1) In first grade, we were required to write a book. I plagiarized a book and got called out by another student and had to write a new book. The new book was good, and was about a frog named Lucy.
2) In third grade, I wrote 12 different books and won our class' Newberry (for writing) and Caldecot (for illustration) awards.The 12 books featured such plots as: watching chicks hatch with my brother, meeting a new kid who spoke no English (true story, he as in our class), and a story about teenage triplets that was suspiciously similar to Sweet Valley Twins (except that they were triplets).
3) If left unchecked and without sleeping pills, I'd stay up until 4am and sleep until 5pm.
4) I've never been happier than with a pack of cigarettes, a case or two of beer, and a good friend to talk to.
5) I've never been sadder or more self-destructive than after a pack of cigarettes and a case or two of beer.
4) I quit drinking 8/07
5) I quit smoking 12/07
6) A significant portion of my song lyrics come from misheard lyrics. (I hear them in other people's songs and think they're great lyrics and lament the fact that they are already taken, until I realize I've heard them incorrectly. Then I put them in my own songs).
7) My songs are written piece meal--in short spurts of a line or two kept in a journal. After a week or so I come up with some chords and put the lyrics together. They almost always end up fitting together in a meaningful way.
8) My passion in junior high was visual art, but it made me crazy and I had trouble finishing anything.
9) I'm a fairly accomplished pianist, though in 8 years of lessons I averaged about 15 minutes a week in practice time.
10) When I was 17, I performed the piano in a big deal contest at St. Mary's Contest in South Bend, IN. I forgot the piece halfway through and had to start over. The judge's comments included the question, "Do you really like playing this piece?" And I didn't really. It was Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca (last movement of Piano Sonata 11, a "turkish march"). I could play it technically but I felt nothing for it.
11) I'm starting to think that people having psychotic breaks tend to gravitate toward me.
12) I am lactose intolerant. I know what I will look like when I'm pregnant--exactly as I do after a glass of milk or a slice of soft white cheese.
13) I think that "King of Carrot Flowers" by Neutral Milk Hotel is the most uplifting song ever. Second is "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve.
14) I was in love with Eddie Vedder when I was 15. I would listen to Vitology over and over and get teary eyed, knowing we would never meet.
15) I refused to kiss a boy until I got my braces off. I got felt up before I'd ever been kissed.
16) My first kiss was horrendous and lasted 20 minutes. I had chap marks around my lips for days. I hated kissing until I was 20 and kissed a boy who was nice and knew what he was doing.
17) For years, my all-time favorite movie has been Reality Bites. I even wrote a 15 page paper on it for film class my junior year of college. But the last time I watched it I wasn't as wild about Ethan Hawke's character as I once was. He's kind of a self-centered dick and I'm not that glad that he and Winona end up together. Perhaps I've matured...
18) I blame my 10 years of smoking on Reality Bites.
19) I have the best job ever but I have trouble getting in before noon.
20) I once locked myself in a broom closet at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (where I work). The building is a giant old mansion that is reputed to be haunted. It was a Friday night and everyone else was gone. I was about to use my cigarette lighter to set off the fire alarm when I got the door open.
21) I drive a 1993 Subaru station wagon. It's the best.
22) I spent a semester at Marlboro College in Vermont, but I lived with very mean boys, one of whom I was in love with. I got into an accident over Christmas break and broke my pelvis. It was a blessing in disguise and I came back to Goshen College in Indiana, where everyone is nice.
23) When I broke my pelvis, I had to crutch around campus in a really embarrassing way. Basically, pelvis first. When I got off the crutches, I walked like I was 9 months pregnant. I found out later there was a rumor that I was pregnant.
24) I've gained 40 pounds in the last two years, but I was sad and skinny 40 pounds ago.
25) I used to be embarrassed of my small feet. I thought they looked like hooves.
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8 comments:
wow, Emily. so interesting and boring and lovely and surprising and brave and sad and funny. how was it to write these 25 random things?
OK, i was about to retract my comment and delete "boring" and insert "ordinary"... (don't mind me, i've been up most of the night). But, then i re-read it and, you know, none of it is boring or ordinary. That's the problem with blogging, words fly out there into cyberspace for good.
so here's my slightly-more-thought-out comment:
Thanks Emily, that was
interesting and lovely and surprising and brave and sad and funny.
That was extremely entertaining..i learned so much about you just by reading 25 random things. I def think you could expand on some of those into larger pieces. And this might sound ordinary, but I'd love to hear a piece on how/when/why you stopped drinking/smoking. With your writing style and ability to move your readers, I think that would be a great piece. IF you would want to go there.
thanks, libba. what a thoughtful comment. i would like to "go there." i haven't read any particularly good memoirs about drinking/quitting drinking. i read "drinking: a love story" by caroline knapp. a fabulous title but not an earth shattering book. you should do a 25 random things too. i'd love to read it.
I love that you use misheard song lyrics in your songs. That's brilliant.
I love King of Carrot Flowers! I just gotta say. It's great that you've been writing since first grade...even though you plagiarized. Did you always know you wanted to write?
No, I haven't always known I wanted to be a writer. I just have to be something. I think sometimes this is the only thing I'm good at. Or the only thing I'm more than ordinarily good at. And I think I have to be the best, to be extraordinary. (It's been suggested to me that this is a form of perfectionism that has done me nothing but bad...). I don't know what I think. Can some of you write about why you want to be writers? I'm trying to write a poem about my reasons for writing and am struggling, and it has to be in a weird rhyme scheme. It worries me a little that I have no answer. Except maybe this is my answer...
Why I wanted to be a writer:
--it made me feel good to capture something on the page, like it would never go away, unlike my father, my brother, and other men in my life. I loved feeling like I had really articulated something, got it just right. It was a rush, like when I used to do drugs but only better.
--I liked the idea that maybe my writing would connect with someone else, that it would offer them something they could use. It made my life seem worthwhile. Like giving a starving person bread, just the right kind of bread they needed.
--it was something I was good at and I liked getting praise for it.
--it was something that allowed me to use my imagination and heart and intellect in ways nothing else I could imagine ever would. I never feel as whole as I do when I'm writing.
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