100 things about me

I saw this on someone’s blog, and it looked like fun. And I’m done with classes and it’s freezing outside, so I may as well do something fun while I’m stuck inside.

1. I am a natural redhead.

2. I am either the eldest or second-eldest child in my family. We’re not sure.

3.I started to study voice over ten years ago.

4. I listen to music very often and always have to find something in my life to relate song lyrics
to.

5. I knit quite often, but having to sit still for long periods of time if hard for me so my projects take a really long time.

6. If I could have any coffee from anywhere in the world every morning, it would be a mocha breve from Fuel.

7. I’m like a machine when it comes to paperwork, unless said paperwork has anything to do with money. Then I’m terrible at it.

8. Over my bed hang over 40 pictures of family and friends. No one can see them except me, but I put them there anyway because there are the last thing I see when I go to sleep at night and the first thing I see when I wake up. There are 20 more around the rest of the room, not counting posters.

9. I love to read. Some of my favorite authors are (this is not all-encompassing) the Bronte sisters, Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, Jane Austin (who sees a pattern?) Victor Hugo, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

10. I sing all the time. Often to myself, sometimes under my breath, and if I’m lucky enough to not be looked at funny, at the top of my lungs.

11. I don’t know how to do a thing to my hair, other than braid it or put it in a ponytail. I’m afraid to have a daughter because I want to be able to teach her more than that if she asks.

12. If I don’t go to the gym at least once in two days, I get sore, restless, and irritable.

13. I love the water. Swimming in it, riding on it, or looking at it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a lake, a river, a bay, or an ocean.

14. A fascination with J.M. Barrie has led to my fondness for fairies. Notably my fairy anklet, which I got right after I fell in love with Finding Neverland.

15. I wish I played piano better than I do.

16. I have this compulsion to travel as often as possible, but I have limited resources and income, so I usually just tag along when others go somewhere.

17. My favorite sandwiches always include good bread, turkey, and avocado.

18. I’m very, very maternal. Or so everyone tells me.

19. John Lennon is one of my heroes. I wish I could be more like him in nearly every department; songwriting, creative writing, activism… other than his beef with Christianity, I sort of wish I could be him...

20. A childish weakness of mine is Charles Schultz’s Peanuts cartoons. I am not ashamed.

21. Gender roles and prejudices really piss me off. Especially regarding behavior and sexuality.

22. Despite my rather tall frame and huge feet, I love high heels. I like the way they make my legs look and they kick my height complex up a notch.

23. I make “to do” lists all the time. Usually I get everything done. Sometimes I don’t cross anything off, and then I find the same list a week later and freak out because I don’t remember if I’ve done everything.

24. I really like writing. That’s why I keep a blog.

25. Blogs themselves sometimes make me crazy. People use them for diatribes about their day and complain, complain, complain. I know I’ve been guilty of that once or twice, but really, I usually put it in my diary and don’t take it out on others. I think blogs should be used for discourse. Books, music, politics, current events, etc. Or amusing anecdotes. Or really long lists about the author. ;)

26. I speak Spanish, although I used to speak it better. My vocabulary has definitely diminished.

27. I want to learn Italian and/or French. And if I ever happen to go to Africa, Swahili.

28. Cell phones annoy me. People seem to think that because you can take the phone anywhere, you can use the phone anywhere. I don’t need to catch the overflow as someone else in the café gushes into the receiver, thank-you-very-much.

29. I like snail mail. Writing it and receiving it. It’s like getting a present. Computers have de-sentimentalized communication, but mail always restores my faith.

30. I love flowers and plants, but I’m an awful gardener/plant keeper, so I don’t have any.

31. When I’m feeling lonely or disconnected from my friends, I usually bake something and bring it to them. That way they’re always happy to see me. It’s kind of manipulative, but whatever.

32. I have an insane weakness for black and white photography. I love color, too, but there’s
something about black and white that captures me

33. I have a ton a Marilyn Monroe pictures in my room; partly because they’re all black and white (and the way she looked in black and white, I’m convinced, is why it endured so long during the conversion to color), and because she was really an intelligent and ambitious woman. Even if all the chauvinistic assholes in her life reduced her to a sex object. I admire her convictions (almost completely socialist) and wit because no one took them away.

