The memes are coming thick and fast! I guess that makes me famous, or something! (Probably the something).

Andrea at Sweet Life tagged me for this one and really, I am one of those people who seems a little bit normal on the surface but really? A little bit weird. So finding seven top secrets or oddities that no-one really knows? Not much of a challenge. Settle in, this promises to be a long post.

1. I used to think deathly thoughts

When I was maybe eight years old I would go to with my little sister to her friend’s house, and while they were playing with, oh I don’t know, dolls or something, I was holed up in the garden shed working my way through the stack of old Australian Womens Weeklys the friend’s mom kept in there. I remember two stories, one about a little girl my age who was bitten by a spider in some remote location and died before reaching hospital, and one about another girl my age who died after a valiant battle with leukemia.

We lived in a remote location and frequently visited even remoter locations (which may or may not have had spiders), and I personally knew two kids who had bone cancer. So of course I developed a morbid and top secret preoccupation with death.

Once another friend’s mother found some mushrooms under their house and insisted on cooking them for dinner that night. I had previously read the book “Is it a Mushroom or a Toadstool” from cover to cover and almost expired right then and there from the thought that I was the only person at that table who had not eaten the toadstools and would therefore soon be the only person living. I would have to watch them froth at the mouth and keel over and then I would have to wait there with all the dead bodies, including my sister’s, while my parents drove for an hour to come get me.

That is the kind of child I was.

I did get over my death watch, but only when I got through childhood and realized I was still alive.

2. I was forced to suffer dark-ages telephony

Between the ages of six and twelve my telephone number was 4 digits long. That was because we were latecomers to town and hadn’t managed to nab a 2 digit number. Even though some people still had party lines. (We had a private line because we were posh).

If you wanted to make a phone call you cranked the handle on the old black bakelite telephone and waited until the operator said “Number please!”.

You think I am kidding. I am not kidding.

We had a field trip to the telephone exchange when I was seven and it looked like this:

Except there were only two ladies and they were not wearing 1930s smocks. Obviously. Where did you think I was living? A museum?

(P.S. Yes. This was the Eighties).

3. When I was 19 I slept in train stations around Europe.

It has all started when I was living in Paris and earning, well, not very much.  Actually, I think nothing because I quit my job. I decided to visit Europe by Eurail. If you are not familiar with the concept, Eurail will sell you a special pass which allows you to ride European trains for a certain period. You pay upfront and then your tickets are free. But I immediately started running out of money. For a start, that free train travel didn’t turn out to be free. Some countries’ rail companies would demand a surcharge, others didn’t seem to recognize the ticket, and then there were all the little regional routes which weren’t included in the deal but turned out to be vital in getting to anywhere the least bit interesting. I had planned to stay in Youth Hostels but by the time I had paid for the bed, the bath towel and bought my daily loaf of bread and pot of Nutella, there was nothing left in my budget to actually visit much.

To cut a very long story short, I met a group of young people, who, like me, were traveling around. Except they were not staying in Youth Hostels. I rode trains with them for a while and then branched out on my own, sleeping mostly on the train but sometimes in the little regional stations, usually sitting up to avoid being woken by the station guard. I think there was a law about lying down, to deter tramps. Although they mostly left me alone because I very obviously did not look like a tramp.

(ha ha very funny. moving on. )

How did I manage this? I was 19 and and believed anything was possible. And I slept with a kitchen knife under my makeshift pillow.

4. I Wasted my Mother’s Hard Earned Money on Unnecessary Hair Treatments

I had a 1980s Poodle Perm all the way through high school, which cost my mother a frightening amount of money at the trendiest hairdressers in town. It cost her at regular intervals too, because I had long hair and insisted on getting it corrected each time the roots started to droop.

I was 17 when I started growing it out, and after that I wore it long and straight as was the fashion. (That was also all I could afford, what with my lounging my way around Europe and then becoming a student).

One day only a few years ago my aunt finally recommended I go see her hairdresser. She was good, she had won national competitions. But still never expected her to take one look at my hair and exclaim “you have curly hair!”

Sure enough, once she had cut it properly, I did.

Sorry Mum.

5.  I Am Confused about my Nationality

I am half French, half British. I grew up in the UK and then New Zealand. After I left high school I shuttled back and forth between New Zealand, France and the UK, eventually dragging my husband with me. We live in the US now and we think we’ll stay.

People ask what my nationality is and I still don’t know. I pass for a New Zealander. I make my way in France. Culturally, I am probably most comfortable in Britain. But rather than fitting in in all these cultures I kind of feel like I fit in none. I am at peace with that now. Sometimes it is actually easier to be a foreigner. People forgive you more easily if you get it wrong.

6. I have an atrocious memory.

Please forgive me if I forget your name (or call you Aaaan-Dree-a).

If we are supposed to meet up, I will remember it, but only because I write everything in a little red notebook. By the way, I am a cheap date - but only if your idea of a date is renting a DVD. Unless it was the best movie of all time, by tomorrow I will have forgotten most of the plot and the ending, and you can show it to me again. And again.

The memories are there, my issues are with retrieval, but none of those tricks and tips for remembering things work for me. So I associate you with a giraffe? That won’t help me remember your name unless I also remember that you are a giraffe. Now I have two things to remember.

This is one reason I will never join a book club. If there are more than three characters I can’t even keep them straight in my head while I am reading the book, let alone discuss their motives afterwards.

Maybe someday they will invent a memory pill. In the meantime, I have learned to manage mostly fine without it.

7. I don’t have the same last name as my children

I never took my husband’s last name. I have nothing against it except it is just as boring as my own last name.

Most people assume, but that doesn’t bother me either. I will answer to anything, as long as it is polite.

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That’s it! I stayed up until 2am to finish, so it will have to do. I am too tired now to find someone to tag who hasn’t done this one already. Have you played this one? It’s fun! Let me know if you want to do it!