1) I am intensely sentimental. I am amazed at how easily I can turn on the waterworks; and it only gets worse the older I get. I have a huge hope chest in my parents’ basement filled with precious memorabilia I can’t bear to part with. I am known for writing long, rambly romantic letters to people in my life. When I can’t sleep at night, I read poetry until the words get blurry. I am still carrying around a handful of beach glass from the last time I saw my ex-husband. Once, an injured kitten died in my lap. I put her in a shoe box and watched as she drifted out to sea. You know how babies have that soft spot on the top of their heads where their skull hasn’t been fully formed? My heart is like that.

2) I am afraid of the Amish. I know it is an irrational fear. After all, they are just people, too. But I fear them all the same. Where I finished high school, there was an Amish community not too far from where we lived. My senior year, my friends and I would sometimes skip school and eat at a restaurant called The Flying Dutchman. They had the most amazing pancakes and waffles. But there were more horse-drawn buggies than cars in the parking lot. I had to sit there with blinders on. If I looked up and spied a woman in a black bonnet, or a solemn-looking man with a long beard, I had a mini panic attack. It’s a cross to bear, this ridiculous fear.

3) I have an inordinate love of goats. There is no explanation for it. I was not raised on a goat farm. I have never fed a baby goat a bottle. I have always been an animal lover by nature. I even once owned a Burmese python; one of the more ill-advised decisions of my youth. But for some reason, goats tug my heart strings to the point of excess. Turkey has done much to cultivate this love affair. One of my favorite things in the world is to hear the approaching sound of tinkling bells. This is usually followed by the sighting of a kangal (Turkish sheepherding dogs), a shepherd and a whole lotta’ goats a’ prancin’. In fact, my dream in life is to one day have a herd of my own. I want six alpines goats who I will happily milk for making goat cheese. I already have their names picked out.

4) I am obsessed with abandoned buildings. As a kid, I was always finding my way through fences to reach buildings that were clear safety hazards. I would walk across rotten beams, sit on moldy furniture, look for lost treasure. When I was fourteen, my friend Typhanie and I found an old cabin in the woods near her house. It obviously belonged to an old man that had died long ago. The house was like a ramshackle museum. His name was Henry Higgins and he had served in World War II. Every day after school, we went back to Henry’s house and poured through his personal things. Everything was moldy and rusty and dank, but we felt at home there. We read love letters that his wife had sent him during the war. We looked at photos of his family in what looked like Ireland. We re-constructed his life on those afternoons. I still have several keepsakes of Henry’s in that hopechest, including an old pipe, a silk scarf and a perfectly rusted Chock Full O’Nuts coffee can.

5) I am petrified of drowning. Don’t get me wrong: I am certainly not shy about the water. I am part mermaid. I am a very strong swimmer and could probably drag a grown-man to shore if I had to. But for some reason, the idea of death by drowning is one of my greatest fears. I simply cannot bear underwater scenes in movies. I automatically hold my breath and my chest tightens. I especially cannot deal with scenes where people attempt to swim through underwater caverns and misjudge how deep they are. Or how about when people fall through a hole in an iced over lake, and they rise up only to be greeted by solid ice? Seriously. I die a little.

6) I am a schitzophrenic magnet. I don’t know what it is about my energy, but schitzophrenic people gravitate towards me wherever I go. They befriend me and let me into their muddled worlds. They enter into deep conversations with me, sometimes getting totally lost and frantic before resurfacing. And the sense of calm I feel when that happens is inexplicable to me. I have not had any sort of psychological training. There have even been times when I could have been physically harmed. Years ago, a very lost soul named Charles took me to his camp. It was in the ruins of an old paper mill. We would wander around looking at glittering piles of partially melted glass and wild vines choking out the sunlight. Sometimes he was there with me; sometimes not. But we always left together.

7) I really, really love being on mushrooms. In fact, every time I ingest mushrooms, it takes about forty minutes for me to exclaim the following, “I wish I could always be on mushrooms!”. And I think I mean it. I am sure that it wouldn’t take too long to adjust my center of gravity to the constant hallucinations. There is just something so pure about the way I feel about the world under the influence of the fungi. All of my inhibitions melt away, all of my baggage completely disappears, and I just open up so willingly. The beautiful simplicity of everyday objects is magnified. I remember having a very significant conversation with my brother about our love of drinking water; the necessity and the pleasure thereof. Of course, ten of those minutes were spent trying to locate and open the refrigerator, find a glass and manage to pour the liquid inside. But no matter the fun that has transpired, at around Hour Eight, I get a little weary. Then I remember why I can’t really be on mushrooms every day.

As a child, my prized possession was my Hot Wheels collection. I obsessively collected them from about age 3. Forget dolls. Stuffed animals? No thank you. All I wanted were those tiny cars! I think I was actually given my first one by my teenaged uncle when I was 2 and a half. But I ended up swallowing it. My mother frantically pulled it out of my throat, saving my life, but scratching the back of my throat with her nails. My absolute favorite car was my fire engine red Pontiac Firebird with the black phoenix across the hood; a replica of the car my uncle owned. I kept them safe in a Hot Wheels carrying case that resembled a tire with a shiny spoked rim. My relationship with Hot Wheels was the first step in my process of becoming a gear head. I soon moved on to the King Cobra bigwheel (which was king of the playground) and later my Evel Knievel hot rod. My poor mother thought she gave birth to a girl!