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tzikehLots of new readers in the past few months. Hello, new readers! :waves: While the "50 Things You Don't Know" meme has been making its rounds, I choose rather to re-post my "100 Things about Me" meme, because I'm basically lazy. I did rewrite a few sections (time passes, things change), but for the most part if you had me friended back in 2002, you won't learn much that's new and and can skip the lj cut.
1. I'm 37 years old. I've never understood the problem people have with chronology -- I didn't mind turning 30, I look forward to turning 40, I imagine I'll have no problem with 50 or 60 either. The grey hair has begun to appear and I love it - likewise the very beginnings of what will be some terrific laugh lines. Whenever I hear a woman freaking out because she's "going to be thirty this year" or some such, I am at a loss for what to say other than "And? So? Get the fuck over yourself." Ultimately, that isn't going to bring anyone around to my way of thinking, so I only say it in private. A lot.
2. I've been involved in organized fandom since I was 13. When I was 14, I attended my first convention. I don't know what my parents were thinking when they let me get on a train from New Jersey to Boston by myself to spend a weekend with a bunch of science fiction and fantasy fans in a hotel. Possibly they wanted me dead.
3. I was partially responsible for getting that convention kicked out of the host hotel. I didn't know any better. When you're a young teenager and you're hanging out with grown-ups and they decide to have a frisbee war by filling frisbees with Froot Loops and throwing them across multiple levels of the five-story open-air atrium above the hotel lobby at 4 a.m., you figure this is all part of the convention experience.
4. I can name all of the Presidents of the United States, in order. This comes in handy more often than you'd think.
5. I can also name the vast majority of English monarchs in order. Also handy.
6. And most of the elements, if I sing them.
7. I grew up in New Jersey, about twenty minutes west of Manhattan. I had the full Manhattan skyline out my bedroom window from age six to age eighteen, when I left for college. My dad bought me a telescope when I was nine. I looked at the moon and the stars for about three nights, and thereafter used it to look in the windows of the World Trade Center. I still wonder if some of those people I saw working late all those years ago were still working there on September 11.
8. I realize that I am one of those people who will never, ever get over what happened that day. Every time I see those buildings in a film or a tv show or a photograph, my body goes cold. I remember seeing the ribbon-cutting ceremony when they officially opened the towers. I've outlived architecture.
9. I cannot draw to save my life. Well, maybe to save my life. But no, not really. Oddly, my brother is an architect and city planner, my grandfather was an oil painter, and my aunt works in watercolors. Me? Not so much.
10. I dislike competition mightily – not just personally, but as a concept – and especially in fandom, since it is where I spend most of my social time. The idea of giving out awards for "the best" anything makes my skin crawl, only because nothing is ever, ever, ever judged solely on merit – there are always politics and favorites and maneuvering, and I am a great believer in fairness and justice.
11. In direct conflict with that, I love Top Ten lists and awards shows. But that's just for the opinions and the clothing.
12. My childhood? Well, picture The Sopranos without the Mob, the adultery, or the pasta. Violent, abusive, terrifying father with serious money, nails-and-hair mother who stayed for the wrong reasons, obnoxious, bright, over-achieving elder daughter ::raises hand::, underachieving, immature, delayed-growth-spurt younger son.
13. The thing about tv drama is it never shows you the boring parts where the kids grow up and move away and go to great universities and make lives for themselves, and the parents pull themselves together to a degree.
14. Of course, it's not all sunshine and roses, but it's better. I mean, he's still an asshat and she's still with him. But hey, I don' t have to live there.
15. I love to have conversations which are full of humor. There's very little I enjoy more than laughing with other people who are also laughing.
16. I have a very loud laugh and I'm not ashamed of it.
17. I currently live in Chicago, where I stayed after graduating from Northwestern University.
18. I got my degree in theater and pursued acting/opera for five years after graduation. I was working, too - not quite enough to support myself, but getting there.
