1. Moved across the country from NJ to CA with my 6 yr old son, away from our entire support system, and everything familiar to us. My job relocated me and they paid for everything, to move to Southern CA. Hello? Paradise?! My family thought I was nuts, but I thought it was kind of a no-brainer.
2. Drove across country, from CA to NJ, when I was relocated back 7 yrs later. We hiked through Bryce Canyon in Utah, camped in Yellowstone, checked out Mt Rushmore, did some gambling in Deadwood, and saw a whole lot of bikers in Sturgis, SD, met the Jolly Green Giant and then had a bite to eat at the Spam Museum in MN, and ate cheese in WI.
3. Met Paula Cole at an old church in NYC, where she was filming a music video for her song Be Somebody, which my son was featured in when he was modeling.
4. Spent a day wandering around the grounds of an old insane asylum (now condos) searching for an abandoned cemetery (which has since been found) outside of Salem, MA.
5. Celebrated Midsummer in Sweden, at a cottage in the woods, with all of the local traditions. I ate the pickled fish, drank a whole lot of aquavit, and sang, a lot, in Swedish.
6. Drank Guinness in Dublin, had mead at Bunratty Castle, and kissed the Blarney Stone in Ireland.
7. Drove counterclockwise 3 times around the Devil’s Tower in Alpine, NJ, in the middle of the night. Nothing happened. I’ve also been to 10 or 11 other places featured in Weird NJ, and nothing strange happened in those places either. Well, except for once, but we don’t talk about that…
8. Drank excellent wine with great friends in Napa.
9. Went to the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, by far the most Halloween fun you can have on the East Coast.
10. Tried to contact the ghost of my great-grandmother on the Queen Mary, in Long Beach,CA. She was Julie-Cruise-Director on that ship for many years, so I figured if ever there was a place she would haunt, that would be it.
11. Attended the “college of my choice,” got kicked out, and then went back 5 years later.
12. Survived the Winter Music Conference in South Beach, Miami. Trust me, this was quite a feat.
13. Walked out of an abortion clinic in Atlantic City, NJ. I was in the gown, and next in line, listening to the girls around me talking about how many times they had visited Mr. Hoover, and all I could do was cry. I gave birth to my son, my angel and the love of my life, 7 months later.
14. Sold my first painting when I was 17.
15. Have played the piano, flute, drums, trumpet and glockenspiel. Seriously. It would have just been the piano if it was possible to play in junior high band, but it wasn’t. So I tried other things. I had commitment issues…
16. Went to the Ho
llywood premiere of the Twilight Saga – Eclipse. Walked the black carpet, met the stars and went to the after-party where I lay in a field of white and purple flowers. I am NOT a Twi-hard, I was just there hosting a couple of them…
17. Missed meeting Kevin Smith at the above premiere, because I was so excited to see him there, I started gushing to my co-host, who didn’t know who he was, so I had to start listing all of his awesome movies, and when I turned around again to approach him, he had already gotten his drink and walked away.
18. Went to ComicCon. Yep, for real.
19. Mingled with diplomats from all over the world, at an event I hosted at the Swedish Embassy in DC.
20. Have been a size 6 and a size 16. Working my way back to the lower end of the scale (literally) now…
21. Hung out at CBGBs and Limelight before they closed.
22. Spent a week on a sailboat, island hopping through the Grenadines in the Caribbean. I could have stayed there forever…
This post was inspired by Mama Kat’s Pretty Much World Famous Writer’s Workshop. Check it out!
Care and Feeding of Your Millennial Monster 