for a change

Okay, tagged, by the Tart of Fiction. Participating in one of these meme things never seemed like the Baroque way, but I'm poorly, and I want to get out of the one where I write 'five things feminism has done for me'.

And by the way, did we realise that the very word 'meme' was coined by Richard Dawkins? If Wikipedia says it it must be.

So:















eight things about me

1. I wrote my first story at the age of four, dictating (even then an infant Late Period Henry James) to my mother at her typewriter (who looked just like Anne Sexton at hers). It was about a "very, very old" fairy, who was 24.

2. "You're so camp, you should have been a trannie!" - Jen Pepper, admiringly, to me, 1999.

3. I wrote a roman a clef - that is, half of one - based on my extended family. I sent it to my mother, she sent it to my aunt, and my aunt said, "So that's what she was doing all those years: the human tape recorder!" (It's their fault; I took notes. They should never have given me Harriet the Spy.)

4. By popular demand in the film of my life I must be played by Jennifer Saunders. For years I've been pleading for Judi Dench, at least in the older bits, but they all chorus, "Whaddayou, kidding!!!" Gutting, really.

5. I raised the money to come to London by nannying full-time for two families, 70 hours a week and up to 9 kids at a time. I took three of them to a children's fair at Mark Twain's house one day and I overheard two old ladies sighing sentimentally to each other as I passed: "Isn't she a good mother!" The oldest kid was 3; I was 18. I thought they could at least disapprove!

6. My boss, in front of a rep, 1988: "you are so arrogant, you always think you know everything! And you're lazy! How could you forget to do [whatever-it-was]! Your head is like a - a - a, one of those things with holes in... " (voice trails off)
Me, helpfully, still in front of rep: " a sieve, Liz. My head is like a sieve."

7. I can do maths. I can knit, I can sew, I can get the best deal on a mobile, and I make perfect pastry. Every time.

8. "The trouble with her is, she's either a genius or crazy." Tom Vink-Lainas, New York 1979. (It's okay, he's my uncle.)