25 Random Things

Got tagged in the latest Facebook gimmick making the rounds... and, well, felt like it made sense here too.

Bitten and Biting Back: 25 Random Things About Me


1). I can cross one eye but I can't wiggle my ears
2). I grew up in a very, very, very small college town.
3). My twin boys were born 2 months premature. They spent 6 weeks in the NICU. They are now 20 months old. They are perfect.
4). I nursed my boys for 8 months. At my peak I was making a gallon a day. I was a cow. Literally. A COW.
5). I didn't date my husband for three years after I met him. We met in a bar.
6). We started dating on a street corner in London three years after we met. We were engaged 10 months later. Now we've been married 5 years.
7). I spent 5 years in a back brace for scoliosis - during those impressionable young teen years (age 11 to 16.) Funny thing is, although it was my DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC in my own mind, when I talk to folks from that era, they don't even remember it. Gotta love the baggy look of the 80s. And the inherent self-focused narcissism of all teenagers.
8). I went to prep school - because I wanted to. (see small town, back brace above.) I applied on my own - to the dismay of my parents. I still don't fully understand how i talked them in to letting me go. It was the best decision we could have made.
9). It sounds obnoxious (snotty? egotistical? like I'm full of myself?)but I've had 4 job interviews and four jobs (other than those I gave myself.) If that streak doesn't end, I didn't take enough risks.
10). I started out my professional life as a newspaper reporter. I wrote for a bunch of publications including the New Haven Register, the Dallas Morning News, and the Yale Alumni magazine. One story I covered for Dallas was the bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. I was 20.
11). I started my first company when I was 21. With my boyfriend at the time. Needless to say, it was a really, really bad idea.
12). I started my next company when I was 23. My partners and I sold it a few years later. That one worked out a bit better.
13). I've never taken a hallucinogenic.
14). I learned to read music at the same time as letters. I remember a set of intermingled flash cards.
15). I have two brothers. One is a Broadway composer and conductor. The other runs his own IT consulting business.
16). I spent a year in LA - living large in the independent film scene where I partied with celebrities, spent way too much time at Les Deux, worked on a few projects, and learned to drink chai lattes. It got way old, way fast.
17). After LA I overcompensated and went to McKinsey where I worked as a management consultant. And wore lots of brooks brothers.
18). Now I sell lipstick (and opportunities for women!) I love it. And now I accessorize.
19.) I've never been to continental Africa or Australia. I HAVE been to Asia, Latin America, Central America, Eastern Europe and Western Europe. I want to hit every continent. Except maybe Antarctica.
20). I want to live with my family abroad. I want my boys to be citizens of the world. I want to be fluent in another language. (my husband is fluent in lots.)
21). I'm wearing braces. Now. As an adult. After having them as a teenager. (note - during the back brace era - I had braces, glasses, AND a back brace. I was smokin' hot, lemme tell you. Smokin'.) I have to have surgery on my jaw. Everyone is going to think I had a face lift. Maybe that's OK?
22). I seem to change careers every 5 years. Maybe that's OK too?
23). I love novels and tolerate non-fiction. I've never read a business book (although I've skimmed some flaps.)
24). I skip meals and forgo sleep too often. I get sick too often. I'm constantly looking for balance and falling off kilter. But on average, everything works.
25). A few months ago, I started writing a blog, and I'm really enjoying it. Someone called me a hack of a writer once. I was pissed at the time, but now I think he may be right. I write glib, quick, little nuggets. I don't really edit much. I just sort of spit it out. And its fun. It's not great literature and I have no interest in suffering for my art. I enjoy all of the other things that I do too much to sacrifice them. So yes, I'm a hack. And blogs are my perfect medium.