100 Things About Me

That maybe you'd like to know... or that you might not care about, but here they are anyway:

1. I can usually smell my armpits from a mile away, even when I drill the people around me and they swear they're being honest and they say that I smell just fine. And it pisses me off every time.

2. Sometimes I stutter when I'm nervous.

3. I think most cats are revolting.

4. I'm relatively high-maintenance, despite popular belief. Not in a girly-girl or froo-froo kind of way, but in an I-require-a-lot-of-tender-lovin'-and-attention kind of way.

5. A good strong, long, full body contact hug is maybe my favorite way to both greet and say goodbye to someone I care about.

6. I love having a vegetable garden, but hate doing the actual work to keep one up.

7. Pickup trucks are hot.

8. Though I've actually considered this several times, I've also dismissed it an equal number of times. Currently, I find the idea repulsive, barbaric and highly comical, but still secretly wish I had the balls to attempt it.

9. Eating vegetables makes me happy. And gassy.

10. One of my favorite personal mottoes is that an empty colon is a happy colon. Try it out and you'll also find that it's quite true.

11. I spent six years as an undergraduate student.

12. I'm still afraid of the dark.

13. Bad or disturbing dreams are pretty much an everyday occurrence for me.

14. I love flatulating-- how fulfilling!

15. I fall in love very easily and it tends to burn me. Oh well.

16. My hair is pretty long, like, almost down to my waist when it's straight. And I'm planning on cutting it off to give it away to charity.

17. The idea of having short hair repulses me.

18. I get a lot of migraines. I used to suffer through them because nothing ever made me feel better except going to sleep in complete darkness with no sound and then waking up to vomit and have diarrhea and then sleeping again. Now I take Excedrin Migraine and feel much better about myself.

19. I used to bite my nails. I don't anymore.

20. These are the names of all of the pets I've owned in my life, in order of appearance: OJ the turtle, Noah and Emily (goldfish-- Emily ate Noah, and then a couple of days later, was found belly up), Newt, a tadpole I caught at a pond that changed into a frog and then magically disappeared from our second-floor porch one day, CC the hermit crab followed shortly by Speedy the hermit crab, Loafy the gerbil, Phil the gerbil, and briefly Doodles the gerbil. That's it.

21. My manfriend has more fabulous hair than I have.

22. I have a lot of friends from a lot of different social groups. I like attempting to intermingle said social groups. Oftentimes, my friends don't mesh :)

23. I like being cold, but only when I have a sweater to put on or some arms to pull around me. I don't like shivering.

24. I have a red visor that I wear strictly when I'm exercising. I love to sweat A TON when I'm working out. I gauge the effectiveness of my exercise by how far down the brim of the visor the sweat has stained.

25. I love working out.

26. I hate working out.

27. I've been fat since primary school. I think I only now might be comfortable with the fact that I might always be fat.

28. I have a lot of stretch marks from getting fat and then getting skinnier and then getting fatter again. I am currently getting skinnier one more time.

29. I love my body. But only in the mornings.

30. I have ten earring holes in my ears in the following pattern: Left ear with one cartilage ring and four lobe holes, Right ear with one tragus ring and four lobe holes. I can't wait to get more holes.

31. Since high school I've wanted to pierce my nipples and get a tattoo. I think I've chickened out of both for good.

32. I really am a chicken at heart even though I like to go on adventures.

33. Sometimes I cry at work or after I get home because it's harder than I ever imagined it would be and I feel overwhelmed.

34. Every time I took a chemistry lab in college, I was simultaneously convinced and terrified that I'd somehow set fire to myself or spill some noxious agent on my clothing and would be forced to strip down to my undies and shower in front of the whole class in that in-case-of-emergency spill/fire shower in the lab. I think it was the public near-nudity thing that got to me. I was very careful in chemistry labs.

34. Soon after I started taking chemistry labs, I started skinny dipping with friends and taking naked showers in those big open locker room showers.

35. I stopped taking chemistry labs and never took another one again. I can still be found naked in semi-public places from time to time.

36. I wear glasses.

37. I have had a strange aversion to eyes for as long as I can remember. I just realized this year that I can't touch them or really look at them (or even think about them too much) because when I was a kid, my brother sprayed shaving cream into my eyes and it burned like a motherfucker. I didn't remember that shaving cream event until the spring of 2005 sometime.

38. Unfinished wood products give me the willies... like, even thinking about popsicle sticks and paper napkins gives me the chills. Ugh.

39. I have an excellent vocabulary.

40. I am an excellent pool player. Ahem.

41. I'm on a mission, bitches... Oh shit!

42. I did varsity track and field and varsity swimming in high school.

43. When I was about 12, I dove off a floating dock into a lake when the water was pretty low. I got a mouthful of sand, scraped my feet against the chains and cinder blocks holding the float in place, and took a huge chunk of skin out of my left foot. From that time on, I've been afraid to dive.

44. When I was on the swim team, I was the only girl who didn't know how to dive off the starting blocks or do flip-turns. The coach made me stand out of the water alongside the pool and watch the other girls so I could learn. It was humiliating.

45. Now I know how to dive... but I still don't really like to.

46. These are the countries I've been to, in order of appearance: Canada (when I was an infant), the Czech Republic, Greece, Israel, Costa Rica, Mexico.

