Seven Things About Me…..

Me at 18. This date did not end well. See below….

If you follow author Dan Andriacco’s “Baker Street Blog,” or Amy Thomas’ “Girl Meets Sherlock” (and if you don’t you should), you might remember that they posted on this same topic several weeks ago, then tagged a bunch of other Sherlockian bloggers, yours truly among them. With all the general craziness of the season, I’ve only just now gotten ’round to responding (sorry, Dan and Amy!), but thought I’d better get to it before the even crazier 12th Night Giveaway starts,* and I’m rushing to post the Last Review of the Year.  So, just in case you were curious….

1. I am the eldest in a family of 14 children (6 boys, 8 girls). My youngest sibling is 29. And from the time I was 7 until I left home at 18, we lived in houses with only one bathroom.

2. I’ve been writing since I was 11, and I remember very clearly the day I begged my mother to buy me a steno pad at the drugstore so I could write stories like my best friends, Laurel and Lisa. My first effort was pretty much a rip-off of everything Laura Ingalls Wilder ever wrote. I have since made every writing mistake in the book, which has proven quite valuable when it comes to reviewing.

3. I met my husband when we were both about 6, and dated him briefly in high school. He ended our last teen-aged date thusly: “It’s been real, it’s been fun, but it’s not been real fun.” **

With a guy this hot sitting two rows up, it’s a wonder I passed chemistry….

4. I worked for a year as a costumed, first-person interpreter at Conner Prairie, where (at that point) it was “Always 1836.”  Although I portrayed three different characters, my favorite was “Abigail Bucher,” the local physician’s hired girl. When there were no visitors, my friends referred to me as “the doctor’s serving wench.”  This appears to have been prophetic.

5. I need music to write. Pop in the earbuds and words flow, like turning on a tap. I have playlists for everything, and tend to go with alternative rock.

6. I am a devout, far-from-perfect Christian, and teach a children’s Bible class.  The younger the group, the more hilarious.

7. Before marriage forced me to move, I was an editorial assistant (later technical editor) for The Peirce Edition Project. This entailed transcribing, proofreading, and otherwise preparing collations of Charles Sanders Peirce’s papers for publication in a chronological edition (30 vols.). I am not a logician or a mathematician, so much of what he wrote was beyond my ken, but I got attached to the man, and feel a warm burst of recognition every time I run into him, or one of his cronies/frenemies when researching Sherlock Holmes.

So, there you have it! And now it’s time for me to tag:

Jaime Mahoney

Matt Laffey

Vincent Wright

Charlotte Ann Waters

Joe Revill

Alistair Duncan

and the mysterious John H. Watson, M.D…..

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the best photos of us are always 10 years old….

*I have the questions all ready, bwahahahahahaha!

** To be fair, I didn’t let him put his arm around me, good girl that I was, so….