All righty, I've been very slow with these sorts of things lately. I was tagged ages ago by Carol and by a couple of other people, I think, but I've been running all over the place again and I haven't been able to get to it.
The rules, though they're kind of pointless, since I've run out of people to tag:
a. Link to the person who tagged you.
b. Post the rules on your blog.
c. Write six random things about yourself.
d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.
f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.
There’s probably not much you don’t know about me by now. In fact, you probably know everything I want you to know at this stage (g). Nonetheless, here are six _more_ random things about me:
1. I have degrees in archaeology, Italian language, and occupational safety and health management. Doesn’t get much more varied than that, does it?
2. At last count, I’ve visited just on 200 cities across five continents (I'm only missing Africa and Antarctica)
3. I can clasp my hands in front of me, then get my arms over my head and behind my back without taking them apart. It’s a great party trick.
4. My Noongar name is Chitty-chitty, after the little black willy wag-tail bird that hops from side to side chattering incessantly. Two guesses how I came about that name…
5. I’ve learned six languages in my life (English, Dutch, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Italian) and forgotten most of them (except English and Italian)
6. There are two movies I can’t watch- I literally dissolve into panic attacks when they’re on. Watership Down and (weirdly, for an archaeologist) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
So there you are.
Excerpt from Between the Lines
A memory wavered into his mind, shimmery as heat rising off the road in summer.
He was six years old, and he’d been in Stonehaven no more than a week. He was hollow and lonely, confused. He missed the bustle of Melbourne. He missed the other kids on his street, the whole gang of them and their scampy games. He was stuck out in the bush, all of a sudden, with nobody but Lionel for company. Lionel had spent the first day ignoring him completely, and the last few beating the stuffing out of him whenever he got the chance. So that day, he’d wandered out to the back garden, if it could even be called that- just a scrubbed, flat expanse of hot red dirt with a veil of tangled trees and shrubs behind it.
The bush.
On impulse, he’d taken a couple of steps toward it, bare feet burning on the hot ground. The air was filled with the lemony scent of eucalyptus and the fresh tang of the distant sea. He'd filled his lungs and the two steps had turned into six, then ten, then before he knew it he was running headlong toward the wall of whispering green and brown, pushing all his mother’s warnings about snakes and savages from his head. He barrelled between the first spicy-scented leaves and, to his surprise, popped out on a sort of beaten down track, hidden from view of the house. After a moment’s pause to wonder how many strokes of the belt he’d get for this, he set off down the track toward the most interesting noise he’d heard so far- the babbling giggle of flowing water, and laced in with it, the high, clear notes of a girl’s voice, singing.
He stepped off the track with his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly terrified as he caught side of the wide river bank and the rolling mass of glassy green water.
She was standing there, all right- a girl not much taller than him, skinny as a rake, skin the golden brown of tree bark lit by sun. A cascade of golden curls rolled over her shoulders to skim at her waist, tendrils flicking out here and there as she drew back her arm and lobbed a big rock into the water.
He watched it go, traced the arc with his eyes until it hit the water with a loud splash and was swallowed. She was singing, still, her voice high and clear. She was wearing a white dress that finished at her knees and puffed into short sleeves at her shoulders. He looked down at himself, his grey shorts and jumper coated in jam, dirt and everything else he’d been busy with that morning. He stared at her back with suspicion. She was pristine. The only dirty bit of her was her feet, bare as his.
If it hadn’t been for those feet, he might have thought she was an angel. Or a ghost.
Friday, May 2, 2008
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