34. Now that I’m not ostracized by a bunch of athletic peers for being pokey, I quite enjoy sports. I might even call myself marginally athletic.

35. I’m a great driver as long as I’m hydrated and semi-well rested. If I’m not and you’re riding along, pray for your life. And either way, we will probably get lost because

36. I am one of the most directionally dysfunctional people on the planet. I actually have to leave thirty minutes in advance if I’ve never been where I’m going before. I have to allow time to get lost.

37. I wear black a lot. I’m not a goth, I just think it makes my hair and skin look nice.

38. I have to set my alarm clock ten minutes ahead because otherwise I won’t get to class on time. Which is really weird, given that I unfailingly woke up at 5am for four years in high school. Now I can hardly get my feet on the ground and my ass in gear by 8:20am.

39. I am a firm believer in controlled clutter. I’m pretty scattered, but as long as there is underlying order in the chaos, all the important stuff is where it should be and properly filed, and it doesn’t infringe upon anyone else space, I’m fine with it.

40. BUT, when someone else’s clutter creeps into my space, I get really ticked off. I don’t mind anyone being messy. I mind their mess in my space.

41. I carry a water bottle all the time. They are heavy and cumbersome and absolutely necessary. In fact, I’m in worse shape after two hours without water than I am after a couple of drinks.

42. I don’t really drink that much. I made it all through last quarter on six 11.2oz alcoholic beverages in my fridge. And I plan to cut back—now that I’ve started drinking, I don’t really see what the attraction to having more than one is all about.

43. I don’t really watch TV that much, but even when I get the chance, I will ONLY watch: House, Scrubs, ER, Alias, Law and Order, Without a Trace, Will & Grace, or Friends. Or documentaries. Other than that, I’ll grab a book or listen to my Ipod instead.

44. I love movies, but I don’t have the encyclopedic knowledge of them that all my film buff friends have. I wish I knew as much as they do. I only know mainstream films.

45. I have read many classic books, but there are many “must-reads” that I haven’t read, which surprises a lot of people, including me. For example, I’ve never read Catch—22. I should get on that.

46. I love singing a capella songs. I really love singing a capella songs that imitate popular, instrumented songs. It’s mind-bending and really cool.

47. If I am not challenged by something, odds are that I will not do it well because I don’t care enough about it. The work will be mediocre, at best.

48. If I am challenged by something, odds are I will dive right in, grab it by the horns, and practically live it until it’s done, and done well. And I’ll have a very informed opinion for that particular subject for an enduring amount of time.

49. My greatest fear is losing someone that I love and never being able to get them back.

50. I am a faithful, albeit argumentative, Roman Catholic.

51. The argumentative bit aside, I love my faith,

52. I firmly believe this really cool French adage: Les plus désespères sont les plus beaux. The saddest songs are the most beautiful. Sad ones make you think. Otherwise you get “Shiny Happy People” and no one learns a thing.

53. I love to dance, but I wish I were better at it. I might actually grow some cajones and take a dance class one of these days.

54. I think every person should have at least one room to herself (himself) for the sole purpose of using that room to explore oneself. Within it, it is safe to do or create whatever you want. I have enough talented friends to know that when given space, wonderful things result. (Don’t believe me? Look up Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own).

55. I love nice things, but I hate spending money on them. I will sit and pine for a pretty sweater, but I’ll only get one if it’s less than $20 (thank you, Value Village).

56. I have never had a significant other. Not for lack of trying.

57. I am a very “heterosocial” (I love that term) person. It means I socialize with the opposite gender a lot in a nonsexual way. Thank you, Joseph.

58. Whiney people really annoy me. They think they’re just being opinionated. No, I’m opinionated. You’re annoying.

59. I would love to write at least one great song in my life.

60. I am not a huge believer in the flash on my camera.

61. I love live music, more than any recording and almost as much as I love performing.

62. I think that if the entirety of your opinion will fit on a bumper sticker or a button, you are a band-wagon-jumping idiot.

