Duck, Duck, Goose

I've been tagged twice to tell 5 things that are little known about me. (But I ain't givin' away 10.)

Lessee. This is actually kind of hard. Most of what I keep private is gonna stay that way.

1. Between kindergarten and sixth grade, I attended 5 different schools in two different towns. Though I have always been naturally shy, I think the experience made me more socially flexible by forcibly expanding my comfort zones. By the time I got to high school (our town had only one, which also served the surrounding farming towns), I knew pretty much all the kids in my class of 500, and moved easily between cliques. That flexibility notwithstanding, I usually only have 1-3 close friends at a time. I feel immense affection for many friends, but find it intense/difficult to be really close. My husband is my best friend & the only person in the world who knows everything that could really be interesting on a list like this.

2. In the summer before first grade, one of those moves was from our apartment in Temple to a farm in a teeny town called Moffat. Moffat was so small it had only a few houses, a church, and a rarely used community center--not even a store or gas station, and certainly not a school. (The landmark for directions to our house was a turkey farm and a dirt road.) So I was bussed to Belton for school, the closest city. On my first day at my new school, as the teacher went down the roll calling names, I spontaneously told her I preferred to be called by my middle name (which nobody ever called me), and all that year I was known as Dawn. (I guess I figured: new town, new name.) Several weeks into the semester when my teacher (the only teacher whose name I can't remember) called to give a progress report to my mother, she'd talked for several minutes before my mom stopped her and said, "Wait, I think you must have the wrong parent. My daughter's name is Shanna." The next year, when we moved back to Temple and I went to a new school, I switched back.

3. In high school I dated a "weird" guy (about whom I was teased) who grew up to be the singer in a fairly successful band. You've probably heard of them. One of our first dates was an all-ages Ramones show. We were roommates for a while in college, during the time he started the band (his third or fourth). He once called my husband (when I'd first started dating him) a "buttmunch." That didn't go over so well. Now it's just funny. We're not in touch anymore, but I've always been really pleased he's done well. He's a talented dude.

4. The woman who watched me after school and taught me to cook (at the Girl's Club) was murdered by her boyfriend when I was in the third grade. A few years later, when I was in seventh grade, one of her sons was shot at a high school football game. It was half-time and my friends and I were going to get sodas at the concession stand. I saw the gunman as he ran past me and grabbed both of my friends by the hand and whirled them around in the opposite direction saying gun, gun, he has a gun. Then we heard the shot.

5. I was born with a hole in my heart that miraculously closed itself a few days before I was meant to have major surgery that I might not have survived (because I was only a few weeks old). It's a slight murmur now, but not at all dangerous. Actually, I think I've mentioned that before, maybe. I'm just not feeling all that confessional.

It's taken me 2.5 hours to complete this meme, including several complete erasures. If you would like to be tagged, consider yourself so.