Now we are six

I now have no excuse not to participate in this "six things" meme. First I was technically tapped by Swankette, and then more specifically tapped by Jeanne. Besides which, this particular meme walks a nice balance, involving a little bit of thought but almost no creativity - something I am sorely lacking at the moment. So, I now present, six things the readers of this blog might not know about me:

1. (In honor of the end of National Poetry Month) Although I enjoy reading poetry, I detest hearing it read aloud - doubly so when it is read by the poet. One of my worst experiences in high school was when one of my teachers brought in a recording of T.S. Eliot reading "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." I used to like that poem, but now all I can hear when I read it is that damned monotonous voice droning on and on and on.... Completely killed it.
2. If I come across Real Genius while flipping through channels, I am constitutionally incapable of turning it off until the movie is over. This is in spite of the fact that Joe and I own a copy of the movie.
3. Joe and I never picked out a girl's name for the Munchkin. The name he got was easy, but every time we talked about names for a girl, it pretty quickly devolved into a battle of who could come up with the worst name. It was a relief when the ultrasound showed a boy, so we could stop trying to come up with names.
4. Much of the work of both William Wegman and Anne Geddes gives me the heebie-jeebies.
5. I have a pathological fear of needles. Actually, a lot of people know this about me. What they may not know is that when I was in 10th grade, I broke my ankle in gym class and had the bone set without anesthesia rather than accept an injection. I swore that having it set would be less traumatic and painful than the shot of Novocaine, and I was right. It turned out the pain of having the ankle set wasn't bad at all, considering the pain of breaking it in the first place. This event led to two things. First, I had my first cross-dressing role on stage. I had been cast as a Hot Box dancer in Guys & Dolls, but since that wasn't possible I was dressed in drag and put behind the newsstand so nobody could see the cast. I sang all the ensemble numbers with the guys. In retrospect, this was probably a step up. Second, the experience at the hospital probably helped put the idea in my head that people who insist I'll want painkillers are not necessarily to be trusted. I hadn't connected the dots until recently, but this (along with some bad medical experiences in college) probably contributed to my deciding to have a home birth.
6. William Brewster (of Mayflower fame) is an ancestor on my paternal grandmother's side. This, if IMDB is to be believed, means I am a distant cousin of Seth MacFarlane. Maybe someday this will get me a cartoon guest appearance on Family Guy, but I'm not holding my breath.

OK, so now to tag some other people. Some of these are long shots, but I'm going to go with TRP, Joe, Lemming, the Pope, Tommyspoon, and Reid. The rules are as follows:

• link to the person who tagged you [check]
• post the rules [check]
• write six things about yourself [check]
• tag six people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. [check]
• let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their sites. [real soon now]
• let your tagger know when your entry is up [posts on their way]

Go to it!