100 Things About Me - Part 1

Trista started this last week and I'm finally able to follow suit. Here are the first 50 things about me:

1. Tuesday I considered applying for a job at my girls’ daycare. When that seems appealing, it’s a sure sign that I need to find a new job.
2. I don’t like parenting newborns. They smell wonderful and are the most miraculous things in all creation, but they strike terror and panic in my heart. If I could give birth to a six month old, I would consider having another child.
3. Emma can raise my spirits higher and faster than anyone else in this world. She can also find my last nerve quicker and with more stealth than anyone else in this world.
4. I love the fact that Allison has very little hair. Her head is so soft to snuggle my cheek up against. I’m so happy that she’s a cuddle bug.
5. I wish that I could look at everything as logically as Danny does. It would make my decision making process much less traumatic.
6. My favorite part of my body is my eyes. I’ve always loved their color.
7. Being a radio DJ was the first career I ever remember wanting to have. I found out about that job on the Bozo show. It had a segment on DJs one morning. I did get to play DJ on my 21st birthday. That was fun.
8. Archeologist was my next career choice. I still have some sort of artifact that I found on a dig during 8th Grad Camp. My teacher told me that I didn’t win an award for that class during camp because I kept moving around from area to area. I probably don’t have the patience and stamina for archeology. I can see myself leaving many great finds just an inch under ground because I got bored.
9. I started off college to be a special education teacher. I quit after the first class because it was “too political” with labeling issues, etc. I then moved on to a political science major. Go figure.
10. I care far too much what other people think. I wish that I trusted in myself more. My political science major was over the second a new advisor mentioned helping me apply for food stamps.
11. My biggest regret in life is switching schools during college to be closer to a man.
12. I often wonder where I’d be today if I had graduated from Central Michigan University instead of Grand Valley State University.
13. I have a very distinct memory of standing with my dad by the wall of pictures my mother put together of my life for my graduation party. He said, “See these pictures? They are the blink of an eye.” I thought that was kind of corny at the time. I’m fighting back tears in my eyes just writing about it.
14. Food has been my downfall from a very early age. In the fifth grade I broke my arm after stealing a cookie out of the cookie jar (with the intent of sneaking downstairs to eat it). On the way down, I tripped on my socks and fell down most of them. I kept waiting for my Mom to yell at me when she found the cookie parts afterwards.
15. I’m not really sure that I enjoy being a technical writer.
16. I picked the Book of Ezekiel to read for my confirmation process to impress Father Mike. I only read a little bit of it and, to my knowledge, he didn’t figure that out. The entire thing seemed like a formality.
17. I was disappointed to not feel the Holy Spirit on my Confirmation Day.
18. I am jealous of devout people. I’m too lazy.
19. I am an adoptive mother and a birthmother. Both experiences at motherhood are the greatest gifts of my life. I worry sometimes about messing my kids up because they each came into the family in different ways.
20. Sometimes I watch fictional things on television and they haunt me so much I can’t sleep for up to a week. In one show a drug gang killed its enemies by tying them up, putting a tire around their waist, filling the tire with gasoline and then tossing a match at them. I had flashes of people coming into my house and doing that to me for a long time. I couldn’t finish this most recent Cold Case Sunday night. A man told his victims that they were going to die that night to watch them go through the stages of accepting death. He then buried them alive. It makes my throat tighten to even think about it. I won’t even mention The Silence of the Lambs. This is why I don’t watch horror films. This is why I shouldn’t watch police dramas and procedurals.
21. The theme music to Unsolved Mysteries makes my skin crawl. If it’s dark outside I easily become convinced that someone’s in my house. I still watch that show.
22. I remember being fascinated by my mom’s engagement ring as a little girl. I liked to look at it in the light. I admired it every time I sat on her lap. I memorized her hands, too. I believe that I would recognize them anywhere.
23. If I could earn a living through needlework and cross stitch I would be in seventh heaven.
24. I wrote my first short story in the second grade. It was about a lazy dog that almost got left behind when his family moved. My mom typed it up for me – spelling errors and all – and my second grade teacher let me read it to the class. I was very proud.
25. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I don’t have enough discipline. I will regret that in the end.
