Investigation Discovery show

Alias

Fraiser

Pretty Little Liars (watched seasons 1-2 can’t see the current ones because we don’t get ABC “Family”)

Terra Nova (I really liked this one but it only had 20 epidoses)

Downton Abbey (only have seen season 1 on netflix, waiting to borrow season 2 from a friend)

The West Wing (working through it with Atticus)

Supernatural (working my way through it now)

What shows am I missing? What’s your favorite tv show?

I will post my 500th blog post next week! I can’t believe it. I started this little blog in November 2008, two months before Atticus and I got married. I’v changed and grown a lot. A lot of life has happened, and most of it has been documented here.

Even more amazingly, you all have stuck by me and stayed with me all this time. I want to do something special as a way of saying thank you to all my lovely readers, so be sure to check back next week for a giveaway!

Hope you all have a happy weekend!