19. In 1995, when I had just completed my first second-lead role with an opera company, I lost my voice entirely and was barely able to speak, let alone sing, for close to 18 months. After a long and frustrating period of being told there was nothing wrong with me, a second opinion found that my right sinus system had all but collapsed. Surgery repaired it and ultimately I regained my speaking voice, but the years of vocal training were lost to me forever, and starting over from square one, while holding down real jobs and sharing an apartment with other people, was depressingly unthinkable. Here endeth my performing career.
20. I once spent much of a week with a man I'll call R, who was a famous actor. It was a wholly surreal experience, during which he treated me (whom he had just met), my friend H (whom he had just met), some of the cast members from the tour in which he was appearing, and his agent to dinner twice. We also wound up closing down bars two nights in a row. People who know me could tell you how unlike me this is.
21. At these dinners, there was much singing and reciting and improving and performing. It felt like I was in a 1950s movie of what actors do. After dinner on the second night, R's agent handed me his card and told me he'd like to represent me if I ever moved to New York. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I'd pursued that path, but I don't regret not going. Most likely I would have lost my voice anyway.
22. The week was capped by me, my friend H, and R winding up in R's room at the Four Seasons. Due to extreme inebriation on R's part, nothing much happened. Several months later, R died unexpectedly. The whole situation has taken on a very strange quality in my memory, ultimately inexplicable.
23. I currently live in a lovely condo with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shrift, my cat, and a fridge which is smarter than we are.
24.shrift cooks real food. It amazes me.
25. I'm a Mac person.
26. I used to make my living as a webdesigner for Chicago's PBS station and the classical radio station, but I recently quit and am currently in grad school pursuing a second Bachelor's degree (in English) and a Master's in the Art of Teaching.
27. I have a terrific sense of direction, I can keep maps in my head, and I have a great memory for numbers. I doubt very much that I could get lost unless I were dropped in the middle of a forest on a mountain, and even then I wouldn't be lost lost, though I'd surely die of exposure before I got back to civilization.
28. I don't have any wilderness survival skills. Climate control is my best friend.
29. I am left-handed.
30. I would go into outer space in a heartbeat. I remember thinking "I'd still go tomorrow" the day after the Challenger disaster. Same with the Columbia.
31. I was propositioned by a Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist. That was probably the strangest conversation I'd ever had.
32. When I was a child, I thought that rain and the A.M. radio stations came from the same place because they both stopped when we drove under highway overpasses.
33. I also thought that if people did things "alone", they could do them "altwo" and "althree" as well.
34. When I was five, I was in the hospital with pneumonia. I called my father to come into the room and fix the television because the color wasn't working. It was a black and white television, and that was my first inkling that not everybody had what I had or lived like I lived.
35. Speaking of color, the first time I attended a live baseball game (Yanks vs. Tigers double-header, 1978), I was horribly disappointed that the color commentary that you hear on tv wasn't broadcast in the stadium. I couldn't understand why anyone would pay money to sit outside and not hear the commentary, when you could stay inside for free and listen to people talk about what was happening on the field.
36. I love to drive. LOVE it. If I could have one true luxury item, spare no expense, it would be a really, really great car.
37. I changed a flat tire on my car on the side of a highway the week I got my driver's license. To this day, my mother is impressed by that story. This tells you more about my mother than about me.
38. When I was 15, I brought a Crowley Thoth tarot deck back home from a convention. My mother said "I think I should take those." I said "No, they're mine" and kept them. I don't know why I remember that – it was no different than any other time I defied my mother's wishes.
39. I no longer have that deck, but I do have the Shakespearean Tarot, which I adore.
40. I would have liked to have discovered Prozac and gotten on it before college, and not after. It would have made my college experience so much more useful.
41. And yet my college experience was pretty kick-ass all the same. Still. It would have been more kick-ass if I had been on 'zac, both for me and for people who knew me then.
42. I've never had a recurring dream, though I have had a recurring theme within various dreams: whether I'm being chased by someone meaning to do me harm or I have to get somewhere before time runs out, my legs become too heavy or searingly painful to move, and I have to drag myself to or from whatever the dream requires with my arms and hands.
