eight “random” things

So, I didn’t realize it, but I had been tagged by John Walter for the “Eight Random Things” meme. I haven’t been reading blogs as much recently, due to the whole thesis thing, but I discovered this a few days ago when I whimsically decided to put my URL into a technorati search. Since I’ve got some downtown between working for OSUWrite and going to meet some friends at a bar, I thought I’d go ahead and answer the call. But first, I’m obliged to post the rules of the game/meme:

• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

And here we go:

1. I actually rail against the common usage of the word “random” quite frequently. Most of the time, we say we did something “randomly,” but actually, there’s nothing random about it. Our minds aren’t computer programs that actually choose a number or post at random. We’re associative thinkers and whatever comes to mind is never really random. It may seem random, but it isn’t really. Cause and effect, my friend, cause and effect.
2. I have two titanium alloy plates in my head from when I rolled an ATV at the age of fifteen. I broke my cheekbone and had to have surgery, and in order to help my poor little cheekbone mend, the doctor screwed two plates into my head. They’re tiny and not really noticeable, but if you feel my right eyebrow or just below my right eye, you can feel them. No, I do not set off metal detectors at the airport, and no, I do not pick up radio signals in my head.
3. I wasn’t out to my students when I was teaching middle school, but some of them just knew I had to be queer. One of my favorite memories is when I made a few mixed CDs for a few of my students who were into cool music, including the song “Coin Operated Boy” by Dresden Dolls. A student came up to me after class the next day, thanked me, said she liked the song, and then told me she imagined me dancing to it in tights in my living room. She had the dancing to it right, but usually it was as I drove to work in the morning, and I wasn’t wearing tights.
4. I was the only sixth grader in my class during mock elections to not vote for George HW Bush, Billy Clinton, or Ross Perot in 1992. Being the nascent non-comformist, I voted for Jon Haeglin. To this day, I have no idea what made him an attractive candidate to me, other than he wasn’t one of the two main party guys, and he didn’t drop out, get back in, and drop out again like Ross Perot.
5. I have the most adorable cat on earth. Her name is Marz, which is short for Marzipan, and she just turned two years old. She freaks some people out, though, because she likes climb onto your chest, sneak up on your neck, and begin to do something akin to suckling. You often wouldn’t notice, though, until she turns away and you realize you have a huge pile of cat slobber all over you. It’s pretty gross, but she’s a sweetie. I imagine she does it because she wasn’t weaned correctly, but who knows.
6. When I was 22, I was arrested along with two of my friends and about ten others at the Iowa Air National Guard Base protesting their impending deployment to Iraq to enforce the No Fly Zone. This was before Bush II’s invasion, but, as there was no United Nations resolution setting up the No Fly Zone, it was technically an illegal act of aggression. (Most people see Bush II’s invasion as starting a new war; more accurately, I think it is the escalation of the war Bush I began in 1991, which continued throughout the 1990s with the enforcement of the No Fly Zone.) There was a story in the Des Moines Register about us protesters, and I was quoted as saying I was a “Marxian” who thought that war was driven by economic reasons. My best friend from Iowa still mocks me for saying “Marxian” instead of “Marxist.” The judge almost gave us jail time, but instead gave us each a $400 fine.
7. I was a huge ska fanatic for quite a while (and still love the music), preferring first wave (Jamaica, late 1950s-mid 1960s) and second wave (Britain, late 1970s-early 1980s) to third wave, though some third wave ska was a lot of fun, especially Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake. As a ska fan, I noticed that many ska fanatics turned from ska to emo, something I vowed vehemently never to do. A few years ago, when I began listening to Bright Eyes and then a few other bands, I had to admit that I, too, was part of the general third wave ska fan trend.
8. My favorite book I’ve read in composition studies is Geoffrey Sirc’s English Composition as a Happening. There’s just something amazing about that book, and it excites me more than just about anything else I’ve read. Of course, it helps that the Sex Pistols are one of his key composition theorists.

I’m not sure who’s done this meme, since I haven’t been keeping up on the blogs as much, so I’ll try to tag folks who I highly doubt have done it:
1. Eric
2. ML
3. Lisa
4. Sara
5. Gregory
6. Laura
7. Chanel
8. Mike G.