Seven things you don’t know about me

The “Seven Things You Don’t Know About Me” post has been going around Facebook lately — and I thought it’d make a great post for the ol’ neglected blog. (I’m trying to blog more regularly … really I am.)

Here they are, in no particular order.

1. After reading Gone With the Wind in seventh grade, I spent several years wanting to live in a restored plantation house in Georgia. It would have a music room and large library, the walls all lined with books. And I’d have three cats: a black one named Rhett, a white one named Ashley and a tiger-striped one named Scarlett.

2. My first car was an ’83 (or maybe ’85) Mazda GLC sedan. It was really my mom’s car, but I drove it until my senior year of college, when it died on my way home from Evansville. We were just down the road from the Mazda dealer in Terre Haute, and I had to pay $60-plus to have the darn thing towed two blocks. I replaced it with my friend Angel’s Chevy Cavalier because she was moving to Florida and refused to have a car with no air conditioning in Florida. I didn’t mind the lack of air conditioning — but the absence of a rear window defroster was a real pain. My Mazda — named “Third” because it was the third name he went through — was the color of the one at the right, but I don’t remember it being quite that shape.

3. I started playing flute in the fifth grade, and later also played piccolo. I loved marching band and playing in the pep band for basketball games — but hated concert band. I started marching with the high school band in sixth grade. The director let me play my flute. Then we got a new director who relegated me to the color guard — so I’m handy with a flag and streamers. Not so much the rifle. I could never get the balance right.

4. Speaking of “get the balance right,” I’m a big Depeche Mode fan. My iTunes has 66 DM songs from 10 albums. DM lyrics often creep into my everyday conversation, and I used to quote “New Dress” in college poli sci papers. (What can I say? It illustrates how a vote can change the world.) “Wrong” is the theme song of one of my most favorite heroes ever, Mike James. (Sadly, he has yet to see published status. Someday.) One quirk: I prefer the darker Depeche Mode — the happy, peppy stuff off “Speak and Spell” doesn’t do it for me.

5. I do not like horror movies (big surprise there, right?), but I can watch Lifetime “woman in peril” movies for hours on end. I also love “Criminal Minds,” and any of the the true crime shows on ID.

6. I once did a phone interview with Pauly Shore. Yes, this is my one and only brush with Hollywood greatness. He was sick and kept asking for soup.

7. I have a collection of board games, including several versions of Monopoly. My “Loganopoly” is set in Logansport, Ind., the town where I spent my first five years after college graduation. “Star Wars” Monopoly pays out Imperial Credits instead of dollar bills, and the top properties are on Coruscant (if I remember correctly). It came out with the 1990s re-release of Episodes 4-6, when I couldn’t get enough of everything “Star Wars.” I devoured the “Jedi Twins” books, in which Luke ran the Jedi Academy and was educawhich told the story of Luke’s niece and nephew, and the Han Solo trilogy. I watched and re-watched Kevin Smith movies just for the “Star Wars” references. “Dogma” was the reason I first fell in love with Alan Rickman — loved him as the Metatron. (His portrayal of Snape further cemented my crush on him.) Why couldn’t I have had a phone interview with him?

Bonus: I have a black thumb. My parents had a garden where they grew their own corn, beans and tomatoes — but I can’t even keep a windowsill herb garden alive. It’s sad, because cherry tomatoes fresh off the vine, warmed by the summer sun, are the best tomatoes ever.