8 RANDOM THINGS

I've been tagged again, so I'm just going to get through this quick. These always make me feel a little weird, but this one is easier than the last. I'm supposed to come up with 8 random things about me (that you may or may not know). Here we go:

1. I love the smell of gasoline.
2. I have a phobia of grates and drains (are the called "man holes"?) in the streets and sidewalks. I walk around them, or step over them whenever I come upon them in the street. Randomly, when I was running a 10K last summer, towards the end (when I was tired and not really paying attention) I stepped on one in the street. Guess what? Yep, it fell in. Luckily, I was able to catch myself before breaking a leg or something. But I had to think . . . of all the people for this to happen to, is it just chance that it happened to the one person who is probably most scared of these things?
3. I absolutely cannot stand to wear socks to bed. Sometimes when it's cold, I convince myself that it would be nice, but I ALWAYS end up irritated and kicking them off fiercely in the middle of the night. You'd think I would learn, eh?
4. I love the smell of skunks.
5. I put red pepper flakes on just about everything, unless it's a dessert (or unless I'm going to offend the cook!).
6. I get really grumpy when I'm hot (and I live in the south!)
7. I dream about having a fiber farm and a straw bale house.
8. I played in a steel drum band for a little bit in graduate school.

There! I did it. Now, I've cooperated this far, but I'm afraid I'm not going to cooperate with the tagging part (sorry if this screws it up somehow). Thanks for putting up with this, readers!