43. I studied classical piano for 13 years. I asked for lessons; nobody dragged me. I was one of those "gifted students" who wound up regretting not sticking with it into university. Due to the extreme mental screwosity of my home life, I could barely bring myself to play or practice between lessons. It was too awful to hear myself do anything imperfectly in any way, whether it be hitting the wrong note or missing the dynamic I was aiming for. I demanded of myself that I be able to play each piece perfectly on sight, and was distraught when I couldn't. Nor could I bear to touch the piano when my parents were home for fear of incurring commentary. I can only imagine what a miserable student I must have been; Mrs. G never knew what was going on in my house or in my head. Twice when I was playing during a lesson, Mrs. G wept at what I was playing. Both times it was Chopin. Back then I scorned her emotion; now, I wish I could live up to it again. Mrs. G's son was a violinist with pit orchestras on Broadway, and he would make sure he was home once every month or so during my lesson to play duets with me. To this day, Mrs. G refers to me as the very best student she ever had. It makes me sick to my stomach for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that all but the tiniest bit of my ability is gone forever.
44. My father bought me a gorgeous, honey-colored Mason & Hamlin 1928 AA grand piano for my 13th birthday. When I went to college, he had holes drilled in it and installed an electronic player-piano device.
45. My father beat me, whipped me with a belt, constantly screamed at me for no reason, tortured me emotionally, mentally, and verbally, and destroyed any semblance of normalcy in my life, but the player piano installation is the only thing I'll never forgive him for.
46. When I was a teen, people I'd meet would instantly assume I was in my twenties. Now I'm in my thirties, and people I meet still instantly assume I'm in my twenties.
47. I don't believe in any kind of god.
48. I never had an imaginary friend, nor did I suck my thumb, nor was I a bed-wetter. Childhood and I never went well together, and that continues to this day.
49. I am not fond of children. Until a person can a) control their drool, bowels, and higher motor functions and b) employ logic, they are of little use to me.
50. I am, however, inordinately fond of animals. I cannot bear to see an animal in pain or abandoned.
51. I sleep naked.
52. I also sleep motionless. At summer camp, I would lift the sheet and blanket just a little bit and slide in from the head of the bed. In the morning, I'd slide out again and wouldn't have to make my bunk.
53. When it comes to movies or social dates (lunch, etc.), I would rather be forty-five minutes early than one minute late.
54. When it comes to parties, I would rather be forty-five minutes late than one minute early. This is not about being fashionable; this is about not having to spend the entire block of scheduled time at the party.
55. I'm far shorter than people think I am, even when they're looking right at me. This is due to the volume at which I conduct my life.
56. In spite of having what most consider a brusque, overbearing personality, I have a hard time saying "no" to anyone for any reason. I over-commit myself constantly.
57. I have freckles in my irises. It has been said that this is a sign of a predisposition to mental illness. While I don't know if it's true, you can't disprove it by me.
58. I adore buying things for my friends. I love being able to give people stuff they want.
59. The most beautiful place I've ever visited is Sorrento, Italy. My hotel was built into the side of a mountain on the Gulf of Capri. I came down to the terrace on the first day of my vacation and ordered the fresh fruit plate for breakfast, and watched as my waiter walked around, picking and choosing my breakfast off of trees and bushes.
60. I speak French, Italian, American Sign Language, and am currently learning Spanish. None of them fluently, all of them vaguely comprehensively.
61. I can read Hebrew aloud but I cannot tell you what it means.
62. When I was 18, I had a breast reduction. That was one of the best decisions I ever made. If you're considering it, I say do it.
63. I've only ever walked out of one movie. It was Irreconcilable Differences, starring Drew Barrymore, Shelley Long, and Ryan O'Neal.
64. I don’t like to cook. I don't like to take time and preparation and care to make something I'm just going to eat anyway. I appreciate a well-made meal; I just don't want to spend my own time on it.
65. I've burned a saucepan while boiling water because I was chatting on the internet and forgot about it.
66. Twice.
67. My first crush was on Bob on Sesame Street.
68. I love being surrounded by dark wood and forest green. Nothing ornate, nothing filigreed, nothing intricate. Solid, rich woods and dark green.
69. I love to ski, but haven't been in years.
70. My strongest memory of one particular skiing trip was sitting in an outdoor hot-tub in Aspen, drinking something alcoholic while the snow fell on me and the friends I'd made on the slopes. Being in hot water outdoors in the winter is a unique sensation.
