Blog 54

All of these stories are true, but they aren’t all mine. Guess which one isn’t!

1. My dad is a mercenary. He’s American, but lives in another country as a gun for hire by a Middle Eastern government. He’s ex-military, but before that printed newspapers and marched in a world class Drum Corps (marching band on steroids). Obviously, this had a large impact on how I grew up.

2. I love reptiles. In my senior year of high school, my best friend went on Craigslist and bought two desert Leopard Geckos. To her surprise, they ended up being opposite genders and to stop the vicious “fighting”, I got a gecko. Unoriginally, I named him Lizzie. I’d stick him in a large hamster ball and we’d frolic around together. Last summer, he stopped eating and was severely suffering.  On the pet store’s advice, I froze him to be humane. What do you do with a frozen gecko corpse? I threw him ceremonially down a waterfall not far from campus and hoped that he would get eaten and that his molecules would get recycled into the great cycle of life

3.  My aunt is truly a phenomenal woman. Until recently, she lived on a mountain in Colorado, where she raised wolves on her property and kept them as semi-docile pets. At some point in her life, she was the principal of a high school, and always a devout Catholic. Although I don’t share her faith, I’ve always admired her patience and dedication to being a nun. Last year she was appointed Mother Superior! (of the Franciscan Order)