Well, I wouldn’t have done this if I had not been tagged, but...first of all, the person who tagged me gave an unnumbered list, which was some twenty facts short. Being a stickler for detail, I have added more up to the required number.
Rules: Once you’ve been tagged you are supposed to write a note with 92 Truths about you. I’ve changed a couple of the questions sent to me by the person who tagged me, but that’s because I think mine reveal more about me.
At the end, I’m supposed to choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person that tagged you.
What was your most recent?
1. Drink: Tea (but then it is just after breakfast; if I’d been tagged after five pm, then wine would be the most likely answer; after ten pm it becomes bourbon.)
2. Phone call: I’m not sure, probably sometime last week- which tells you that I really LOATHE using the phone. Probably to tell my husband that I was on my way home. I receive far too many phone calls for my taste.
3. Text message: three years ago- regarding an airport pick-up (told you I don’t like phones…)
4. Time you cried: thinking about a plot bunny for a Sherlock story not yet written. I like angst…it shows.
5. Book you read: Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch
6. Concert you went to: The Broad Street Band- original instrument classical quintet- one of the violinists plays a Stradivarius. (RESEARCH!!!)
7. Google search: chemical companies in London (more RESEARCH!!)
8. Journey by car: to see my 94 year old mother-in-law
9. Vacation destination: France- a week in the Loire, winetasting.
10. Achievement: painted the outside wall of our house.
11. Dated someone twice: Yes. Five different men, until I found the one I wanted.
12. Been cheated on: Not to my knowledge. (Rather not know)
13. Kissed someone and regretted it: yes- he smoked, and it was like licking an ash tray
14. Lost someone special: Yes- too often.
15. Been depressed: Yes- depressingly often- it runs in the family
16. Been drunk and thrown up: Nope- long history of alcohol metabolism.
17. List three favourite colours: teal blue, silver, green.
18. Been somewhere you regretted: yes, walking home too late at night alone and being flashed at- but he ran off when I started laughing at the absurdity of it
19. Rescued anyone or anything: yesterday, I alerted my neighbour to the fact that her compost bins were on fire. And I once diagnosed a colleague who’d had a stroke, and got her to hospital on time, before she had her more serious second one.
20. Apologised for something you didn’t do: yes- to save a friend from embarrassment.
In the last year have you?
21. Made a new friend: Yes! And she tagged me
22. Fallen out of love: Nope.
23. Laughed until you cried: Yes- and had to run to the loo in a hurry.
24. Met someone who changed you: Yes- on several occasions- but they don’t know it. I am secretly impressionable
25. Found out someone was talking about you: yes, and it wasn’t a nice experience
26. Read one book that really surprised you? Yes. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Life in Books by Azar Nafisi
27. Learned one new skill: yes- how to use flipboard and Storify
28. Helped someone else achieve something important: yes, seven of my undergraduate students got a first class degree.
29. Been upset by something in the news: yes- all too often. And the UK general election result was top of the list.
30. Been delighted by something in the news: it was a great year for space science- exploration of the comet and Pluto, and the Hadron Large Collider came back on stream.
31. How many people would you call real friends (as opposed to FB): less than twenty.
32. Do you own any pets: Yes- two Labradors, one called Zinzi (a Xhosa word for “quiet”) and Carter, named after the All Black New Zealand Rugby player.
33. What did you do for your last birthday: moped. I usually do because it is two weeks to the day after Christmas. The only good thing about it is that it is also Sherlock’s birthday
34. What time did you wake up today: 8:33.
35. What were you doing last night at midnight: trying to get to sleep, but finding my mind turning over a new plot wrinkle in my next chapter
36. Thing you CANNOT wait for: My favorite fanfic readers to review
37. Last time you saw your mother: November three years ago; she died the following February.
38. What’s one thing you wish you could change about your life: more time and will-power to exercise so I would be fitter in my old age; more time to write fan fiction without irritating my husband.
