Thirteen Things You Also Might Not Know About Me, 2nd

1. I used to be a Gamer Girl. We’re talking “Old School” here, not that new-fangled Xbox and Playstation stuff. No, I’m talking pen-and-paper table-top gaming with dice and rule books — you know, D&D, GURPS, Star Wars, and World of Darkness Role Playing. Oh, I so loved stretching the imagination and good storytelling with friends. We used to do it all weekend long, back in the good ole days. I remember once I played a pyrokinetic, pyrophobic amnesiatic witch.
2. I currently have the title of “Integration Systems Specialist” which is a fancy way of saying that I am a programmer analyst specializing in interface programming.
3. I worked for a government subcontractor once on some decoding software for Navy submarines, but I didn’t have security clearance for the codes; so when I was ready to test it, I would give the program on a diskette to a co-worker who would take it to the Navy’s research lab and he or she would come back and tell me if it worked. It was a very long, frustrating process.
4. I did eventually have “Secret” clearance. I never saw or heard anything in the research lab worth telling anyone about. Plus, it was all published in the paper several years later.
5. I once convinced a co-worker years after having left government work that The X-Files were based on true stories and that I should know because I worked there. I just have one of those faces, I guess.
6. I really did want to work for the FBI or the CIA as an analyst when I was in high school and college, but I’m convinced that my associations with certain “questionable” people which have led me to have “questionable” theories have kept my applications from serious consideration.
7. I wanted to be one of Charlie’s Angels when I grew up. What pre-teen/teen of the 70’s didn’t? I mean, they wore the hottest fashions, drove the best cars, kissed the cutest guys, had the best hair, and they kicked ass while wearing high heels and looking good!
8. I’ve seen every episode of Roseanne and the last episode where she does her monologue about how things really are and how Dan died makes me cry every time.
9. My favorite foods are tuna sushi, Mexican, and Twizzlers. Though not together.
10. I wrote a novel in high school. It’s terrible. My mother thinks it’s fabulous. The last chapter won some literary award for young creative writers. At the time, I wanted to go to college and study to be a writer but my parents said there was no money in that so now I’m a programmer analyst and I just don’t have the creativity in me to write long stories. Now my mother asks me all the time about whatever happened with my writing and why don’t I get back into it.
11. I still would like to publish a book. I thought about publishing a cookbook a few years ago, but now I’m thinking about a coffee table book of photo or something.
12. J. K. Rowling is the only author in some 15 years who’s been able to surprise me with the mystery parts of her stories. Most of my friends don’t like to go to mystery movies with me because I figure them out before the end — I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut, but it still annoys them. I was already good at mystery solving, but in college I took a mini-semester course on the mystery novel and not only did I blow the curve and get all of the extra credit, but since then I recognize the formulas.
13. I’m only 140 pages into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I’m savoring it. I have my suspicions about things that have happened already and clues that have been laid out before the book and in the book so far. I’m sure I’ll be wrong, because as I’ve mentioned, J. K. Rowling still manages to surprise me every time I think I’ve got her figured out.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

• Vixen
• Holly
• Nicole
• Exhausted Intern
• Christine
• Linda at 2nd Cup
• jeanjeanie
• CJHill
• Annie
• tommiea