25 random things about me

This is a “game” that has been spreading rapidly on Facebook, and I thought it might be of some interest, so I decided to post it here.  The idea (on Facebook anyway) is to write 25 random things about yourself, then tag 25 other people who you’d like to know more about.  I’m not going to tag anyone, but if you feel inspired to put something up on your blog, leave me a comment so I know to go look.  🙂

1. I spent almost two years managing a Ben & Jerry’s in Hollywood (and later in Glendale).

2. I’ve bicycled from San Francisco to Los Angeles with AIDS Lifecycle four times now, in an ever-more-improbable range of couture outfits.

3. I once had twenty-two snakes.

4. I was once a cover model for a magazine. (Dressed only in Amazon-warrior-goddess body paint!)

5. I have two cats, The Fuzz and Sweetheart, who love to order me around.

6. I am possibly the only person ever to transfer from Stanford to Caltech. (Though I know at least two people who went the OTHER way!)

7. I once stuffed my manager and VP’s cubes entirely full of balloons, with confetti, party favors, and golf balls inside the balloons. We even built a 5-foot dinosaur skeleton to go under the balloons!

8. I live in San Francisco, in the Bayview district, on the side of a hill. I have a great view of the bay from where I live – I can see TWO bridges!

9. I love virtually every fiber art, but lately it’s been 100% weaving.

10. I went to Hawaii once and got some great photos of myself with lava. I was so close my shoes were melting!

11. I’ve visited 16 foreign countries: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India, Myanmar/Burma, China, Ghana, the UK, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, (then) East Germany, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize.

12. I’ve eaten rat, scorpion, dog, grasshopper, and silkworm pupae while traveling. I’m still kicking myself for not trying the roasted bats.

13. I have a Tibetan thangka (religious painting) signed and blessed by the Dalai Lama.

14. I was once proposed to by a Tibetan taxi driver, as he drove me between Dharamsala and Rewalsar, India.

15. I was married once, and what a year THAT was.

16. I make chocolates once a year at Thanksgiving. This year I made 133 lbs of top-quality artisan chocolates!

17. I would love to travel to Madagascar, or back to India.

18. On Wednesday, B. and I will have been together for exactly three years.

19. I can’t drink alcohol. I don’t get drunk, after half a glass I feel massively ill and then throw up.

20. I am currently weaving myself a cashmere coat.

21. I don’t own a TV. (Well, actually, I do, but it’s in the garage and the antenna/cable isn’t even hooked up!)

22. I spent fifteen years after college wondering why I hadn’t become a software engineer. Eventually it dawned on me: I don’t like coding!

23. I’m working on creating a social network for handweavers, Weavolution. Our ambition is to do something for weavers as revolutionary as what Ravelry has done for knitters.

24. I was a vegetarian for 9 years. (Not anymore, though!)

25. Life is an adventure!