The 8 random things meme

I've been tagged by Kay.

The rules:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

Eight Random Facts:

1. I've had four passports in my life and I've had to self-guarantee two of them. The first because I was mugged in Italy and had to get an emergency passport in Rome and the second because I had it done in Hong Kong, less than a week after I arrived. I got my first passport not because I was travelling anywhere but in order to get into bars, since I wasn't getting my license and I needed ID. The mugging story is kinda funny - I got away with only losing a small amount of cash and a credit card I wasn't using anyway, as I had two pockets in my money belt and I only handed over one. Which included not only my passport, but also the photocopy of it that I travelled with in case the passport was lost or stolen. Not a very bright place to keep it. And then I had a bit of a time explaining why I had a Scottish sounding accent and lived in Edinburgh and had no proof I was Canadian, but was in need of a new Canadian passport.

2. My baby toes have toenails that grown vertically instead of horizontally. My grandfather had webbed feet apparently (although he had had both legs amputated by the time I was around) and so this was one of the first things my mother would look for as the 4 of us were born. I escaped the webbed toes gene but inherited my paternal grandmothers feet, which frankly aren't much prettier and don't have the added advantage of helping me swim faster.

3. As a child, I thought that everyone was able to stare at things off in the distance and see two of them. And that it was a very amusing game to play when lying in bed just after waking up in the morning. Turns out, I have double vision caused by too many eye muscles in one of my eyes. That isn't uncommon. What is is that I only have the problem at a distance, whereas most people would see double up close as well. The problem gets picked up in children when they have a hard time learning to read in school, which of course never happened to me. Back then, the problem could have been fixed with a pirate-like eyepatch. By the time I found out I needed surgery that involved sticking scalpels into my eye while I was awake. Not unsurprisingly, I turned it down. And no, I don't see 4 when I'm drunk. Though when drunk or very tired I lose my ability to force myself to see single. And it is hell in close up pictures.

4. Speaking of glasses - I lied for a couple of years before admitting I needed them. I couldn't see the blackboard to save my life, but I survived by copying off of people and getting very, very good at guessing what I was seeing. I finally caved and got glasses in grade 8, when our class had a trip planned to see Les Miserables and I knew we were going to have terrible seats. By then my vision was so bad, people would comment on some person in a crowd as being really good-looking and I wouldn't even be able to have picked out said person's gender at the same distance. I don't wear my glasses for anything up close (computer, reading, etc.) or when in my own house. In other people's house, including my parents, or whenever holding a conversation, I feel uncomfortable if they aren't on.

5. The first musical I ever saw was Cats. The first movie I can clearly remember seeing in the theatres was ET.

6. Speaking of early memories, one of the earliest clear ones I have is of visiting my grandfather in the hospital. What is clearest is a memory of walking down long, white corridors with lots of doors.

7. I love shopping for knickknacks when I travel to decorate with one day, when I have my own place. This is in spite of the fact that I can't, in a million years, actually imagine owning my own place. If you've recently bought a house and my response has been along the lines of comatose, it's because I haven't the slightest clue what to say. Things like house-ownership are so out of my lifestyle they leave me tongue-tied.

8. My book-buying obsession stems from working in a bank. I was always a fairly prolific book-buyer, but until then I basically only bought as many as I could read. Excluding textbooks. Naturally, I bought those and then perversely went off and read something else - related, but not what was on the list (the worst classes for that was ones that made you buy those photocopied collections of readings. There is no sensual pleasure to be gained from reading from that kind of material. I would just go out and buy normal, every day books on the same subjects and read them instead). However, I walked past 3 or 4 charity shops on my way home from work in Edinburgh and would be so depressed by my job that I would buy books to cheer me up. They made me feel that even though I wasn't required to use more than a couple of braincells at work, I was still using my brain. However, in two years I acquired about 400 books. I will have to retire early to ever catch up in my reading and I am these days known for my insanely large libraries, regardless of how short a time I have lived somewhere.

I tag Kristie, Sofiya, Thistle, MsP, lincolnzoe, gosling, Jenny, Sam.