Tag! I'm it!: Five things you never knew--or wanted to know--about me

Blog buddies Chris Owen, Dan Oestreich, Todd Sattersten, and Kirsten Osolind have called me out, and now it's time to get off my butt and offer up the goods. But seriously, what HAVEN'T I told y'alls about me? I almost feel like I should post my resume, since I rarely speak of what I actually DO for a living. But then, this blog is often a respite from all of that, and perhaps it should stay that way.

So, in no order of importance, here are five things few people know about me.

1. I am a dancer. (Said with the obnoxiousness of Elizabeth Berkley in Showgirls) Not so much in practice these days, but big-time growing up. I swayed self-consciously at parties, but I practiced hard-core Jennifer Beals-style in the basement of our house. I was pretty decent, and since I was on the gynmastics team I could even throw in the occasional flip-flop or hand-stand. Though, I was out of commission briefly when I tried a quadruple pirouette, fell onto one of my brother's GI Joe playsets, and pierced my ass on one of the flagpoles.

I tried out and made it into a dance troupe in high school which tended to favor girls with some amount of formal training. I took ballet and tap in the basement of a retired dancer for a few years, but I really didn't have a passion for dancing until I was older. Being a little Jennifer Beals sans the buckets of water, I made it in. I can remember making it to the final tryout--my mother bought me this blindingly shiny blue leotard. We had to perform a routine we had been taught, and then perform our own choreographed routine for eight counts of eight. I threw in some leaps, maybe a back walkover or two. At the end they asked me to do my bit over again and I couldn't--I had made the whole thing up.

I ended up winning the choreography award one year--not many people ever thought there was chorus-line potential for Pink Floyd's "The Wall". I proved them all wrong.

2. I learned to read when I was three. I wouldn't call myself a prodigy, but more someone very competitive with her older sister, who could read. I begged my parents to teach me, and they got me started on a few books. I wasn't very good, but I could get through this book I had called, I think, "The Fat Cat". It's actually a pretty morbid story: This cat goes around eating people and getting really fat until a woodcutter chops him open with an axe, and all of the people come tumbling out. The last page is an illustration of the cat, much smaller now, with a bandage on his tummy. Only now do I realize the absurdity of no blood or gastric fluid spraying everywhere. Good read, though.

3. I didn't need Paxil as a kid; I had mustard. One of the more popular condiments in our house was French's mustard--you know, the unnaturally yellow stuff. It came in a squeeze bottle, which made it easy to draw pictures on your bologna. It was also very bitter; so bitter, in fact, that eating it made the muscles in my jaw seize up. The result was this strained, but oddly smiley expression, not dissimilar to Jack Nicholson's when he played the Joker in Batman.

"Look," my sister Julie, would say, "it makes you smile." I thought that was what mustard was supposed to do. That was my introduction to the concept of functional food.

4. I was put on "social probation" in college. I know, I know: What the HELL does that mean? I thought social probation was the period before college. I'll premise this by saying there were far worse infractions committed by a co-ed, but this was before Girls Gone Wild.

I was in a sorority at the time, and we were preparing for a yearly swim meet, which the sorority ran every year for charity. Each member of my sorority was assigned to a fraternity or sorority to "coach" for the event. My Pledge Mom and I had the seemingly advantageous assignment of coaching the swim-team fraternity--in reality our team was a bunch of fifth years who could give a rat's ass about the event.

The morning before, we plied them with donuts and screwdrivers. Ok, maybe it was a little silly to give them liquor before the event, but this was not an uncommon practice at a Big Ten school--offering people the hair of the dog that bit them the night before. What we didn't know was that they finished off the jug of vodka immediately before the event. I can only remember seeing their naked bodies in the cheap seats of the pool stadium jumping into the water below. Sadly, this is one of the events that was monitored by the national chapter representatives, and all these people could see was a potential lawsuit raining from the rafters. I can't say that I blamed them.

What resulted was a tribunal of my sorority elders. I had to testify before this group about what happened--basically exactly what they saw--and was sentenced to a year of "social probation," which meant no official sorority parties, and, presuming I was adhering to state laws that prohibited underage drinking, no bars. Ummmm, yeah.

Whatever. I missed a barn dance and a formal or two and had to spend time with sober people for a year. Probably not a bad thing.

5. I won my dorm award for "The Student Who Has Changed the Least Since Childhood." I was mortified to see a picture of me as a toddler in my dorm hall Freshman year. Apparently the RA's got parents to send in pics of their cherished ones, and, well, my Mom was always a joiner. I'm not sure which award was more humiliating--this one, or one I was to receive at one of my jobs in New York for being "Perky."

It's tough still having dimples when you're freaking 34 years old.

So, there you have it, scrapings from the very bottom of the barrel of disclosure. You all now officially know EVERYTHING about me. So now I tag the following: Britt Bravo, Maryam Scoble, Julie Leung, and Maria Niles.

Jory Des Jardins

Comments

Memories....

Oh WOW honey...this was like taking a tour bus through Jory's neighborhood. I remember all of it...even your sorority probation....and..the picture I sent them. (I think that could very well be the picture that flashed before me as I watched you get ready on your wedding day. (Oh good lord...where's the kleenex.) Let me tell you....out of all the many assets you were blessed with, your dimples are decidedly the most adorable...then AND now. -Mom xo

Posted by: Joy | December 17, 2006 at 03:07 PM

I think I can probably find that Fat Cat book at Mom's place. Nothing that enters that house ever leaves. It's like the Amityville house.

Posted by: JoeBro | December 17, 2006 at 09:14 PM

Jory

Hilarious -- and thank you for playing. It's just so great to know what's at the very bottom of the barrel!

Posted by: Dan | December 18, 2006 at 12:17 AM

Yaaayyyyy. You've done it!
I was beginning to wonder if I'd got it wrong that you were always up for a challenge!
Once again, an hysterical ride through life with Jory.
Joy As a mother of adults only a biit younger than Jory, I wonder how you survived!!

Posted by: Chris Owen | December 19, 2006 at 05:38 PM

Itdoesnt surprize me that looks may not have changed much, but as I remember it, other things have not changes much either...lol

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