63. That said, most of my humorous statements are one-liners. Much like bumper stickers. Except I’m REALLY good at one-liners. Thank you, Mom.

64. I love children. I want ten. But I only want to carry three, max. I like my body too much to put myself through 81 months of pregnancy. And I won’t have any until way down the road.

65. I wish I could have a dog. Especially in the dorms. I miss my own at home.

66. I think that baseball is the best sport on the planet. Frisbee and basketball run a close second.

67. I pitched javelin in high school. I was pretty good at it, too.

68. If I could choose a career, I’d be a writer. But I’m not sure if I have the conviction or creativity to make a living of it, so I think it’ll be a well-honed hobby, instead.

69. My two favorite piano composers are Mozart and Chopin. They are the sun and moon of piano sonatas, and about as different. Still, both are fascinating.

70. I love to sing and listen to opera, but actually attending bores the crap out of me.

71. I love ballet. I wouldn’t be a ballerina if my life depended on it.

72. If I could, I’d take a year or two to travel around the world. And not like a tourist; I’d love to live in different countries and work for a while and make friends in the community. Then I’d write a novel about it and go back to all those places.

73. I love pop culture from times before mine (random things like The Beatles, Princess Diana, McCarthy, etc) but I find the present pop culture totally vapid.

74. People think my handwriting is really pretty, until they actually need to read it.

75. I say the “Hail Mary” in Latin over and over again, really fast, when I’m scared.

76. I hyperventilate when I get upset, which scares the shit out of everyone.

77. One of my favorite things in the world is watching the sun come up.

78. I’d like to learn to scuba dive. It would be awesome.

79. I’d love to have a car, but even if I had one I’d probably keep it in a garage and get around on my bike and the bus. Take that, oil companies.

80. Sometimes I have dreams that someone in my life is really mad at me, or that I did something that someone might get pissed off about. Then next day I will avoid them at all costs until I realize that it was a dream and that person and I are fine.

81. I have broken my left wrist twice, sprained it once, broken my right arm once, and sprained my left ankle once.

82. My right arm and left ankle were injured in the same fall. Looking back, it was hilarious. At the time, it sucked.

83. When I get a cold, the world may as well end. I can’t sing or work out well. And if there is no singing and no working out, what is there left for me?

84. I have the world’s biggest guilt complex. It’s only recently been tempered even a little.

85. I took martial arts during the summer when I was little, and the one thing I can still do is kick my leg up over my head. The dance choreographer in high school was thrilled.

86. I love show tunes.

87. I chose a major in English because it will allow me to hear the voices of literary greats from the past and join their community by raising my own with them. It is a terrifying and exhilarating prospect.

88. I have a memory like you wouldn’t believe. If I hear it or read it, it’s stuck in my head. Hence, English and music as my major and minor studies.

89. I am a champion worrier. I can come up with any catastrophic scenario that might account for someone not being home, not picking up their phone, etc.

90. I really hate feeling stupid. When I do, all the articulate opinions fly out of my head and I look and sound stupid, too.

91. As paltry as it sounds, I think making someone a cup of tea is one of the best things you can do for someone. When they’re sick, or sad, or happy, whatever. It’s a little “I care” action.

92. I have really crappy vision. I can’t see anything closer or farther away than seven inches in front of my face.

93. I love singing in a choir. Nothing says “teamwork” like the sound a choir makes.

94. I hate bubble gum pop, but it’s the only thing I listen to at the gym. I owe dropping a dress size to the Backstreet Boys.

95. My favorite poets are Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson, but my favorite poem is “The Horned Moon,” by James Stephens.

96. I personally made one of my teachers cry at my high school graduation, which validated all fours years for me. Is that sad?

97. I scream like hell on roller coasters, but boy do I enjoy them.

98. I didn’t like spicy food until I tasted my first Russian dumplings.

99. I look very tall until I sit down. That’s because most of my height comes from my freakishly long femurs. My torso is disproportionally short.

100. I’m what choral directions call a utility player—I can sing easily from a low F to a high A, so I can sing in any section.

Whew! 100 things. Cool.