La regla de ocho

I have done the "Eight things about myself" meme before, but I got tagged again by the Myopic Legion, so I must comply. Of course, I have spent some time wondering qué carajo más puedo decir de mí. My life is not a veritable mine of exciting memories, which is why my plan of writing a brilliant memoir is dead before it even began. But let's start scraping the bottom of the barrel and give it a try:

1- My middle name is Cristina. It's not my favorite name, so I hardly ever use it. It evokes images of bratty self-centered princesses I may or may not have gone to school with.

2- Although to me it is quite obvious that I look like a Puerto Rican, I have been asked if I am Russian, Czech or Middle Eastern, among others. Must be the nose.

3- Years ago I had an episode of automatic writing. Well, more like scribbling. I have never known what to make of it. Some of the people I was hanging out with at the time were into esoteric and New Age stuff (for lack of a better term). I was on a spiritual quest of sorts, and trying hard to suppress my natural skepticism in favor of keeping an open mind. So it's very possible that the power of suggestion was responsible for my scribblings. It never happened again. These days I would be more interested in automatic writing of the surrealist kind.

4- I get obsessed with songs and have to listen to them repeatedly, over and over and over again, until I get them out of my system. As I write this, I am listening obessively to a song by Orishas called "El kilo". Tremendo bla, bla, bla, tremendo guaguancó.

5- My only regret in life is that I smoked. Like a chimney. For years.

6- I am taking my laptop with me on the trip. I don't plan on checking any work stuff and my boss already said he is not going to bother me while I am gone. But I want to be able to read my favorite blogs and maybe post once or twice on mine. I'll probably do it when we retire for the night or early in the morning before we set out to the beach.

7- I don't have any tattoos or piercings, other than my ears (and I hardly wear earrings). I got nothing against people who get them; it's just not my thing. I can understand the appeal of tattoos; I have seen some very cool ones. But for the life of me I do not get the piercings.

8- I collect stamps. How's that for being nerdy and anachronistic?