Anna asked me on her recent post to post 5 things people don’t know about me. Of course, that’s a tightrope act – post 5 things people really don’t know or 5 things that are fairly safe that most of my 9 readers already know. Here’s my go at it:

1) I played in a mariachi. This is the one fact I trot out during those awful office ice breakers that peaks people’s interest. I can perform a marginal “grito” and can sing great hits like “De Colores”, “Jalisco” and “Solamenta Una Vez”. Of course, my all time favorite that I didn’t get to perform is “Cascabel”.

2) I’m an orchestra snob. When I watch movies that involve actors portraying string players, I get twitchy if they’re doing poorly. If you can film a real pianist’s hands playing, why can’t you cut to a real violinist’s? All I see are collapsed wrists and bows all over the place. Ugh.

In 7th grade, I lived in Dallas and we were allowed to choose what magnet school we’d attend, I chose the music magnet. Our Orchestra had won All City and I was the youngest member of the Jr. Honors Orchestra. Unfortunately, in regards to my music, I came back to Austin to one of the lousiest music programs in the US. (We played “Never Smile at a Crocodile” in a high school performance and it was a BAD performance – trust me when I say it takes great skill to screw up this piece.) That’s when my parents stepped in and got me into the University’s String Project – a phenomenal organization and they helped get my high school orchestra leader dismissed. Supposedly, I learned composition and history there, but thankfully my original compositions have disappeared. I could write one mean Gregorian chant, though.

Lately, I’ve been considering taking lessons (again) after listening to Dvorac’s New World Symphony (Syphony No. 9 from the New World, if you prefer) – I’ve played it before with full orchestra in college and know the symphony inside and out. Everyone should own this. My goal would be to join the Austin Civic Orchestra. It’s intimidating and it makes me dearly miss the calluses I used to have built up on my fingers. Strings hurt! Plus, I hate auditions.

3) I can cross my toes. Not just my big toe and the toe next to it, but my little toes. In fact, I’m doing it now.

4) I am fiercely loyal (some of my friends can expound on that).

5) Wow, I made it to #5 and now I find only 5 to be limiting. So, let’s just blurt the rest out: I like my hair when it’s an eggplant shade. I deeply miss working for PBS (don’t tell anyone). I hate e-mail forwards because people do not fact check before hitting “send” and for the record – I’m a liberal (yes, I realize some of you just fell over), I also believe in God (well, there go the rest of you) – how I reconcile evolution is my business. A large number of women in my family have been in abusive relationships – so, it takes me a long time to trust new men in our family. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but I don’t want to be haunted. I think I’m highly perceptive. I think that sentence sounds arrogant. I have a green belt in Tae Kwon Do and was close to my blue belt when I developed a tear in a group of muscles; I couldn’t hurt anyone then or now, but I did perform a lovely sweeping kick once that knocked a guy on his ass and despite my training to be impassive, I’m still proud. AND I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, but it’s not what I am now.

For no particular reason – my songs: Robert Earl Keen’s “Feeling Good Again”, Lyle Lovett’s “If I had a Boat”, Michael Andrew’s “Mad World” and Leslie King’s version of “Wild Horses”. Oh, and it’s not that I think this is a great song, but I really appreciate the Dixie Chick’s “Not Ready to Make Nice”.

My movies: “Sex, Lies & Videotape” and “Sense and Sensibility”

I’m not sure what that all says about me, if anything, but there it is.