I’ve been tagged by Joe Drew and Grey Hodge for Seven Things, the syphilis of blog memes.

The rules

1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

Seven things

1. I was obsessed with many things as a kid, and one of those was lizards. This started at age 8, when I realized my mom would not let us get a second cat but had no policy regarding reptiles. In the beginning I got geckos and anoles, but eventually I grew my collection to about 15 lizards at a time. At its peak, I was managing complex feeding schedules and vitamin ratios, ordering weekly boxes of live crickets, and seeing a specialized reptile vet when something was sick. I was also the youngest regular participant at monthly Missouri reptile conventions, where my favorite attendees were the biker dudes with iguanas in matching miniature leather jackets.

2. My first website, Jennynet, launched in 1992, when I was 8. It featured a Myst fan site (in ’93), a care guide for various reptile species (see #1), a form you could fill out if you wanted me to send free stickers in the mail, links, a bio, and a shoutout to various friends and relatives (which proved useless since none had modems). The HTML was written in SimpleText documents, and the graphics were made in Kid Pix.

3. My first official paychecked job was as a train conductor at a zoo.

4. I love altitude, and my favorite physical activities involve it; hang gliding, flying planes, and skydiving. It’s my goal to get certified in all three in the next few years.

5. Two people have proposed to me.

6. My vision is horrible. I’m legally blind (-8 in each eye), and colorblind too. I wanted to be a fighter pilot as a kid, but was told it would never happen because of my vision. Turns out they were lying because of laser correction. Oh well.

7. Last week I nearly rick-rolled Nancy Pelosi. I got tickets to Obama’s inauguration by calling Pelosi’s office early and getting on their list, and subsequently flew to DC for Obamastock (which was awesome). Afterwards, everyone who got tickets was invited to a Pelosi-hosted lunch near the capitol. I went, wondering if Pelosi herself would show up for congressional cold cuts. She did! This was only a short time after Pelosi ruined rick-rolling by releasing a video of her cats which cut to Astley halfway through. So, seeing Pelosi across the room, I realized we had to exact revenge (for the glory of the internets). I turned to my friend Akiva and asked what devices he had on him. He had an iPhone – perfect! I suggested we go up to Pelosi and say oh, Nancy dear, you won’t believe the horrible video of you on YouTube, here, have a look – and then pull an iPhone Astley on her. Unfortunately, by the time our scheme was ready to go, she’d slipped out of the room and we couldn’t find her afterwards.

I’m tagging no one, because this madness must end.