8 Random Facts, with a Kicker at the End
Some time ago, John Witter tagged me with the "8 Random Facts Meme." Although I enjoyed discovering the other blogs he tagged, I won't continue the chain letter by tagging eight other bloggers. Here, however, are some random facts about me:
1) When I was a kid, I read the complete list of Nancy Drew books, which was quite a difficult achievement since the school and public libraries considered Nancy Drew unworthy of inclusion in their collections.
2) I have been to every state except Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and, despite living two hours away for seven years, Oklahoma. When I originally wrote that list, I included Kansas, but then I remembered a jaunt from Kansas City, MO, just to cross the state off the list. (My trip to Kentucky was similarly perfunctory.)
3) The first European country I visited was Sweden. The first countries outside North America I visited were Hong Kong, then under British rule, and Japan, with a stopover in an unpleasant transit lounge in the Taipei airport.
4) My real initials are V.I.P. The I stands for Inman and, no, Bobby Ray is not a relative.
5) Despite my Anglo-Scottish-Polish ancestry, I have beta thalassemia trait, which is supposed to be a characteristic of people from Mediterranean countries.
6) In college, I had several English seminars with David Duchovny and thought that, while he was very smart, his eyes were weirdly far apart.
7) I was the tallest kid in my first grade class and most of my other classes through elementary school. Using a formula from Dr. Spock, my grandparents calculated that I'd be 5'11" when I was grown. I'm 5'5". But I think I'm taller.
8) I have breast cancer and start chemotherapy next Friday. Despite an aggressive type of cancer, my prognosis is good, thanks largely to the monocolonal antibody drug Herceptin. The research behind my specific regimen is described here. Yet another reason I'm extraordinarily happy to be back in L.A.