39. What are you listening to right now: nothing but the silence of my house and the whirr of my computer fan.
40. Have you ever thrown a tantrum: Yes- my mother thought it was my defining childhood behaviour. I can still melt down.
41. What’s getting on your nerves right now: wondering if I will finish this before having to go out to keep my husband company on errands
42. Blood type: O neg- universal donor
43. Nickname: My mother called me ”Bug”; my father called me “Mau Mau” ( I was a bit of a terror as a kid). My husband’s for me is private. No one else has a nickname for me- at least that they will call me to my face. I kill people who call me “Katy.”
44. Relationship Status: Married for thirty five years.
45. Zodiac Sign: Capricorn
46. Pronouns: She/her/hey, you
47. Favourite TV show: Sherlock, Breaking Bad, House, Original Star Trek.
48. High school: Langley High School, McLean VA
49. College: University of Virginia, Oxford University
50. Hair colour: Titian Red
51. Long or short: depends. Long now- as long as when I graduated university and got married, but for most of my life, short.
53. What do you like about yourself: I can write; boy, can I write!
54. Tattoos: None- I would never be able to make up my mind
55. First surgery: stitches at six for glass cut (told you I was a hellion)
56. First best friend: Leslie, in Miami, when I was ten, but we moved two years later and I lost touch. When I was forty five, I moved to a small village in rural England, to discover another American living here- turned out to be the younger sister of my best friend, Leslie, who could still remember me calling her the “bratty little sister”. Small world
57. First sport you joined: running- I LOVED track and field.
58. First vacation: Florida, to see my grandparents
59. Eating: Nothing- just finished lunch (tomatoes stuffed with broad bean puree, smoked mackerel pate and houmus)
61. About to do: writing the next FF chapter. What else is there?
62. Bedtime Reading: Bernard Cornwell’s Azincourt, and poetry by Clive James
63. Wanting: to finish this and get back to writing
64. Travel: always; planning next trip to Venice in September
65. Next career: I’d like to be a writer and a travel consultant
66. Material possessions: a new phone; but I will need lessons.
67. Help: learning how to use my tablet better, and someone to clean my house
68. Friends: three of my closest friends are moving away from me, so some way to spend more time with them.
69. Being critical: I tend to see what’s wrong with other people
70. Being aloof: I prefer my own company to being social
71. Losing track of time: I live in a world of my own sometimes
72. Lips or eyes: Eyes... windows to the soul
73. Hugs or kisses: Hugs, even though I only accept them from about a half dozen people.
74. Shorter/taller: Taller
75. Older or younger: younger (more time to write!)
76. Romantic or spontaneous: Romantically spontaneous
77. Nose, stomach or nice arms: stomach- I like FOOD
78. Hookup or relationship: Relationship; sex for its own sake is boring and messy
79. Trouble maker or hesitant: trouble maker- I’m a rebel at heart
80. kissed a stranger: No
81. Drank a hard liquor: Definitely. See last drink
82. Lost glasses/ contacts: Broken them, yes. Lost them? No.
83. Sex on first date: No
84. Broke someone’s heart: Yes, three times
85. Been arrested: No. But was threatened with arrest by police trying to break up a demo
86. Turned someone on: I think this is about sex, rather than drugs, so the answer is yes, I enjoy the frisson of sexual chemistry.
87. Cried when someone died: Yes, especially my first Labrador. I was inconsolable for weeks.
88. In yourself: yes, but I also believe that I can always do something better than I have done it
89. Miracles: life itself is a miracle
90. Love at first sight: it was VERY close to that with my husband; the attraction was immediate
91. Heaven: We make our own versions of heaven and hell
92. Santa Claus: No- I was always a suspicious child, and investigative, so found our unwrapped presents at the age of six. Sceptical and aloof- that’s me.
And, as I am a rebel at heart, I wouldn’t presume to tag 92 people- because I don’t know that many people for whom I want to know the answers. So,