71. I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t a science fiction and fantasy fan.
72. This doesn't mean that I don't adore other genres as well. I could build a single-family house with just the books I own and some mortar.
73. I spent one week of my junior year of high school hooked on coffee to wake up and NyQuil to go to sleep. That's the closest thing to a drug habit I've ever had.
74. I have zines with my early, teenaged fanfiction in them. No, you can't see them.
75. I've been a vidder since 1996, and enamored of fannish vids since long before that. I have embarked on a project of recording every fannish vid I can get my hands on to DVD and creating a central fannish vid library. This is in conjunction with my mailing list for fannish vids and with VividCon.
76. Slash was not something I was interested in for a long while in fandom. I couldn't for the life of me understand why anyone would want to see Leonard Nimoy naked, to start with. All of the zines I had were gen and/or het, until 1993, when I read my first slash zine.
77. I cannot express in words what The West Wing meant to me for four years, especially Jed and Leo. I am resigned to making unintelligible noises.
78. After West Wing's first four seasons, I fell for Remus and Sirius. That was the first pairing I had been enamored of since Jed and Leo. Then it was John and Aeryn, and now it's Roslin and Adama. Oh, and House and Wilson.
79. I wish my grandmother were still alive.
80. I can live for weeks on nothing but Ramen noodles and yogurt. In college, it was Slim-Fast and popcorn.
81. I never used to sleep very much – I didn't need it and thought it was a waste of valuable reading time. My father would leave for work at 4am, and more often than not I was awake when he left. Now I love to sleep, even though I still feel like it's time I could be spending doing something entertaining.
82. I have to have it dark and quiet to sleep. I mean, obviously, eventually, I will fall asleep if it's light or noisy, if I'm tired enough. But I sleep best when it's dark and quiet.
83. I have very sensitive ears and eyes.
84. I have earplugs and a mask by my bed.
85. I've always been into computers. We had a TRS-80, and then a Commodore 64, and then an Apple IIe.
86. I asked my piano teacher to let me work on the Bach Two-Part Invention they used in the Commodore 64 commercials. She said it was too hard for me at that point. I learned it anyway. It was pretty hard, but not impossible.
87. I have had a crush on Hannibal Lecter since the movie Silence of the Lambs came out. This should probably disturb me, but it doesn't. Now I have a crush on Dexter. WTF.
88. There is a very large divot at the back of my head where my skull didn't form correctly. My head would look pretty stupid without hair – not unlike a loaf of split-top bread.
89. In junior high school, girls would befriend me in order to come over to my house because my father looked like Harrison Ford. Now I make my own friends and my father looks like Oliver Stone.
90. I have never been afraid of speaking in front of large groups of people, which is apparently the number one human fear. I'm not afraid of snakes, either. Or clowns.
91. I am afraid… not of heights, as I have stood atop both the Empire State Building and the Sears Tower without fear, but of being off-balance above the ground. I don't even like to walk on the curb or sit on people's shoulders.
92. I was a size 4-6 until I was 30 years old. I rapidly became a size 16. Words of wisdom to you women in your twenties - eat right and exercise *now*, not later.
93. I would very, very much like to become a teacher.
94. I got my ears pierced in fourth grade, and the holes are still viable, but I can't remember the last time I wore earrings. I very rarely wear jewelry of any sort, really. Or makeup.
95. I spent eight months in an intensive, six hours a day, five days a week group therapy program. It changed, and probably saved, my life.
96. I find the Laendler scene in The Sound of Music to be one of the most erotic things ever committed to film.
97. I have never had a broken bone.
98. Once in a while, I get the odd sensation that there should be thumbs on my heels, and they're just missing. I think this is because both of my feet pronate when I walk.
99. I delight in the intellect and humor of my friends; I am forever grateful for the invention of the internet, as it affords me the opportunity to spend all day with some of my favorite people on Earth. Nothing brings me more joy.
100. If I could do it all again, knowing what I know now, I would find a way to get away from my parents early on. And play the piano.
