Six Things

Jeanne at Necromancy Never Pays just tagged me for this meme, and since I'm grateful to her for introducing me to her blog, I'm playing.

Here are the meme rules:
1. link to the person who tagged you
2. post the rules
3. write six things about yourself
4. tag six people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their sites.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Okay, so here are six things you wouldn't necessarily know about me from reading this blog.

1. My second toe is much longer than my first. My mother used to tell me it indicated noble birth, but I've always thought of it as a monkey-characteristic. It makes some shoes hard to wear, and probably has something to do with my preference for open-toed shoes.

2. I used to read mysteries a lot, but I can barely get through one anymore. I wrote my senior thesis on Dorothy L. Sayers, whose mystery novels were a kind of comfort food for me for many years. Since I've had children, though, I find myself unable to take pleasure in novels that require a death to get them moving. This is troubling on many levels.

3. I love finishing things--knitting projects, novels (reading them!), writing projects, furniture assembly, etc. This makes it hard for me to start things when I can't see an end in sight--anything from housecleaning to long writing or knitting projects. Short stuff, I'm your girl, any day of the week.

4. If there are truly two kinds of people, puzzle-people and plot-people, as Jeanne suggests, then I have multiple personality disorder. I love puzzles and word games (check my facebook profile if you don't believe me), and I also love heavily-plotted novels, which is why I got a PhD in Victorian literature. This combination of affinities is probably why I used to like mysteries so much (they are plot-and-puzzle books, aren't they?), and why I miss them at times.

5. This summer I'll make my second trip to France and I still will not see Paris. I think I'm saving it for a rainy day.

6. I've always sung alto but lately I find myself trying for the high notes, and even singing an occasional descant. What's up with that?

I'm supposed to tag six people, so here they are:

Caroline

Becca (do you even do memes, Becca?)

Jennifer

Magpie

Lilian (because now you have time for this kind of thing, right?)

Elrena

and anyone else who wants to play, of course!