(But First, A Ridiculous Preamble)
Tonight I was reading one dude’s entertaining post in response to a “Seven Things No One Knows About You” meme. This led me to recall the fact that a number of perfectly lovely people have “tagged” me with such memes in the past. However, because I am a surly and uncooperative person (the handful of people who will read this already know this about me), I failed to respond. (So too with well-intentioned “blogging awards.”)
First, I don’t have too many secrets. (Particularly from those following me on Twitter. The poor wretches.) Second, if I wanted to make lists of stuff about my life that could be considered freaky (shall we talk about the funeral of my uncle, which had its own bouncer, or about being reported as a missing person in 1993 to Washington State police?), I could do that full time and never run out of material. Third, my best material is precisely the stuff I need to pull together for more sustained narratives – e.g., more short stories and fewer itemized blog posts. (And when I get better at finishing the goddamned stories I start – and, omigawd, start sending out work again – this is the last thing I published – can you say “pathetic”? – I need to move back in the direction of books.)
But whatever. Tonight I figured, “oh why the fuck not.1” So, following are seven things you don’t (or at least, probably don’t) know about me, which, rather than being individually substantive, are tangential but still (one hopes) relevant. I should be able to keep that short and sweet, right?
Seven things about two brands of whiskey I’d just as soon never drink, and why
- I am named after the granddaughter of the founder of Southern Comfort, whom my parents met at William and Mary: a woman named Vikki Fowler. (This has something to do with my blog’s title, although that’s only part of it.) I’m told I met her as a baby, and that she may have gone to Africa (on the inspiration of the 1966 film, Born Free, supposedly); in any event, a relative of hers, reached at the Fowler Museum of Cultural History some years ago, had no idea where Vikki ended up; in fact, she said if I ever learned what had become of Vikki, to please let her know. (I’d still really like to know.)
- Yet I can’t stand whiskey.
- Which is because whiskey was the beverage of choice for one of my most heinous ex-girlfriends, late in 1990 through early 1991.
- Who claimed to have a (juvenile) record for attempted murder, and whose behavior was otherwise sufficiently terrorizing that still, from time to time I run her name through her hometown newspaper’s search engines, because what’s more interesting to read than any given town’s police blotter?
- Which is how I know that among items she has been arrested for stealing (in addition to violent crime arrests), one of these was, indeed, a bottle of whiskey.
- However, that whiskey was not Southern Comfort. It was Black Velvet, which I understand is a) Canadian and b) Also the name of an extraordinarily cheesy late 80s tune recorded by one Alannah Myles.
- Who was just her type.
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1 Not to worry, however. I will not further perpetuate the tagging-with-memes thing; I trust that if you feel like writing something in response to the “seven things” notion, that you will, and that if you don’t, you won’t, and I will love you just the same.