1. I'm 37 years old. I've never understood the problem people have with chronology -- I didn't mind turning 30, I look forward to turning 40, I imagine I'll have no problem with 50 or 60 either. The grey hair has begun to appear and I love it - likewise the very beginnings of what will be some terrific laugh lines. Whenever I hear a woman freaking out because she's "going to be thirty this year" or some such, I am at a loss for what to say other than "And? So? Get the fuck over yourself." Ultimately, that isn't going to bring anyone around to my way of thinking, so I only say it in private. A lot.
2. I've been involved in organized fandom since I was 13. When I was 14, I attended my first convention. I don't know what my parents were thinking when they let me get on a train from New Jersey to Boston by myself to spend a weekend with a bunch of science fiction and fantasy fans in a hotel. Possibly they wanted me dead.
3. I was partially responsible for getting that convention kicked out of the host hotel. I didn't know any better. When you're a young teenager and you're hanging out with grown-ups and they decide to have a frisbee war by filling frisbees with Froot Loops and throwing them across multiple levels of the five-story open-air atrium above the hotel lobby at 4 a.m., you figure this is all part of the convention experience.
4. I can name all of the Presidents of the United States, in order. This comes in handy more often than you'd think.
5. I can also name the vast majority of English monarchs in order. Also handy.
6. And most of the elements, if I sing them.
7. I grew up in New Jersey, about twenty minutes west of Manhattan. I had the full Manhattan skyline out my bedroom window from age six to age eighteen, when I left for college. My dad bought me a telescope when I was nine. I looked at the moon and the stars for about three nights, and thereafter used it to look in the windows of the World Trade Center. I still wonder if some of those people I saw working late all those years ago were still working there on September 11.
8. I realize that I am one of those people who will never, ever get over what happened that day. Every time I see those buildings in a film or a tv show or a photograph, my body goes cold. I remember seeing the ribbon-cutting ceremony when they officially opened the towers. I've outlived architecture.
9. I cannot draw to save my life. Well, maybe to save my life. But no, not really. Oddly, my brother is an architect and city planner, my grandfather was an oil painter, and my aunt works in watercolors. Me? Not so much.
10. I dislike competition mightily – not just personally, but as a concept – and especially in fandom, since it is where I spend most of my social time. The idea of giving out awards for "the best" anything makes my skin crawl, only because nothing is ever, ever, ever judged solely on merit – there are always politics and favorites and maneuvering, and I am a great believer in fairness and justice.
11. In direct conflict with that, I love Top Ten lists and awards shows. But that's just for the opinions and the clothing.
12. My childhood? Well, picture The Sopranos without the Mob, the adultery, or the pasta. Violent, abusive, terrifying father with serious money, nails-and-hair mother who stayed for the wrong reasons, obnoxious, bright, over-achieving elder daughter ::raises hand::, underachieving, immature, delayed-growth-spurt younger son.
13. The thing about tv drama is it never shows you the boring parts where the kids grow up and move away and go to great universities and make lives for themselves, and the parents pull themselves together to a degree.
14. Of course, it's not all sunshine and roses, but it's better. I mean, he's still an asshat and she's still with him. But hey, I don' t have to live there.
15. I love to have conversations which are full of humor. There's very little I enjoy more than laughing with other people who are also laughing.
16. I have a very loud laugh and I'm not ashamed of it.
17. I currently live in Chicago, where I stayed after graduating from Northwestern University.
18. I got my degree in theater and pursued acting/opera for five years after graduation. I was working, too - not quite enough to support myself, but getting there.
19. In 1995, when I had just completed my first second-lead role with an opera company, I lost my voice entirely and was barely able to speak, let alone sing, for close to 18 months. After a long and frustrating period of being told there was nothing wrong with me, a second opinion found that my right sinus system had all but collapsed. Surgery repaired it and ultimately I regained my speaking voice, but the years of vocal training were lost to me forever, and starting over from square one, while holding down real jobs and sharing an apartment with other people, was depressingly unthinkable. Here endeth my performing career.
