Lucky Brand Geometric Cardigan via Gwynnie Bee, size 3x

Yep, I’m doing this thing.

Five Things You Don’t Know About Me

1. I used to love scary things – like movies and books, haunted houses. In the past few years, though, I find I get SO so disturbed by them it’s just not…good. I KNOW they’re not real. But that’s irrelevant. I remember when I first started watching The Walking Dead a few years ago because friends were raving about it – I barely made it past the first few episodes because it was just so disturbing to me to watch. And I can’t REALLY figure out why. It’s not like I was afraid they were REAL, or that this would really happen and they would come for me (ha). I mean, really, the show was pretty bad – the dialogue and acting were So Bad, so it’s not like I got tricked into the faux reality of it.

Just recently I read a book called The Dogs of Babel. It started out sweet, sad, quirky, lovely, all my favorite things. But just about halfway in, it got So Disturbing, I almost couldn’t continue. If it had been a movie I might have walked out. I mean, I know good stories are supposed to make you FEEL something, but I don’t want to feel like THAT. I did
finish it, the situation did resolve itself more or less and I recommend the book highly. The point is, a few years ago I feel like I would have thought “wow, that was a really good book, it really made me feel all those things.” Now, I maybe don’t WANT to “feel all those things,” as some of them are just too uncomfortable. Is this just a part of getting older? Or…?

2. If I had been born a boy, my parents were going to name me Rusty. Rusty Rainwater. Parents can be so cruel.

3. For the first 35ish years of my life I believed I was part (1/16, to be exact) Cherokee Indian. Because my Great Great Great Grandma Mudd (with her corncob pipe and two long braids) was a Cherokee Indian. At 58, I can’t exactly remember who shared this information with me – I’m assuming it was my mother. I FEEL like it was my mother. But All My Life I believed this to be true. With a name like Rainwater, people were always asking if I was part Indian, and I proudly told them “Yes. Yes, I am. I am 1/16th Cherokee Indian.” I assumed that’s where my love of horses came from. And my feeling of
being at my best when I was close to nature. I never thought TOO much about it. My mother (I think) had told me and I believed her. Just like a parent tells you about Santa Claus. Or that you’re Jewish. Or Swedish. Or whatever. You don’t QUESTION it. They tell you what you are and you accept it.

HOWEVER. Sigh. A few years after my mother died (she died when I was 30) and we were at my aunt’s (my mother’s remaining living sister) house, in conversation with my sister, something was mentioned about us being part Cherokee Indian. “WHAT?!?” And she proceeded to break my heart that day by telling me that we (and I) are NOT part Cherokee Indian, not even a little teeny tiny bit. Not even 1/32. She’d never even heard such a story. I felt like I’d just found out I was adopted. Because a part of me that I had believed to be a certain way All My Life…was not that way at all. I was not who I had always thought I was. And to this day, I have no way of knowing if my mother was just goofing on us and laughing at me for years and years when I believed the story…or if someone had told HER the story and she, also believing it to be true, passed it along to me and my sister. So NOW when someone hears that my last name is Rainwater and asks if I’m part Indian, I say “I used to be.” And still have a story to tell.

4. I don’t like when it stops raining…or if the sun comes out after it snows. I prefer the dark weathery days.

5. When I was nine I had a HUGE crush on Laurie Partridge of The Partridge Family. One of her many enviable talents was being able to raise one eyebrow in a charmingly quizzical fashion. So I sat at my vanity table every night teaching myself to be able to do the same. I’d hold my right eyebrow in place and raise just my left eyebrow. Time after after, night after night…until eventually I could do it as naturally as Laurie (we were on
a first name basis by that point). WELL, 49 years later, my left eye is actually LARGER than my right eye due to all those years of raising JUST that eyebrow. It’s weird looking and I hate it. CURSES, LAURIE PARTRIDGE! CURSES!!!

Now you know a little more about me. Why don’t you share something about you??

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