Shannon Stacey


Thursday Thirteen #3
Thirteen Totally Random Things About Me Because I Got Stuck on 9 While Doing Thirteen Bits of Writing Advice I Totally Ignore :

1. I hate gel toothpaste. My mother always said “When you grow up and have your own house, you can buy paste”, and I do. The last day I lived at home was the last day I used gel.

2. I have a birthmark everybody thinks is a hickie. It’s a grouping of…18 (?) freckles kind of under my jaw where it meets my neck.

3. I’ve worn glasses since I was six and have never had any desire for contacts or that new corrective surgery. (So, I’m 34. Your eyes change. Would I have to have surgery again in 10-15 years?)

4. I love asparagus, spinach, broccolli (even if I can’t spell it) and brussel sprouts. Not as much as I love Doritos, but I do love me some greens now and again. Not fiddleheads, though. My mother and the person to whom she was married at the time used to make us eat those when we lived in Maine and they’re nasty.

5. I bit my nails horribly until I was 20. Why did I quit then? That’s when I got my shiny engagement ring and I was too embarrassed by my nails to show it off. (The theory was put forth to me that the underlying issues which caused this habit were cured by finding somebody willing to sticky by me for better or worse, but honestly, I just wanted to show off the bling.)

6. I call the television remote control a “flipper”. My husband makes fun of me, but I think my dad calls it that. When all else fails, blame a parent.

7. I’ve cut back from 4 large Dunkin Donuts iced coffees (cream only) per day to 2. I’m supplementing with a new addiction to mandarin orange seltzer water.

8. I hate tulips. I mean, seriously hate them. But when I try to dig them up, I end up splitting the bulb things and even more grow back. They’re evil and they’re multiplying and I want them all to die.

9. The song currently rocking my world: “Starts with Goodbye” by Carrie Underwood.

10. My first submission was a partial to Leslie Wainger for…I think it was the “Yours, Truly” line? They had a line where the meet came through written communication. Looking back, it was not only amateurish work, but there was no conflict. None. There was no reason this couple couldn’t have lived HEA from page one. She sent me a rejection letter with two paragraphs detailing some of the problems, and I must have read it a gazillion times. That was probably…11 or 12 years ago? I don’t remember now.

11. Actually, I’m not sure if that was my first sub. It was around that time I sent some queries out for my 100+k time travel in which the heroine traveled back to the American Civil War. Yeah, umm…time travel and Civil War. You can imagine how the phone lines jammed with editors trying to call me. (I still love the title though, which I won’t share and will use someday.)

12. I was born in Wareham, Mass—hometown of Geena Davis. I aggravate my husband by every time she’s mentioned/seen, saying “Hey, my dad went to school with her.” The promotional build-up to “Commander in Chief” was an especially annoying time.

13. My mother and I spent a brief time living in Texas when I was young—I remember having my fifth birthday there. My husband also spent a year or so living there when he left the Marine Corps—he was 22. The Blizzard of ’78 was mentioned tonight and we were talking about how he inadvertently timed his return home to NH so that he drove through the blizzard. The dates tumbled into place in my head. My husband and I—neither of whom are from Texas, spent much time there, nor have ever been back—were both living in Texas in 1977. That’s kinda freaky cool, huh? (Also in the freaky department, the 17-year age difference sounds so much worse when he was twenty-two and I was five. Fifty-one and thirty-four just doesn’t seem so…weird.)

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11 comments to “Thursday Thirteen #3”

  1. May
    Comment
    1
      · February 1st, 2007 at 10:22 am · Link

    I’ve been wearing glasses since I was seven. I did the contacts thing, but my eyes are dry so they are a pain. I’ll probably have the surgery though.



  2. Jaci Burton
    Comment
    2
      · February 1st, 2007 at 10:39 am · Link

    Now I have to wear glasses because contacts don’t work for me. But I’d do lasik in a heartbeat.

    And I still bite my nails. :doh:

    I haven’t heard that Carrie song. Must go listen.



  3. Angie
    Comment
    3
      · February 1st, 2007 at 10:37 am · Link

    I haven’t heard that Carrie Underwood song yet. And I hate gel toothpaste too. It comes from trying to eat an entire sample tube of it when I was in pre-school. Blech.



  4. Karen
    Comment
    4
      · February 1st, 2007 at 10:57 am · Link

    I’m so not a fan of the gel. And somehow ended up with a husband and son who both demand it.
    We’re a multiple toothpaste household :vampire:



  5. tvaddictgurl
    Comment
    5
      · February 1st, 2007 at 1:10 pm · Link

    I still bite my nails. I keep quitting and then restarting.



  6. Michelle
    Comment
    6
      · February 1st, 2007 at 1:22 pm · Link

    I wear contacts and would do lasik in a heartbeat too :heart:! And Carrie Underwood ROCKS! :cheer:



  7. Maria Duncan
    Comment
    7
      · February 1st, 2007 at 5:22 pm · Link

    I love my glasses, I think I look weird without them. And don’t feel strange about the spinach, asparagus and brussels thing. I love cabbage!



  8. Natalie J. Damschroder
    Comment
    8
      · February 1st, 2007 at 7:14 pm · Link

    Look at it this way, Shan: Even if your eyes change, you’d have gone 10-15 years WITHOUT glasses. :boogie:

    I started wearing glasses when I was six and got contacts when I was 15. My eyes were worsening yearly or faster until I got the contacts, and it slowed down, and now it’s been maybe 10 years with no change in prescription. So I’m thinking it might be similar with Lasik, too.



  9. Jean
    Comment
    9
      · February 1st, 2007 at 8:48 pm · Link

    Let this be a lesson to you parents — be very careful what you can tell your kids they can do when “they’re 18 and living on their own.” I’ve done everything my parents told me I could do then. I think it’s a subconscious thing that gets set up in your brain and executes as soon as possible after the magic day appears.

    I understand about the glasses. I finally got PRK surgery almost two years ago. I don’t regret that, but I now have to empathize with the people who annoyed me for years by saying, “I can’t read this; I don’t have my glasses.” Before the surgery, my bifocals were on my face. Now, I have to look for them. The good news? If I hadn’t had the surgery, I would be wearing trifocals now instead of bifocal reading/computer glasses. (Going from 20/700 to 20/15 is really cool — took almost a year for them to stabilize at that, but they were 20/30 and 20/40 within a week.)

    I’m with you on the age difference. 46 and 69 don’t sound so bad now, but when he was twenty and I wasn’t born yet…



  10. Anni
    Comment
    10
      · February 1st, 2007 at 11:59 pm · Link

    Too cool on the Texas connection.

    Glasses died last week and I’m DYING without them. Never been able to stand the thought of contacts either.

    Not sure when I stopped biting my nails …just kinda happened one day.

    Great list, Shannon!



  11. Mel
    Comment
    11
      · February 1st, 2007 at 11:58 pm · Link

    Hi Shan- some new stuff I didn’t know… but I did remember about the tulips :beam:

    I got contacts at 14–and wouldn’t go back to glasses simply because mine are SOOOO thick and distorting. I :heart:my contacts.

    And not saying a thing about you and your husband’s age difference cuz I married a younger man. :groucho:







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