Saturday 6 January 2007

Blog Tag - Five Things Nobody Knows About Me

I was tagged by Rosario to write about 5 things nobody knows about me. I've seen this tagging business on other blogs, but for me it's the first time, kind of a deflowering *lol*.
Ok, let's start...


1) What I simply need to mention is my first romance novel. It was Honor's Splendor by Julie Garwood, still one of my guilty pleasure novels. As you can see, the cover is totally mortifying. It was late afternoon, and I had a horrible day at university, a paper to write and no end in sight. So I went to a local book chain and started browsing in order to have a little relaxation time. Up to this day, I was 21 back then, I've never ever read a romance novel or considered doing so. But somehow this cover was so ugly that I simply needed to buy it, I didn't even read the blurb - AND devoured it, of course. I was instantly hooked, but simultaneously hid the book because I couldn't admit that I read a book with such a horrible cover (BTW, translated the German title of this book means melody of passion *arggg*)


2) The most horrible moment of my life was in 1998. Back then I was in Nice/France with a family whom I worked as an au pair for. One of my "duties" was to have a driving licence in order to pick up their 14-year old daughter from school - it was also dearly necessary because the last bus stop was 2 km away. Anyway, I had my driving licence for three weeks, my au pair parents were in Djerba, it was night and I urgently needed two more eggs to make a cake. I took my car (I had one for myself) and drove down the mountain to the next grocery store. I knew where it was, because my au pair mother showed it to me. On the way back I took the wrong road. It isn't very difficult to take the wrong road in Nice, because you always have the sea to orientate yourself and everything is signposted to death. But back then I got so nervous and somehow didn't pay attention, and before I realised it I was on the highway to Marseille!!!!!!

In France you have to pay for using the highway, and I was so distressed that any resemblance of rational brainpower went down the drain. Then I saw a sign on the highway "HIGHWAY POLICE". My saviors, my darlings. They escorted!!!! me back to the right drive up and made sure I came home securely :-) In hindsight it's something to laugh about, and I do so, but back then I was a wrack.

But I have to confess, it was the best way to learn to look out for signposting. Since then I drove to many locations in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Lichtenstein (I love motoring) and thanks to this "shock cure" I never had the same problem again :-))))

3) I am a list maniac. Not so much in daily life, even though I still make a list of to-do things, but really bad does it get where my books are concerned. Half a year ago I discovered Rosario's spreadsheet. And this lovely woman modified it for me so that I have tons of options as to how to categorize my books. I was so pleased with my new spreadsheet that I filled in my WHOLE back list, and looked the necessary information up in the internet. Number of pages, genre, imprint, etc... That was a real labor of love.

4) I love, love, love old films, especially the classic Hollywood film era. Everything from the early 50s up to 67 makes my heart beat faster. Not Westerns or criminal films, but love stories/dramas or musical adaptions with actors such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, David Niven ... AND AND AND - I could go on forever.

5) Well, and to finalize, something macabre. My hair burned three times. I have tons of hair on my head, about three times what the normal human being has to deal with. Because it doesn't grow like "normal" hair when it's short (it grows about 10cm upwards before it chooses the right direction downwards) I wear it long. The last time happened about ten years ago, thanks to a lovely candle that was on the window sill behind the couch I was sitting on. The first time happened in a restaurant, I was seven. I suddenly moved forward and my hair brushed the candle on the table. Thanks to the fast reaction of my father I only lost a strand. The second time was somewhere in between, I visited my aunt, and of course, it was another bad-behaving candle *g*.

OK, that's it.

Who am I going to tag now? My problem is that I don't know many blogs, but I think I will tag Elisa, she has a lovely blog kept in Italian and English.

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Busy Christmas time

I just discovered that I am not the most busiest of bloggers. My last post was over three weeks ago, not a very good beginning but I swear to better myself. It wasn't so much the lack of what to blog about - more a time question. During Christmas I usually achieve 1% of the planned 100%!
I didn't even read much, one bookring book, "Mr. Darcy's Daughter" by Elizabeth Aston, and Legend in Green Velvet by Elizabeth Peters. The first is not worth much, out of five daughters only two are interesting and likeable - the others are either bigot do-gooder or irresponsible twits.
The Elizabeth Peters was better, of course, - a solid B again - but nothing compared to her Amelia Peabody series (of which I consider myself a very BIG fan).

I didn't even find the time to browse in bloglandia - and that's a real shame, because normally I can't survive without my daily dose of KarenS, Dear Author.com and Rosario's Reading Journal.

Anyway, while trying to read up a mile high pile of new posts I discovered that Rosario has tagged me. Bien. I am absolutely new to this. I've never been tagged before but I am thrilllllled - especially because she did it on the 4th of January - the day I became 27 (I feeeeeeeeeel so damn old. Jesus.)

But for this tagging business I think I will start a new post. À bientôt.

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