...on second thought...

OK, so remember when I was tagged to tell a number of weird or quirky things about myself? And I thought that there weren’t any left to tell?
Well, I have since thought of a few, and...why not. So here you go:
- My very straight teeth are 100% orthodonture-free, and here’s why: When I was in third grade, my new front teeth were very, very crooked. I was not only bucktoothed, but at least one of my front teeth came in basically sideways! I didn’t like to smile because kids on the playground would make gruesome faces to imitate my snaggletoothed grin.
I desperately wanted braces, but my parents were reluctant. We were living in Taos, NM at the time, and (after much begging and pleading on my part) they found me a “holistic” dentist. I was mortified. The man (who came to our house, by the way - I’m not sure he even had an office!) told me to wake up every morning and spend the first ten minutes of the day “envisioning” my teeth growing straight.
Phphphphphthhhhhh...yeah RIGHT! I scoffed.
The really embarrassing part is that it worked. My teeth did, in fact, grown straight of their own accord. Perfectly straight.
Wonders, I truly believe, will never cease.
- Also, I have never had a cavity.

- As a child, I was very into water creatures, bugs and snakes. When my parents were reluctant to order me an “ant farm”, I made one myself (there was a lot of trial and error involved. The first couple of colonies resulted in ant genocide. Tough life lessons, best learned young.) I once rescued an injured gopher (well, he lived for a while, anyway), and frequently collected field mice from the oat bins in our barn (my family was blissfully oblivious to rodent-born illnesses). I also liked to collect snakes (my parents taught me to select the nonpoisonous ones, since we had lots of rattlers in the area) and kept them in terrariums. My dad had a soft spot for tarantulas (also prevalent in our part of Colorado) and liked to scoop them off the road when they were in danger of being hit by cars. He would dodge in and out of traffic with a shovel, racing to carry a hairy spider to safety. Once, he brought one home for me inside a cardboard box of nails, and we kept it as a pet for a while before releasing it back into the wild.

- When I was little, we traveled so much that I could sleep better in a moving vehicle (plane, train, car) than I could in a bed. I loved change, and was uncomfortable with stasis. I did not like to return home from abroad. On my first night home after every transatlantic flight, I would sleep fitfully and tended to displace heavy objects (stacks of books, lamps, mattresses, piles of blankets) in my sleep. Only in the past few years have I finally come to appreciate, and even find comfort in, the concept of “home”.

- In addition to his long and storied career as an artist, my late father was also a folk singer who played casually with many of the prominent Woodstock-area folk musicians of the ‘60s. Shortly after I was born, my mother inadvertently introduced him to Bob Dylan, who at the time was the boyfriend of her best friend’s Greenwich Village roommate, Joan Baez. My mother lived to regret that particular introduction (late-night jam sessions in our livingroom, baby asleep in the next room - you get the picture), and has been forced to retell the story ever since.

- I am a vitamin supplement junkie. I take a dozen or more different supplements every day. Whether for that reason or just good luck, I have a very solid immune system, which I jealously guard.

- Oddly enough, considering my immune system, I had cancer of the lymphatic system (Hodgkins disease) at the age of 29. It went undiagnosed for two years (although I was certain I had it) and was very advanced by the time they started treatment. My mother had the same type of cancer when I was eight or so. Up until I got it myself, cancer was my greatest fear and I’d always promised myself that if I ever turned out to have it, I would just let myself die. These are the things you think when you’re a child. As it turned out, the will to live is much stronger than any petty fear, and I immediately agreed to treatment when I was finally diagnosed. Which is lucky, since Hodgkin’s disease is very curable, as cancers go! My mom and I are both healthy as horses now.

- I love color (our kitchen is Chinese-lacquer red - a layered shade that I spent three weeks perfecting) and our bedroom a twilight blue. But for my studio, I can only work in a white room. Color in my work environment muddies my brain.

- I was first published at the age of 17. I wrote a poem (in Spanish, which is not my first language) which was picked up by a literary journal, and several years later by a romance language textbook that was published
by Tufts University. That poem has remained in the curricula of various Universities, and is still used as a teaching aid today.
I’m really not sure why.
I did not pursue poetry.

- I am almost six feet tall and have size 11 feet! Please don’t make fun of me, my feet are proportionally appropriate.