I'm it.

I have been blog-tagged by the worthy keltanen. I had no idea such a thing existed, but here I am, needing to tell five things most people don't know about me. I agree with keltanen that the term "most people" is a vague entity, particularly so in the online context, where someone stumbling on this whilst next-blog surfing will not know the first thing about me, while for others my five chosen revelations might well be no news at all. If that is the case, apologies. I can only offer you the consolation that you are not "most people".

It's also quite difficult because of the way I am. I blab all sorts to all and sundry, as you may have noticed, leaving only things really too beautiful, painful, or embarrassing to be told to anyone, even under blog tag conditions. But here goes for nothing:

1. I was born via Caesarian section. I shall be starting from the beginning of the world, you see. I couldn't be born like normal people. My poor mother was in labour for a day or so, until my heartbeat suddenly faded badly and they rushed her off to the operating theatre. I have often wondered whether this (lack of) a primal experience has had an effect on the way my personality has turned out. (Thrilling, I hear you say, thrilling. Yes I know, but I am actually finding this really difficult.)

2. My maternal grandfather was a published author. Of books, no less. He died before I was born though. I have read exactly one of his novels, his war book "Loppuun saakka" ("Until the End"). I was around ten, and for my ten-year-old self, the most memorable thing in the book was the phrase describing how the ground behaved during heavy bombardment: "...maa aaltoili allani kuin nainen" ("...the ground undulated under me like a woman"). I was startled to think this undulating woman may have been my grandmother. (Going back to the times before history started, as you may have noticed.)

3. I have pierced nipples. I had this done, by a guy I used to know and in my own kitchen, when I was recovering from divorcing the father of my children. I have also had my nose and navel "done". My nose stud I stopped wearing around nine years ago, as I took it out for my first theatre production and realised I liked my face better without it (I seemed to look less like a Christmas tree to passing strangers). I stopped wearing my nipple rings after two or three years as they made my nipples sag. (Ok, this was the obligatory juicy one, right?)

4. I have also had dreadlocks down to my arse. Well, not quite, but beyond half-way down my back anyway. This goes back to my heady hippie mama days in Wales. I cannot offer any photographic evidence, as all my photos are in Hawai'i. My older son was a thumb-sucker, and there were a couple at the back of my neck that were his favourites. He'd want to hold them while sucking his thumb.

5. In my childhood, I was chased into a shed by an elk. This is totally true and most emphatically, not funny. Elks are *really* big, a child's face is not chest-level to the horrible critters. I was eight, nine, doing something outdoors at the cottage with one of my cousins (who subsequently developed schizophrenia, I might add - there's no proof that the two events were linked, but no counter-proof either! so take this seriously!) when suddenly this beast galumphed at break-everything-in-my-way speed from the woods directly towards us - I mean it passed us only because we dodged it. Terrifying. Scary in a primitive, primeval way - the adrenalin rush of cavemen. I have had flashbacks of the event, for instance once in a Welsh wood where someone had let their horrible cows roam freely. I froze and had to be saved.

Right, ha! I have done it! I now need to find five people with blogs who are not the same people keltanen already tagged. This poses another difficulty - for someone who spends more time than is healthy with her nose buried in a keyboard, I have relatively few blog contacts. But but but. Here we go:

nmj
The Periodic Englishman
The Disorganizer
Montag
Rebecca Clamp

You're it.