trivia

#1: I like to be near a stage (but not really be on it).

Performance art is one of my secret vices. My best friend Irina C. Poulos, a NY choreographer and dancer raised me since seventh grade to be a dance voyeur. My MFA thesis project INSIDE_OUT (2003) was the ultimate homage to dance voyeurism. Besides studying with Irina, I have some ballet, modern dance, jazz and martial arts training. My favorite place to train was Lou Conte Dance Studio in Chicago. I contributed to Ginger Farley’s Transilient Tribes (2004) performance providing real-time videography at Columbia College Chicago. I also starred in a one act play by Thiasos Margarita (2002) directed by Takis Theotokatos.

#2: Quelquefois, je parles Français.

I studied French for 12 years, received a Certificat Pratique de Langue Française (1st level) and minored in French during my undergraduate years. Sadly, my verbal abilities have floundered but I can still read and write in 17th century French which is apparently only useful in Canada…

#3: Damien & Lilith aren’t evil.

Since I don’t have kids yet, I like to promote the existence of Damien and Lilith who were both born in 1997 in Pilsen. Damien and Lilith were naughty enough to be named after spawns of the Devil, but in their senior years they are mellow lap cats who no longer shred paper, expensive textiles and bed sheets. Lilith however coughed up a furball just as I finished typing this sentence.

#4: Some Greek stereotypes are true.

When I first moved to the US from Greece, I used to be annoyed when people asked me if my dad owned a diner. The truth is that my dad once *did* own a restaurant but he sold it fast. He also used to work at a restaurant when he first moved to the US, as did many Greeks who didn’t speak English. I chose to enforce my own greek stereotype by purchasing an olive orchard in 2006. I hope you’re jealous because it produces delicious organic olive oil. (Kudos to mom, Marcus and uncle Nikos…)

#5: I am an extroverted introvert.

Some people define who they are by looking outside themselves. Others define who they are by looking inside. Neither approach is better than the other. I like starting my sentences and thoughts with “I” as a constant reminder of who I am because I forget every five minutes or so thanks to my short attention span. I have been accused of being self-centered and once I was even called a narcissist but I will be the first person who drops everything to help my peeps. As I have gotten older, I try to spend more time paying attention to others rather than trying to figure out who I am or obsessing about things I forget all the time. I guess some things get better with age. Smacking me over the head sometimes will stop me from obsessing, but under the wrong mood circumstances I may come after you with a sharp elbow.

#6: I am a sporadic hypergraphic and hypochondriac.

I suffer from migraines (among other stupid annoying but thankfully mostly tolerable/fixable/seasonal health impediments). The day before a migraine, I feel stupid. The day of the migraine, I write a lot, usually about myself and with some humor. The day after the migraine, I feel mentally hungover. The pain from the migraine stimulates my brain in some fun and quirky way. I have no formal diagnosis other than my observation of mild hypegraphia, but I did some fun reading about it. The science behind a clinical diagnosis of hypergraphia is not 100% there yet but it is good to know someone is looking into this :) A lot of research into these things touches upon mental illness, brain damage and creativity and should be taken in with a grain of salt. I am sure my three concussions have contributed to the migraines and hypergraphic bouts, but for better or worse, I am no Dostoevsky. (For the record, post-mortem clinical diagnosis is as fun and accurate as astrology. And I do enjoy some of that too. I am an Aries and an Earth Horse. Whatever that means…)

P.S. And yep, as you may have guessed half my blog is written when I have a headache…