20. I once spent much of a week with a man I'll call R, who was a famous actor. It was a wholly surreal experience, during which he treated me (whom he had just met), my friend H (whom he had just met), some of the cast members from the tour in which he was appearing, and his agent to dinner twice. We also wound up closing down bars two nights in a row. People who know me could tell you how unlike me this is.
21. At these dinners, there was much singing and reciting and improving and performing. It felt like I was in a 1950s movie of what actors do. After dinner on the second night, R's agent handed me his card and told me he'd like to represent me if I ever moved to New York. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I'd pursued that path, but I don't regret not going. Most likely I would have lost my voice anyway.
22. The week was capped by me, my friend H, and R winding up in R's room at the Four Seasons. Due to extreme inebriation on R's part, nothing much happened. Several months later, R died unexpectedly. The whole situation has taken on a very strange quality in my memory, ultimately inexplicable.
23. I currently live in a lovely condo with
shrift, my cat, and a fridge which is smarter than we are.24.
shrift cooks real food. It amazes me. 25. I'm a Mac person.
26. I used to make my living as a webdesigner for Chicago's PBS station and the classical radio station, but I recently quit and am currently in grad school pursuing a second Bachelor's degree (in English) and a Master's in the Art of Teaching.
27. I have a terrific sense of direction, I can keep maps in my head, and I have a great memory for numbers. I doubt very much that I could get lost unless I were dropped in the middle of a forest on a mountain, and even then I wouldn't be lost lost, though I'd surely die of exposure before I got back to civilization.
28. I don't have any wilderness survival skills. Climate control is my best friend.
29. I am left-handed.
30. I would go into outer space in a heartbeat. I remember thinking "I'd still go tomorrow" the day after the Challenger disaster. Same with the Columbia.
31. I was propositioned by a Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist. That was probably the strangest conversation I'd ever had.
32. When I was a child, I thought that rain and the A.M. radio stations came from the same place because they both stopped when we drove under highway overpasses.
33. I also thought that if people did things "alone", they could do them "altwo" and "althree" as well.
34. When I was five, I was in the hospital with pneumonia. I called my father to come into the room and fix the television because the color wasn't working. It was a black and white television, and that was my first inkling that not everybody had what I had or lived like I lived.
35. Speaking of color, the first time I attended a live baseball game (Yanks vs. Tigers double-header, 1978), I was horribly disappointed that the color commentary that you hear on tv wasn't broadcast in the stadium. I couldn't understand why anyone would pay money to sit outside and not hear the commentary, when you could stay inside for free and listen to people talk about what was happening on the field.
36. I love to drive. LOVE it. If I could have one true luxury item, spare no expense, it would be a really, really great car.
37. I changed a flat tire on my car on the side of a highway the week I got my driver's license. To this day, my mother is impressed by that story. This tells you more about my mother than about me.
38. When I was 15, I brought a Crowley Thoth tarot deck back home from a convention. My mother said "I think I should take those." I said "No, they're mine" and kept them. I don't know why I remember that – it was no different than any other time I defied my mother's wishes.
39. I no longer have that deck, but I do have the Shakespearean Tarot, which I adore.
40. I would have liked to have discovered Prozac and gotten on it before college, and not after. It would have made my college experience so much more useful.
41. And yet my college experience was pretty kick-ass all the same. Still. It would have been more kick-ass if I had been on 'zac, both for me and for people who knew me then.
42. I've never had a recurring dream, though I have had a recurring theme within various dreams: whether I'm being chased by someone meaning to do me harm or I have to get somewhere before time runs out, my legs become too heavy or searingly painful to move, and I have to drag myself to or from whatever the dream requires with my arms and hands.
43. I studied classical piano for 13 years. I asked for lessons; nobody dragged me. I was one of those "gifted students" who wound up regretting not sticking with it into university. Due to the extreme mental screwosity of my home life, I could barely bring myself to play or practice between lessons. It was too awful to hear myself do anything imperfectly in any way, whether it be hitting the wrong note or missing the dynamic I was aiming for. I demanded of myself that I be able to play each piece perfectly on sight, and was distraught when I couldn't. Nor could I bear to touch the piano when my parents were home for fear of incurring commentary. I can only imagine what a miserable student I must have been; Mrs. G never knew what was going on in my house or in my head. Twice when I was playing during a lesson, Mrs. G wept at what I was playing. Both times it was Chopin. Back then I scorned her emotion; now, I wish I could live up to it again. Mrs. G's son was a violinist with pit orchestras on Broadway, and he would make sure he was home once every month or so during my lesson to play duets with me. To this day, Mrs. G refers to me as the very best student she ever had. It makes me sick to my stomach for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that all but the tiniest bit of my ability is gone forever.