47. These are the states I've been to, in no particular order: NY (my home), CT, FL, MA, VT, NC, SC, VA, DC, WA, CA, NJ, PA, MI, GA, PR.

48. I usually don't prefer the taste of red colored candies, except for watermelon-flavored ones. Most others hurt my mouth or make me want to vomit.

49. I'm left handed.

50. I have never dyed or put color augmentation of any kind in my hair.

51. When I was little, I wanted bangs but my mother wouldn't let me. So one day, I cut my own bangs and then told my mom that I'd gotten chewing gum stuck in my hair and had had to cut it out. I fessed up last year.

52. At one point in the early 1990's, I sucked all of the pimentos out of a jar of green olives and put all of the empty olives back in the jar. After I'd done it, my parents made a green salad and dumped a bunch of those pimento-less olives into the salad, and then proceeded to serve my sucked-out olives to a bunch of guests. I never said anything about it until at least a decade later.

53. I am wracked with chronic guilt, even when I haven't done anything to feel guilty about. Perhaps because I'm Jewish.

54. I attended a Catholic youth group during high school. The nuns called home to make sure it was ok.

55. I try to wear flip flops until as late into the autumn as possible. I remember a couple of years where I wore them even after it'd started snowing. My feet like to breathe.

56. I think I might always be hungry. I know I am right now.

57. Every time I see the word "applause," I think "apple sauce."

58. Every time I see the word "public," I think "pubic."

59. I think the word "apothecary" is awesome.

60. Before I'd even purchased a Play Station II Game System, I'd already bought the latest Dance Dance Revolution cd plus a set of DDR dance pads. I only own that one game since that's the only reason I wanted to buy the PS2, and I feel perfectly content knowing that.

61. I had my tonsils out when I was 16.

62. I had a back surgery in 2004. The surgeon removed a piece of my disc that had pinched off from the rest of the disc and was pushing against some spinal nerves and I wasn't walking very well up until that point. When I was still in the recovery room and the neurosurgeon came out of the operating room to talk with my parents, he told them he'd never had to remove a piece of disc that big and he was surprised I wasn't in more pain. My parents fessed up to him that I can take a pretty good amount of pain. It's been over a year since then-- I feel like a new person now!

63. I was voted most creative and most artistic in the 8th grade, along with Michael Circosta.

64. I used to play the trumpet and various percussion instruments. I haven't played any of that seriously in at least six years. I miss it a lot.

65. The number 8 is my favorite.

66. I secretly like the music of STYX. Ok... maybe not so secretly.

67. A razor blade has not passed over my legs since August 2001.

68. When my friends have birthdays and I feel inspired enough to give them a present, I often like to gift with homemade tee shirts. They usually come out fantastically.

69. Heh. Childish, I know.

70. My wristwatch is kept in military time.

71. It is also kept seven minutes fast on purpose.

72. I'm not a morning person, though I also turn into a pumpkin if it gets to be too late at night... like, past 11pm or midnight. So I guess that makes me a midday person. Is that a real thing?

73. Sometimes I wonder if my memory is exceptionally poor for someone so young.

75. I'm pretty terrible at guessing people's ages and I hate it when people ask me to try.

76. At times I get these irrational feelings of panic that I've forgotten to do something *really* important. Sometimes I can't remember what it was that I forgot to do, but I just know I forgot to do it. It usually takes me a little while to calm down from those feelings.

77. I don't particularly enjoy clowns.

78. Autumn and spring are my favorite seasons, and I'm more of a winter chick than a summer sun bunny.

79. Purchasing new underwear will make my day any day.

80. I make a mean batch of peanutty Thai-style spicy noodles.

81. Talking aloud to myself is a shameless daily occurrence for me.

82. I've always wanted to take the following classes: speed reading, cake decorating, quilting, knitting and crocheting.

83. Mmmmm... macadamia nuts.

84. I am not a chocolate freak.

85. I have really big feet and almost no arches.

86. Taking naps in the grass under a shady tree on a balmy afternoon is perhaps my favorite way to spend some alone time on a day off.

87. Sunsets aren't especially appealing to me, but I think that watching a sunrise with someone I care about is incredibly special.

88. I am physically unable to stick out my tongue.

89. I love getting presents! And mail! Please send me some!!

90. Doing laundry is a favorite pastime, but folding it and putting it away stinks. Sometimes I lose myself while watching the clothes and suds swish around rhythmically... it sucks me in.

91. I am often a huge clod.

92. My first memory is from when I was about one year old-- I remember the fabric on the couch we had before we left my first apartment.

93. I love the smell in the air on a crisp winter's day just before the snow begins to fall.

94. The sound of snow falling is also highly satisfying.

95. To me, the outside of white Tic Tacs taste like ice cream while the inside tastes like a very caustic cleaning solution.

96. I hate asking for help... sometimes even asking makes me feel like I'm admitting defeat.

97. I honestly enjoyed living in Binghamton, NY.

98. Kids, teens and middle-aged adults are all right, but I really love people on the far edges of the age spectrum the most.

99. I'm a really cluttered person. I think the clutter in my life makes me feel secure. But although I'm surrounded by clutter, I refuse to be surrounded by filth.

100. I believe anything people say-- I'm terribly gullible and naive.

And for good measure, here are some more!
Another Hundred Things About Me