Make believe it’s your first time…

In lieu of actual content, a meme, ganked from saluqi, all about first times.

1. Who was your first prom date?
I didn’t actually attend the prom either junior or senior year, on account of not having a relationship and being to shy to ask the people I was interested in to go. But I was on the waitstaff at the prom in 10th grade, and when we got released from duty just before the dance ended, got to dance with Shannon Wood, who I had a massive crush on, and floated all the way home.

2. Who was your first roommate?
My first roommate was Marcus Fuchs, a German exchange student who was fascinated with American game shows like “The Price is Right” and “Sale of the Century”. He was also possibly the only person on my hall who was less socially adept at that time than me. 🙂

My fondest memory of Marcus was when I woke up at 6am on a Sunday morning, slightly disoriented from the previous nights revelry, to find him chattering rapidly with his parents in German. My fuzzy, half-awake brain tried to make sense of what he was saying, and finally interrupted him to ask the only thing that made sense to me: “Marcus, why are you talking…..backwards?”

3. What alcoholic beverage did you drink when you got drunk the first time?
Bourbon. I was three, and my grandfather sent me to have my grandmother fix him a drink and bring to him while he worked on the pier at the river cottage. I managed to come back twice with an empty glass before he realized I might not be spilling them, and stopped to watch as I downed the third one the moment I set foot off the porch. Twenty minutes later, I was seen rolling around in the grass on the hill, laughing my little head off.

4. What was your first job?
Inventory Clerk for the Martin County Board of Education. I was 16. The county BoE had just bought a new computer system to track the school system’s assets, and needed a physical inventory done of all the schools on special forms so that it could be actually entered into the computer. This took all summer. When I visisted some 5 years later, I found the forms were still in a filing cabinet, unprocessed.

5. What was your first car?
My first car was a 1977 Buick Century, a hand-me-down from my mother when I turned sixteen. I drove it for 6 years, and many repairs, until it finally blew a head gasket and was deemed more expensive than it was worth to repair. My second car was a 1973 Buick LeSabre.

6. When did you go to your first funeral?
My Great-aunt Hazel’s, when I was about 16. Thinking back, I’ve only actually attended three funerals in person. I didn’t go to either of my grandparents on my mother’s side — I was only 12 when my grandmother died, and was left home to spare me trauma, I suppose; My grandfather died while I was vacationing in Tennessee and visiting Don and Dina, and I couldn’t get more time off of work in time to really make it up to the service, which I still regret.

7. How old were you when you first moved away from your hometown?
Eighteen. I moved all of 30 miles away to nearby Greenville, NC, to attend East Carolina University. I moved to Athens, GA at 20, and to Atlanta at 27.

8. Who was your first grade teacher?
Gosh, I haven’t the slightest idea. I can remember teachers from 4th grade on, but before 3rd grade it’s a bit of blur.

9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?
Believe it or not, my first airplane trip was in May 2002, when I flew up to Boston to spend a week with tigerbright, browngirl, and teddywolf, before meeting up with kitanzi to share the drive on her move to Atlanta. I’ve flown quite a bit since then, for someone who doesn’t travel on business, and vastly prefer it to driving for distances over about 4-5 hours.

10. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with?
I don’t think I’ve *ever* snuck out of my house. Never really needed to, since I was given a fair amount of freedom as a child.

11. Who was your first Best Friend and are you still friends?
The first person who comes to mind that could fit the description of insuperable-best-friend-who-I-do-almost-everything-with would be Jaimie Roberson, who lived next door from the time I was about eight until I was about thirteen. We drifted apart when we no longer lived near one another, and by the time we were both in high school together were very different people.

My Best Friend from childhood was Jeff Williams (hejira2006), and I am still very much friend with him.

12. Where was your first sleepover?
The first one I have any concrete memory of would have been with Jaimie. We were always spending the night at each others houses.

13. Who is the first person you call when you have a problem?
kitanzi. She is my love, my partner, and my closest friend, and understands me better than anyone I could name. After that, there are a number of people I would turn to, several of whom are reading this and know who they are.

14. Whose wedding were you in the first time you were a bridesmaid or groomsmen?
I’ve never been a groomsman. I would have been for Jeff’s wedding, but was unable to attend due to finances, which I regret as much as I do missing my grandfather’s funeral. I did, however, write a song for the occasion.

15. What is the first thing you do in the morning?
Curse.

16. What was the first concert you ever went to?
The Monkees 1986 reunion tour, featuring Herman’s Hermits, Garry Puckett and the Union Gap, and the Grass Roots.

17. First tattoo or piercing?
I don’t have any. I’ve never even had an earring, and can’t really imagine at this juncture that this will change. I see no reason to drill holes in myself, and I can’t really think of an image I like so completely that I want in indelibly placed on my skin. I admire tattoos on other people, but I don’t really want one of my own.

18. First celebrity crush?
Felicity Kendall. Stop laughing.

19. Age of first real kiss with tongue?
Sixteen. I only wish I remembered her name. (She was the viola player in the orchestra when we did one of the spring musicals — might have been South Pacific. We got very cuddly at the wrap party. But she was 23, graduating and taking a job with an orchestra in Mexico, so it wasn’t really going to turn into anything. But my, what a fun evening.)

20. First crush?
There was a girl named Pam who was in Jeff’s class who I rather irrationally fancied. Around the same time there was Susan, who claimed she had a crush on me and who I also fancied, but I was terribly shy and socially awkward, and couldn’t let go of the paranoid fear that I was being set up for ridicule, so I didn’t pursue that. Something else from my youth that I rather regret.

21. First REAL love?
That would have been Bonnie, from college. She eventually ended up going out with one of my best friends. I still miss him.