Books and such

Five books I really like:
1. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
2. The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
3. The Shipping News (Annie Proulx)
4. Grapes of Wrath (John-John Steinbeck)
5. Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri)
6. The Art of the Commonplace (Wendell Berry)

Five children's books I like:
1. The Lorax
2. Tales of a fourth-grade nothing
3. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
4. Go Dog Go
5. That one about the little boy in china who can't grow the plant and is honest so he becomes king.

Five Juvenile books I like:
1. Tuck Everlasting
2. Where the Red Fern Grows
3. Sarah Plain and Tall
4. Nancy Drew case files
5. I can't think of any more (not my favorite genre, or age-group for that matter)

Three Books I've recently read:
1. Blindness
2. Vegetarian Living (it didn't take)
3. Surviving Schizophrenia

Tag: Diana, Karen, Joanne

7 Random Things About Me (tagged by Cami... sort of)

I stock blind people. The prospect of losing my sight terrifies me, so I follow them at train and bus stations to make sure they get to their destination or connection without runng into poles, falling down steps, or tripping over other-ly afflicted persons sleeping on the sidewalks. Once, a blind man who sensed he was being followed took pity on me and said, “Why don't you tell me when that light turns green, dear.” When the light turned green with it's accompanying bird chirp, I said enthusiastically, “it's green now.” The man chuckled and said, “Thank you dear.”

I have extraordinarily sensitive skin. I can't use strong soaps or 99% of laundering products, and if an article of clothing is even remotely itchy, I will not wear it; this omits wool, angora, cashmere, lace, hemp, clothes or socks with uneven or poky-out hem lines, and actually almost everything else from my wardrobe. When I was a child, I had to bathe with a slimy, dark green cleansing agent that my brothers called frog soap (before the days of Cetaphil). It was never clear whether they were saying that I was a frog, or that my soap was made of frogs, but either way it was rude as heck.

I am still afraid of the dark.

I'm ridiculously gullible. Fell for the dictionary joke dozens of times. I believe commercials – all of them – and find myself nodding in agreement with the people behind the screen convincing me that I do indeed NEED that ultimate chopper, stove cleaner, or Quit Smoking Now program.

I can smell earwigs from up to ten feet away. This skill, which I like to classify as a borderline superpower, comes in handy since the hideous insects are my least favorite creatures crawling the face of the planet. I don't mind spiders, reptiles, or mice, but I hay-hay-hate earwigs.

I have never smoked in my life.

I don't really feel like I know a person's name or the meaning of a word until I know how it's spelled. I won the 5^th grade spelling bee (I think Karen and Cami did too, except one of them had to go and win the 4^th and 5^th grade bees), and I'm attracted to men who also spell well.