one small corner of the universe

I stole this from Trista. She didn’t tag me. She didn’t even suggest that anyone else participate. I just took it. I have nothing new or interesting to say, and this is the perfect remedy, because there is always plenty of old crap to dredge up.

1. Who was your first Prom date? I didn’t actually go to the prom with a date until my senior year. I was a prom attendant as a sophomore, which meant I got to stand around and serve punch and cookies to upperclassmen while wearing a Really Ugly Dress, the same Really Ugly Dress as the other 11 attendants. Wait, make that nine. Two of them were boys. My newly married volleyball coach and her hunky husband were chaperones, and I got to dance with the husband. I didn’t go to my junior prom, but I did participate in the prom picture event at my friend Meredith’s house. My friend Jenny and I got all dressed up and went to Meredith’s to see everyone off, and then we went out to eat and to a stage performance of Steel Magnolias. I went to my senior prom with Michael F., who was one of my best friends. We eventually dated. He is still one of my best friends, and the only person from HS with whom I still communicate. All in all, the prom was boring; I’d much rather see Steel Magnolias.

2. Who was your first roommate(s)? Dayna. I was a teaching scholarship recipient, and all of my fellow scholarship recipients had scholarship recipient roomates. I did not. Dayna, who was initially a computer programming major, was randomly assigned to our little section of the dorm. We were both very shy, and at freshmen orientation they made us do multiple physical ice breaker activities on the Fonville Fountain Terrace. We were both mortified, so we half-heartedly did all of our icebreakers together. She eventually became a teacher. What can I say? It’s contagious. We shared a suite with Rosemary and Stephanie, who were also teaching scholarship recipients but are no longer teachers. Again, what can I say? They were cured. Rosemary and Stephanie and I still communicate. Dayna stopped speaking to me years ago, and to this day I’m not entirely sure why. To quote the movie “Beaches,” she took her friendship away without even asking me. I am still furious with her for this, because she is a huge part of all of my college memories, is in most of my college pictures, and was practically adopted by my family, and now she might has well live on another planet. I don’t even know where she lives.

3. What alcoholic beverage did you drink the first time you got drunk? It’s important that you know a few things first. First, during my last year of college I shared a house with Dayna (see #2), Paula, and a guy named Tim. I don’t t know how we ended up with Tim; he did not go to college with us, and none of actually KNEW him. I think we inherited him from our landlord. Anyway, Tim watched “Cocktail” one night and decided he was going to become a bartender. He enrolled in bartending school. He watched that movie EVERY DAY. He built a bar in our dining room. A fully stocked bar. The second thing you need to know is that I’m not much of a drinker. Don’t get me wrong, I love beer, and I enjoy a variety of mixed drinks, but even in college drinking was not high on my priority list. However, I willingly tasted every drink Tim made. He was not bad. That January it snowed 10 inches. My itty bitty car (see below) was pretty much buried, and the roads were impassable, so we were stuck in the house. Dayna had gone home to Pennsylvania for a few weeks (our college had a short “winter term” during January and she didn’t need the course hours), and Tim got so bored he walked somewhere (not kidding), so Paula and I were pretty much left to our own devices. We read. We watched a few videos. We read. We re-watched the videos. By the third day we were bored. I decided we should make a fancy meal, so I set about baking a French baguette, and Paula went to work on a chicken dish. My boss had given me a bottle of wine for Christmas, so we had a delicious meal and polished off the wine. This same boss who had given me the wine had once imparted to me that brandy was the best liquor to drink in cold weather, so we headed for the bar. We drank all the brandy. By now we were hot from drinking all the brandy, so we mixed a few rum and Diet Cokes. Then we mixed some more. Then we mixed some more. If Paula is reading this right now she is probably gagging, as the mere mention of the phrase “rum and Coke” causes her to feel ill. I don’t really remember what happened after the third rum and Diet Coke (hence the reason I do not like getting drunk), but I do remember waking up on the sofa and walking down the hall to find Paula. She was lying in the bathroom floor with her cheek on the ceramic tile, and when she saw me in the doorway she looked up and croaked, “Tile is cold.” Good times.

4. What was your first job? Hostess at Cracker Barrell. My mom still has my brown personalized apron. I hated every minute of it.

5. What was your first car? A dull black1990 model Nissan Pulsar. I drove it until its tires practically fell off and the fuel lines all but disentigrated.

6. When did you go to your first funeral? When I was seven years old. My Uncle Renn died on my 7th birthday. It was my first experience with death, and my first experience with empathy. Renn was my cousin Tanya’s father, and Tanya was my best friend, and when my mom and I walked into their house the first thing I saw was Tanya curled up under a round end table. “My dad is dead,” she told me, and I just sat down next to her on the floor. Even now I don’t think of that image without crying.

7. How old were you when you first moved away from your home town? I was nine when we left the town where I was born, and where most of my family lived. That was the hardest move. I “left home” when I was 21 to go to college.

8. Who was your first grade teacher? Mrs. Haynes. I vomited on her desk once, because I was so shy I couldn’t get out the words “I feel sick.” She was very kind to me. If a child vomited on my desk I would quit.

9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane? London, England. I was so nervous and excited that I accidentally pushed the call button [before takeoff] while playing with the air vent, so when a stewardess arrived at my seat I sputtered, “Can I have a diet Coke?” She looked at me like I had just crawled out of a hole somewhere and haughtily said, “When the plane starts flying,” and walked away.

10. When did you sneak out of your house for the first time, who was it with? My friend Jodi. We were in the 7th grade. We crawled out of her basement window and walked to our friend Minda’s house, but Minda forgot to set her alarm and slept right through our meeting time, so we just went back to Jodi’s. It was very disappointing; I think we were expecting drama and mystery and…what? I don’t know, but we never did it again.

11. Who was your first Best Friend and are you still friends with her? Tanya (see #6), and yes, we are still friends. She is 9 months older than I am, and we played together from the time we could both walk. She lives outside DC, so we don’t see each other often, but whenever we talk on the phone it’s at least a 2-hour event. She has 3 little boys, so I love our phone conversations. It’s like listening to a reality show. I’m glad she’s still a part of my life, because talking to her keeps me connected to a part of my life and pieces of my family that I desperately miss.

12. Where did you live the first time you moved out of your parents house? In a 200 year old dorm on the campus of Elon Collge.

13. Whose wedding were you in the first time you were a bridesmaid/groomsmen? My cousin Tanya’s (see #11). My sisters were the flower girls.

14. What is the first thing you do in the morning? Take my temperature.

15. What is the first concert you ever went to? Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters at the West Virginia State Fair.

16. First tattoo or piercing? My Aunt Karen had my ears pierced when I was very young–four or five–and she neither told nor asked permission of my mother. That night when my mom was washing my hair she saw the earrings, threw up her hands and gasped, and dropped my head into the tub. Note to my sisters: if you DARE pierce my child’s ears without telling my I will HUNT YOU DOWN and HURT YOU.

17. First Celebrity crush? I wanted to marry David Copperfield, the magician who makes entire buildings disappear.

18. Age of first kiss? Twelve. Randy C. Skating rink. We were both on skates, and he’d been eating a Reece’s Cup. Ugh.

19. First crush? Justin N. He got married a few years ago, and even after all this time I felt a little stir of jealously when I heard.

20. First time you did drugs? I’m with Trista on this one–never.