I hate forwarded emails with a passion. I’m already crippling myself by being on the computer and it just pisses me off when I have to look at stupid stuff unexpectedly.
So it’s really surprising how taken I have been with a “forward” of sorts that’s been going around Facebook. Many of my friends have posted lists of 25 random things about themselves. The lists run the gamut from hilarious to thought-provoking to inspiring and downright heartrending.
One blog reader commented when meeting me in person that it was totally weird because he knew all this stuff about me but I didn’t know anything about him! Well, I’m totally going to up the ante now and post my 25 random things and see if I can still surprise any of you.
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1. I stopped speaking to my Dad at age 11 and didn’t talk to him again until I was 21. (I found him after my aunt kicked me out of her apartment and forced me to look for places on my own. I went to look at an apartment share with a friend who warned me not to move in with the shady guy. I didn’t but in the building, I was hit by deja vu. I realized my cousins who I hadn’t seen since I was 15 lived in the building. I knocked on a random door and I found them. They led me to an aunt in the neighborhood who I hadn’t seen since I was 2 and she called me father.)
2. I haven’t spoken to my mother in 10 years. I celebrated the 10th year anniversary of this occasion this past summer in Los Angeles.
3. I was almost arrested for kidnapping my 14-year-old sister.
4. I fought my mother for custody of my sister in a three-year court battle.
5. My favorite color always has been blue. (Sadly, it’s one of the few things my father knows about me outside of my birthday.)
6. One year I watched almost every Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen movie ever made.
7. I don’t have cable but I have an HD-TV. (Thanks Bubbie Irene!)
8. My little sister is my best friend.
9. I wish I was good at science or math, not writing.
10. I have fibromyalgia so I’m in chronic pain every day and almost no one knows anything about it. I still have friends who don’t understand why I don’t call them as much, if at all, and why I don’t hang out as much, if at all, as I used to do.
11. I changed my name legally to Aliza Moriah Ben-Tzion. (If you go into my writing portfolio, you can find articles written in my old name. This includes the tale of visiting my father after our nearly 10-year estrangement and the story of kidnapping my sister.)
12. My high school students used to call me “Drop it Like It’s Hot” Diaz after they saw me dance at a school event. Too many students asked me out after that one. Never dance in front of teenage boys!
13. I ran away from home at 17 and never went back. I have said many times that I never had a real childhood.
14. I don’t drink alcohol ever.
15. My mother took me to a witch doctor to try to cure my allergies. (It didn’t work. But I believed her and I thought I was cured and got cats as an adult. Bad move. Now I can’t get within one foot of a cat—or dogs–without becoming asthmatic.)
16. When I was little, I hated visiting family in Santiago–flying cockroaches and outdoor latrines!
17. I met my husband at a party in Washington Heights, which I had said before I would NEVER return to visit.
18. I am two years younger than my husband. I wish it was the reverse especially for the purposes of baby making.
19. I used to get teased as a kid a lot. I got called “white girl” and “Leader of the Nerd Patrol.” I still have an uncanny ability to attract people who have abusive tendencies.
20. I didn’t kiss a boy until I was 17 and he was my first boyfriend. He came out of the closet after dating me. I coped with much needed therapy.
21. Going to Italy in early January was the first time I went to Europe. Going to Israel in 2006 was the first tme I’d ever been out of the US (visiting the Dominican Republic doesn’t count!).
22. When I’m really bored (i.e., overwhelmed from all the reading I have to do), I sometimes catch episodes of “Gossip Girl.”
23. When I was little, I wanted to be Superman. As I got older, I fell in love with him. I have watched ever single episode of “Smallville” no matter how cheesy. I am diehard fan of superhero films.
24. I am the oldest of about 10 siblings–2 full siblings and 7 half-siblings.
25. People always think I look younger and weigh less than I really do: I am turning 29 this year and I weight 142 lbs. I wish I was turning 25 and weighed 120 lbs.
I’d love to hear you post some random things about you! You don’t have to go for the full 25!
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 
I started blogging again because I started reading your blog along with Mottel’s at Letters of Thought.
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Here are some of mine:1) I love reading.2) I’m saddened that shortwave radio broadcasts to North America are largely a thing of the past.3) I have been married for 13 years and have one child, a boy, who is almost 8.4) I miss both of my grandmothers deeply, they passed away in 1997 and 2001 respectively.5) I’m turning 49 next week which is hard to believe.6) I like to lap swim.7) My Sephardic synagogue in Chicago is very dear to me as is our amazing Rav.8) I think “Memoir of a Jewminicana” is one of the more thoughtful Jewish blogs out there.9) My religious heroes are Rav Ben Zion Uziel, Rav Yosef Baer Soleveitchik, Father Thomas Merton, and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.10) I wonder if there will ever be peace in Medinat Yisrael.11) I’m proud to be a Religious Zionist but I wonder if that movement has put too much currency into the Yesha Settlement movement.12) I think Warren Harding may have been a much better president than he is given credit for.13) I’m a Civil War/Lincoln buff and have probably read just about every book on the topic.14) I couldn’t bring myself to vote for either Obama or McCain last year and supported Chuck Baldwin’s insurgent candidacy instead for president.15) I love to cook for my family and enjoy in particular fixing up Szechuan Chicken, Indian style Curry Chicken, Adobe baisted Mexican turkey, and German Sauerbroten(Pot Roast.)16) My Dad died almost four years ago and my step-Dad is equally cool.17) I enjoying studying Gmera and the classical Torah commentators, Ramban being my favourite.18) I applied to YCT Rabbinical School in 2008 and didn’t get in.19) My two favourite national anthems are “Advance Australia Fair” and the Dutch “Willem van Nassau.”20) I think the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation must have had an “Elliot Spitzer What was I Thinking Moment” when it cancelled Catherine Bellyea’s amazing classical radio program “Here’s to You”, that I used listen daily over the internet.21) I believe the international community failed miserably when it refused to recognize Ian Smith’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Rhodesia and ultimately handed the country over to Robert Mugabe. I fear that Israel might be “Lancaster Housed” someday over the Palestinians.22) I’ve corresponded, since 1983, with a chap in Cape Town, South Africa who visited me in ’01 and regularly remembers my birthday with an African tie.23) The best family vacation I ever took was in 2005 when my wife, son, and two cousins drove out to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.24) I have been an advid stamp collector since 1984.25) I look forward to the time when Rabanit Hausman, and her husband, are guests at my table for Shabbat.
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Nice random list. A good mix of the brainy, family-oriented and interesting. I’d love to be a guest at your table. Thanks!
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