Play with me!

The internet is a great place to play games, and I don't mean Grand Theft Auto or anything (can you play that online??). My friend Ellen Meister has given me a virtual "tag" to tell you 10 interesting facts about myself. I suspect the silent caveat is "little-known." This is hard. Stay tuned later for an essay from Lynn Freed, "Taming the Gorgon" out of her most recent book, Reading, Writing and Leaving Home.

10 Things you may not know about me

1. I enjoy soy sauce on avocado. (Soy sauce was the condiment of choice in my household as a kid).

2. My life was saved at the age of ten by my grandfather (Opa) who did the Heimlich on me as I choked on one of the little chocolate pastilles my Oma insisted I eat. (I should thank him for that again, eh?)

3. My father was born in Jerusalem, Israel. My grandparents met on a kibbutz when it was still Palestine. But I am the least Jewish person I know, forever having to shrug sadly and say, "sorry!" to the statement (which, I kid you not, I've gotten more than a dozen times), "You're one of OUR people." (I wish I was).

4. I have met the following celebrities in the following circumstances:
-The lady that played Mrs. Howell on Gilligan's Island in a Palm Springs hotel pool when I was 10. She swam with her head above water, but gave me her autograph.
-I encouraged singer Huey Lewis to buy the red sweatshirt, not the yellow after a fawning salesgirl held it up to him at a Gap in Marin county. He did!
-Deborah Santana (wife of Santana), Jill Eikenberry and the wife of one of the Metallica guys used to work out at a Mill Valley health club & spa where I worked.

5. In my former life as a massage therapist, I gave massages to: Margo Timmins, lead singer of the band The Cowboy Junkies, The Reverend Cecil Williams of the famous Glide Memorial Church in SF and a scary CIA guy, a woman who's entire tan peeled off under my hands, an autistic man.

6. I have had a shamanic clearing (sans peyote).

7. I have never seen a ghost.

8. I went to high school with one of Jerry Garcia's youngest daughters.

9. For about three months, when I was 12, I used to make myself pass out with my friend Simonetta for "the rush." (A piece of short fiction about this, titled "Breathless," will be live at Spoiled Ink Magazine in February).

10. **In one of my most shameful moments of my adult life, some years ago, in a very upset emotional state, I exceeded my drinking limits (which are very low to begin with) while with good friends. After I passed out (yes, went unconscious!), they poured water on my pants and took photographs of me to make it look as though I had wet myself. **Caveat--I am not a big drinker! This was a rare event and I feel the need to exhonerate myself of a bad reputation before I get one.

Who's next?