Ask & You Shall Receive

I didn't want to overwhelm you with a list of 50 like last time, so here goes 25 more pieces of obscure information about me. Let me know if I should press on to make it a full 100 or stop now. If you're yawning and you know it, clap your hands! And click on comments to tell me that my posting makes a great remedy for your insomnia.

1. I was born at 5:38am. My twin sister was born at 5:33am.
2. I will taste almost any food, no matter how unusual or exotic. It's rare that I find something I don't like.
3. I read every day. Reading is my addiction. If I'm near the end of a book I get anxious, consumed with thinking about what my next fix will be and where I will get it. If I have nothing new to read I will either re-read books or read the ones I don't really have an interest in, just to be reading. "Hello, my name is Kaya and I'm a readaholic."
4. As an adolescent I developed a mad crush on Mikhail Baryshnikov that never quite went away, laying the groundwork for me to be attracted to men with ambiguous sexuality. In the pic of my favorite poster of Mikhail, you'll note the strong features mixed with the oh so sensual lips and delicate high cheekbones. And that net shirt screams "club clothes"!
5. I've watched in awe as Old Faithful erupted underneath a full moon at Yellowstone National Park.
6. I have never made a pie crust from scratch although my mother has a wonderful recipe and her's always turn out just right.
7. I've run my hand through a ball of bluish bright swamp gas one night on a lonely road beside a cemetary in West Monroe, Louisiana. I've forgotten the cemetary name but it's on Arkansas Road, for any of you readers familiar with the town. The swamp gas was floating about a foot off the ground and was eerily beautiful.
8. I love fountain pens although I don't currently own any. If you need a gift idea, I prefer indigo ink and a medium nib.
9. I was once mauled by a strange man while shopping in a book store in a different state. He grabbed me, full body hugged me and kissed my cheek. Imagine how he felt when I finally convinced him I wasn't Kim (who hadn't told him she has a twin). The really odd part was that I was in a state that neither of us have ever lived in.
10. I have been to the top of the Arch in St. Louis. It sways, quite a bit, which was so unsettling that I stayed for less than five minutes before getting back into the funny egg-shaped tram for the ride back down.
11. I love Big Red soda. Always have.
12. I once went into Mike the Tiger's compound on the campus at LSU to interview the keeper for the school paper. Being inches away from a fullgrown Bengal tiger, even separated by bars, is a heartpounding situation. Watching Mike "play" with a football by shredding it to bits did not make me feel more secure.
13. I was an extra in the stadium crowd scenes for the 1988 movie Everybody's All American starring Dennis Quaid and Jessica Lange.
14. I have a circa 1925 family recipe for peach cobbler that I still rely on today. It's fabulous and easy.
15. I have worked as an answering service operator using an old school telephone board where a line would ring and light up and you would plug your cord into the round jack to answer it. "One ringy dingy..."
16. I made an A in my Performance Art class at LSU. My final was a performance involving wrapping myself in blinking, colored lights on a darkened stage while a Christmas carol in which I'd done voiceovers showing the stress of the holidays played loudly, echoing in the nearly empty theater. My teacher loved it. I can still hear "I just can't take it anymore!" in my mind whenever Winter Wonderland comes on.
17. I used to read Tarot cards but stopped because I didn't like telling people things that may upset them.
18. I have eaten Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant only two times in my life.
19. I love quotations. I look them up for any occasion and have several that are meaningful to me posted around my work space.
20. I think life would be better if I ate avocado gelato from Whole Foods every day.
21. Frederick charts my periods so that he'll know in advance when I might be moody or agreeable to walking to Amy's at lunch for some PMS relieving Belgian Chocolate ice cream.
22. My great grandfather was a card carrying member of the KKK. We still have his card in a box of old family stuff. I often wonder why a "secret society" would actually make membership cards? We think my grandfather was a member as well, but didn't find any evidence. To say that the family wasn't happy when my Dad brought my Mother around is an understatement. Surprise! Their marriage has lasted 39 years.
23. I dig old school kids breakfast cereals. Life, Golden Grahams, Sugar Corn Pops (now just Corn Pops, although the amount of sugar in them remains the same), Fruity Pebbles, Post's Fortified Oat Flakes, Captain Crunch, Trix! and Lucky Charms. Mmmmm.
24. I once ran my mother's car off a Louisiana road and through part of a soybean field before making it back onto the asphalt. Luckily my mother wasn't with me and her car had no damage. I did have to dig a soybean plant out of the tail pipe, though.
25. My favorite food from the many Ark-La-Miss Fairs that I attended while growing up in Louisiana is the famous Natchitoches meat pie. Yummy!

So what do you think? Can you handle 25 more?