26. With very few exceptions, my short stories are very dark. Someone is murdered or maliciously wounded. My favorite was the story where I chopped up John Kaznowski and sold his forearms as skinnned, whole catfish.
27. If my writing was ever made into a movie I would be unable to watch it (see number 20). Go figure.
28. I cannot figure out poetry most of the time. I read Danny’s lyrics and often think it’s about me. I’m never right.
29. The only time I have ever felt like I “got” poetry was the night I took Donielle to see Allen Ginsberg at Fountain Street Church. I thought that whole evening was incredible, if not perverse.
30. I still laugh every time I think about going to see Equus with Trista. Neither of us knew what we’d gotten ourselves in to.
31. When I was a kid I wondered a lot if my parents or grandparents would find out about or be able to see the bad things I did after they died. That thought freaked me out - but didn't stop me from doing those very same things.
32. My conception of death is standing near a cliff. Your grandparents are closest to the edge, then your parents and then you. Your parents and grandparents keep you from falling over the edge. Eventually you keep your own children from falling over the edge.
33. I once stole a Marathon bar from Family Fare. I ate it in the aisle while my dad was shopping elsewhere. I can’t remember what I did with the wrapper. That night, we had Deacon Chuck over for dinner. I was miserable the entire time. It was what I confessed during my first Reconciliation.
34. I hated drinking milk when we stayed at the Skinner’s house when mom and dad were on a Marriage Encounter weekends. It may have been made from powdered milk. I’m not sure. Anyway, they froze it and there would be tiny pieces of ice floating in my glass. I felt like gagging every time I tasted one of those pieces of ice.
35. One of my favorite memories with my dad was on the day that I hit my first and only home run. The ice cream cone I had afterwards was the best I’ve ever had. It was fun having him as a coach.
36. I can still remember the way that Danny smelled at the pot smoke filled R.E.M. concert in Greensboro. It is my favorite smell in the whole world. When I found a Yankee Candle that came close to that smell, I bought it.
37. I can only handle so many seasons of any one reality television show. Survivor does not appeal to me any more. I think that this is my last season of The Amazing Race.
38. I think that reality television is best watched with someone else – and that person has to have a sense of humor. I used to love going to Andy’s house and watch The Real World. We would laugh until we cried about the antics going on in those houses. Danny and I really had fun watching our second season of The Amazing Race. We taped it so that we could rewind parts and watch them over and over again. We still laugh anytime one of us says, “I’m packin’it!”
39. The Shield is the best television series I’ve ever watched.
40. Bob Barker was one of the first men I recognized other than my father.
41. Air Supply was my first favorite band. I think that Grandma Dodde got me their album for my birthday. I played it on the huge record player my parents had in their living room. While listening to it with my dad for the first time, I read the lyrics ahead of the song. One song had the lyric "All last night we laid in bed making love." I was so embarrassed when I read that and couldn't listen to it in front of my dad. When it got to that song, I turned the volume down really, really low and pressed my ears against the speakers. He asked me why I did that. I said, "To see what headphones sound like." I never listened to that record around my parents ever again.
42. Bono is the only rock star I’ve ever had a major – have pictures of him everywhere – crush on who is heterosexual. George Michael and Michael Stipe are homosexual. Brandon Flowers is bi-sexual. No one knows what Michael Jackson is…
43. On my 15th birthday I dressed up in a skirt for school. Mrs. Vesbit, my Spanish teacher, asked me to stand up and had the entire class sing “Feliz Cumpleanos”. As I sat down, Jason Seamon made loud creaking noises (as if my chair was breaking) and the people sitting behind me laughed. I wanted to crawl under my desk and die.
44. I never watched Star Trek until I moved to Roanoke.
45. Patrick Stewart is the only “older man” I’ve ever found sexually attractive.
46. I think that life would be much less fun without Trekkies in it.
47. I enjoy participating in Weight Watcher meetings – even when they are lame.
48. One of my most prized possessions is the journal my mom kept during my first year of life.
49. In junior high I checked a Jackie Collins book out of the library and said that it was for my mother. I was too scared of getting caught by my mother to read it.
50. I compulsively clean when I’m upset or worried.