Thirteen Things You Might Not Know About Me, 1rst

1. I lived 23 of my 36 breathing years in New Orleans, but not consecutively; one period for 12 years and one for 11 years.
2. Coincidentally the reason I moved to New Orleans in 1993 and the reason I moved away in 2004 were the same — unemployment; despite being told by my high school guidance counselor that computer science would bring great fortune and job security, I have yet to find that to be true after 15 years.
3. Before anyone asks, no, I didn’t have any family left in New Orleans during Katrina; my parents had moved to New Mexico in 2002; I do still have a number of friends in the area. Everyone I know luckily survived, even if their belongings didn’t — two friends lived just blocks from the Canal Street levee break.
4. I currently live in Maine with two cats and a Pug in a red house. I couldn’t get a third cat because I’m single and you know that single women can’t have 3 cats or they become crazy old maids. So I have a Pug.
5. When I moved to Maine, I drove up without an apartment rented and without knowing anyone but the people I’d interviewed with for my job. I stayed in hotels for a month with my two cats (didn’t have the Pug yet) while I looked for a decent, affordable apartment that a piano would fit in — it took at least 2 weeks for me to accept that up here no one needs central A/C so apartments just don’t have them.
6. My current obsessive hobby of choice is photography. I am participating in Project365 — a world-wide phenomenon where amateur and professional photographers alike take at least one photo every day for a year. (View my Project365 as a slideshow.) Ironically I started out doing digital photography because I thought it would be a cheep hobby, but a new Canon PowerShot S3 IS, a bunch of printed photographs, picture frames, and a lot of books on photography later, and I can tell you that is a myth.
7. Since January 1, 2007, I have taken over 1000 photographs and have posted 941 to Flickr; 189 of those photos appear to be of my Pug. According to Flickr’s mysterious rules of “Interestingness”, 16 of my photos have made it to Flickr’s infamous Explore; 10 of those are of my Pug and technically one was taken last year. (View my Flickr Explored Photos as a Slideshow.)
8. The reason that I needed to save money is because I bought a house in November, which is a really big commitment; I guess I’m staying in Maine. As it turns out, houses have a lot more unexpected expenses than apartments and you can’t just call the landlord and have things magically repaired while you are at work. It also turns out that the landscaping and garden fairies don’t come while you are at work either. However, for $25 a week, the lawnmower man will come once a week and make all the dandelions disappear from your yard.
9. I have discovered that it is not easy to make new friends all over again in your mid-30’s if you move to somewhere you know no one and you don’t immediately click with your co-workers. By your 30’s you’ve pretty much defined your social circles and there’s really very little change until you hit retirement age, I think. I kind of think it’s easier if you relocate as a couple. Couples seem to find other couples to do things with, but by your mid-30’s everyone’s pretty much looking to become a couple or looking to find other couples to hang out with. Look at Friends, for example. Integrating outsiders never really worked out once they reached their 30’s and Monica and Chandler were always trying to find appropriate partners for the single “friends” so they could do couple things. In fact, they spent quite a bit of time just trying to find someone to pair off with to become a couple. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a ready-made group of friends for me in Maine yet.
10. I have been diagnosed with chronic migraines, IgA Nephropathy (an autoimmune kidney disease), fibromyalgia, gastroparesis (a condition in which the stomach digestion is slowed), IBS, general anxiety disorder, and chronic depression. I probably also have some OCD in there.
11. As a result of my medical problems, my doctors have put me on a strict pescetarian diet — no flesh of any animals other than fish or other types of seafood. I’m supposed to eat lots of soy products too. I was already eating 75% this way when the doctor told me no more red meat or chicken. As a result of being told I can’t have those things, naturally, I cheat on really rare occasions. To be honest, I don’t really like the smell or taste of meat most of the time anyway.
12. I have been blogging in various places for over 6 years and have been “outed” several times by a health magazine, The New York Times, and Good Morning, America. I suspect I lost a job because I was blogging rather nasty things about my boss though using all fake names but I can’t prove it. It’s just a reminder that nothing is really anonymous or private in Cyberspace.
13. While this is the closest I’ve come to using my real name on a blog, I still use aliases for my pets because some of them — Pugly — have become quite well-known by their online monikers and besides, you never know when some pet-o-phile will come across their photos and want to stalk them. They must be protected.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

• Jeremy
• Eric
• qtpies7
• Robin
• Ed
• byoc
• hazel
• Amy the Black