5 weird things you didn't know about me

I was tagged by Jana to list five things you don't know about me, but I saw a version of the "5 Things" theme over at Teri's which I feel compelled to incorporate: five weird things. Perfect. So.

1. From age 11 to age 14, I sang in a group of about fifty kids called "The Young Talents." I learned many beloved/classic/random songs this way that I wouldn't have otherwise--at least not so soon--though mostly shortened versions from medleys: South Pacific, Fiddler On the Roof, West Side Story... We performed with lots of stiff riser-bound choreography in hideous matching red-white-and-blue polyester outfits. The director, my elementary school music teacher, would implore us to "Sparkle!" and demonstrate by lifting her eyebrows to her hairline and pulling the corners of her mouth back to her earlobes. I can still recite the Gettysburg Address, or pretty close, because we learned an extremely cool version of it set to music. I sing it to myself every now and again and I still get choked up.

2. When I meet someone for the first time who will turn out to be a particularly significant friend, I recognize them right away even though I don't know them yet. This has played out several times in my life--like, seven or eight. I spotted my husband as one of "my people" too, though it took me a few weeks to figure out I wanted to be with him, you know, romantically.

3. I enjoy watching shows about autopsies on TV. Fascinating.

4. My spine is so flexible I can touch the floor with my full palms while bending my elbows slightly, but my hips are so inflexible I can't even make a ninety degree angle with my legs. I remember a young gymnastics instructor insisting that I must be able to spread 'em further, when I was a spry nine-year-old. Nope.

5. I have had many lovely mystical experiences. Here's a favorite: It was during a phase when I was particularly attuned to the Voice (in my head that offers wise guidance) in my day-to-day activities. When I really listen, it says all sorts of helpful things, about anything and everything. Anyway, I was also discovering old ballads, but realizing that I had always loved them and I just hadn't been exposed or sought them out enough to fully recognize the affinity. I had the thought around then that a song I loved at age eleven, Gordon Lightfoot's haunting "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," so strange to my ear for top forty radio, was in fact a ballad. Then I got a mad craving to hear it again. This, children, was before either the impending glut of seventies nostalgia or the fabulous song-finding tool known as the internet, at least in my house. So I just thought wistfully of the song on and off for a few days. And then, one foggy, stormy morning as I waited in my car for a friend to return from the appointment to which I had driven him, as I hummed and tried to remember the words to that tragic song-story, I had the specific thought, "I wish I could hear that song!" And the Voice said, "Turn on the radio. We'll find it for you." So I turned on the radio. And I turned the dial. And after about five or ten seconds, I heard Mr. Lightfoot's wailing guitar. Wow! But, I thought, that guitar plays between many of the verses... maybe it's almost over! Nope. Just started. The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitchigumi... Heard the whole thing. All eleventy-seven verses, clear as day. And after the last word of the very last verse, just when the seventies fadeout ending kicked in, loud static began to take over and the signal faded. But before it disappeared completely, I heard the announcer do a station i.d. I had been listening to a radio station two states and a hundred miles away on a day when the fog and rain was so thick the clouds seemed to be sitting down on earth with their feet up.