Random things

OK, here's a deviation from my usual posts.

I've been tagged (a first for me in blogland) by Bec to offer up seven random things about myself.
For those playing along, here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Clearly, I have not been venturing far enough into the blogging world, as I only have one blog to tag for my turn. I'll try and do better in future!

My random things….

1. I'm learning Italian.
I'm working my way through a "Learn Italian in your car" series. So far, I've learned how to ask directions to the airport and train station, and to tell someone the shower is broken: La doccia e rotte. Interestingly, that last word is pronounced "roota", which makes me wonder if it was that word, used by Italian immigrants, which led to the great Australian saying that something is "rooted".


2. Russell Crowe caught me helping myself to his afternoon tea.
This was a few years back (pre Oscar nominations), when he was doing the press rounds for Virtuosity. I was waiting in the hotel room for my 15 minutes of one-on-one interview time. Unfortunately, I'd been left alone with a table full of food, and, when he didn't emerge after about 20 minutes, decided he wouldn't notice if I helped myself to one of his tasty snacks. Naturally, he walked in while I was stuffing my face with a pikelet. The funny thing was, he came in wearing jeans, a flannelette shirt and a three-day growth, and looked uncannily like one of my brothers. And that was why - despite knowing his reputation for not liking journos at the best of times - I cracked up laughing at my predicament instead of grovelling at his feet for forgiveness. To his credit, he graciously ignored my faux pax and gave a surprisingly relaxed interview.

3. After nearly 20 decades of city living, I still feel a connection to the land.
As urbanised as I've become, I have these occasional pangs of longing for the Flinders Ranges… wheat dust in the air at the end of a hot summer day, flocks of noisy white cockatoos screeching in gum trees, dry riverbeds running after winter rains, overcast afternoons where the stillness makes everything feel closer…

4. AC/DC riffs still make me smile. So does the sound of chunky V8 in any Ford or Holden pre 1980. Something about my misspent youth…

5. I once jammed a lit cigarette inside my right nostril.
I was covering a three-day leg of a much longer camel trek through the Northern Territory and South Australia. On the last morning, with a large hang-over, I've gone to open a car door while dangling a cigarette from the corner of my mouth. The door was locked, my hand flew up at a rapid rate, catching the edge of the cigarette and jamming it up my nose. I did such a good job, the burning end welded itself to the inside of my nostril, leaving me swearing and slapping myself like an insane Polish folk dancer.

(Not learning my lesson, a few years later I set a stack of newspapers on fire on the backseat of my car with a cigarette butt, in peak hour traffic in the Brisbane CBD. That incident ended with me throwing burning papers out onto the road and stomping on them, to the sounds of blaring horns and cheering. I've been a non smoker for more than a decade now, and have had far fewer incidents involving burning flesh).

6. I wish my friend Anna was still alive to see my husband and I travelling together. I wish Anna was still alive for so many reasons, but she would especially love to see my previously non-adventurous husband becoming a seasoned traveller in Australia, and planning an overseas trip - something she knew would mean the world to me.

7. I have an amazing circle of friends who have the endless capacity to inspire me. Friends who challenge my spiritual, political and philosophical views; friends who are creative and inventive; friends who work with marginalised communities in Middle Eastern countries; friends who appreciate the simplicity of life and the power of human connections; friends with big hearts and amazing intellects. My world would be a much paler place without them.

My tag:
The Simplest Game

(For regular readers who don't have a blog, feel free to post your seven random things here!)