Wow, A Blog Award!

Clay and Corina have both decided to give me the Versatile Blogger Award. Thank you, to both of you. You are both good writers, and you both handle such a broad range of subjects so well, it's an honor to be chosen by you.

Anyway, this award, like so many others, comes with a meme: now that I have it, I have to share seven things about myself and then pass the award on to seven other bloggers I like (and, presumably, think are versatile).

Seven weird, random fun facts about me:

1. If you follow pop psychology at all (and I do --- we all need something to snicker at), you'll have heard something about digit ratio; if the ring finger is longer than the index finger, it means you're more masculine. Simon Baron-Cohen has also tried to tie digit ratios to autism, as per his theory that autism = hypermasculinity.

Being a big, butch, queer autistic woman, I naturally wanted to see if I displayed the expected masculine pattern of finger lengths, so I measured mine --- all the while taking it about as seriously as a newspaper horoscope or a fortune cookie, mind --- and found that each of my hands has a different digit ratio. On the left hand, the ring finger is longer than the index finger; on the right, they're the same length.

2. I have enormous trouble telling right from left. At *best*, I have to hold up my hands in an "L" shape and see which one makes the "L" point the right direction to determine right from left; at worst, I forget which way an "L" is supposed to point so I just pick one at random.

This runs in my family; my grandmother and sister are like that too. (My grandmother would always get teased at work about "Polish lefts").

3. I've flown an airplane! A Cessna 172. It was one of those introductory flying lessons, where the instructor helps you do the pre-flight checks and sits next to you while you take off and fly around, then takes over when it's time to land.

4. I love M&Ms, but have "rules" for eating them. I eat them in groups of 3, 5 or 6, either all the same color or one of each color. (If its groups of three different-colored ones, lately I've been only eating primary colors. Other colors I just eat in single-color handfuls).

5. When I was a kid, I was terrified of bees and wasps. Like, if I saw one I would freeze up and have to go inside RIGHT AWAY. I am still jumpy around wasps, as they seem to be less predictable than bees.

6. All Gatorade tastes green to me.

7. My oldest T-shirt, which has a design of a cow skull on the front, a bald eagle carrying off a diamondback rattlesnake on the back, with red, blue and black tie-dye on the sleeves and sides, dates from when I was 8 years old. This is impressive when you consider how large I am now --- I bought begged my mom to buy the shirt not in the size I wore then, but in a bigger size I could grow into. That bigger size was a men's large; as a kid I had the notion I would grow up to be as big as my father. (Yes, I knew I was a girl, and knew I would not grow up to be a man. I still thought I would grow up to be just like my father, only female).

So, now, seven people I think are versatile bloggers!

Urocyon
Amanda Baggs (probably a bit hubristic for me to name her, since her writing helped make up the foundation of online neurodiversity, but she practically defines "versatile blogger," so I'd feel weird not naming her)
Clarissa
Astrid
Daisy

... and two more who don't seem to be writing for the general public anymore, but who are both terrific writers who tackle a broad array of topics with aplomb: Anemone Cerridwen and Kowalski.