44. My father bought me a gorgeous, honey-colored Mason & Hamlin 1928 AA grand piano for my 13th birthday. When I went to college, he had holes drilled in it and installed an electronic player-piano device.
45. My father beat me, whipped me with a belt, constantly screamed at me for no reason, tortured me emotionally, mentally, and verbally, and destroyed any semblance of normalcy in my life, but the player piano installation is the only thing I'll never forgive him for.
46. When I was a teen, people I'd meet would instantly assume I was in my twenties. Now I'm in my thirties, and people I meet still instantly assume I'm in my twenties.
47. I don't believe in any kind of god.
48. I never had an imaginary friend, nor did I suck my thumb, nor was I a bed-wetter. Childhood and I never went well together, and that continues to this day.
49. I am not fond of children. Until a person can a) control their drool, bowels, and higher motor functions and b) employ logic, they are of little use to me.
50. I am, however, inordinately fond of animals. I cannot bear to see an animal in pain or abandoned.
51. I sleep naked.
52. I also sleep motionless. At summer camp, I would lift the sheet and blanket just a little bit and slide in from the head of the bed. In the morning, I'd slide out again and wouldn't have to make my bunk.
53. When it comes to movies or social dates (lunch, etc.), I would rather be forty-five minutes early than one minute late.
54. When it comes to parties, I would rather be forty-five minutes late than one minute early. This is not about being fashionable; this is about not having to spend the entire block of scheduled time at the party.
55. I'm far shorter than people think I am, even when they're looking right at me. This is due to the volume at which I conduct my life.
56. In spite of having what most consider a brusque, overbearing personality, I have a hard time saying "no" to anyone for any reason. I over-commit myself constantly.
57. I have freckles in my irises. It has been said that this is a sign of a predisposition to mental illness. While I don't know if it's true, you can't disprove it by me.
58. I adore buying things for my friends. I love being able to give people stuff they want.
59. The most beautiful place I've ever visited is Sorrento, Italy. My hotel was built into the side of a mountain on the Gulf of Capri. I came down to the terrace on the first day of my vacation and ordered the fresh fruit plate for breakfast, and watched as my waiter walked around, picking and choosing my breakfast off of trees and bushes.
60. I speak French, Italian, American Sign Language, and am currently learning Spanish. None of them fluently, all of them vaguely comprehensively.
61. I can read Hebrew aloud but I cannot tell you what it means.
62. When I was 18, I had a breast reduction. That was one of the best decisions I ever made. If you're considering it, I say do it.
63. I've only ever walked out of one movie. It was Irreconcilable Differences, starring Drew Barrymore, Shelley Long, and Ryan O'Neal.
64. I don’t like to cook. I don't like to take time and preparation and care to make something I'm just going to eat anyway. I appreciate a well-made meal; I just don't want to spend my own time on it.
65. I've burned a saucepan while boiling water because I was chatting on the internet and forgot about it.
66. Twice.
67. My first crush was on Bob on Sesame Street.
68. I love being surrounded by dark wood and forest green. Nothing ornate, nothing filigreed, nothing intricate. Solid, rich woods and dark green.
69. I love to ski, but haven't been in years.
70. My strongest memory of one particular skiing trip was sitting in an outdoor hot-tub in Aspen, drinking something alcoholic while the snow fell on me and the friends I'd made on the slopes. Being in hot water outdoors in the winter is a unique sensation.
71. I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t a science fiction and fantasy fan.
72. This doesn't mean that I don't adore other genres as well. I could build a single-family house with just the books I own and some mortar.
73. I spent one week of my junior year of high school hooked on coffee to wake up and NyQuil to go to sleep. That's the closest thing to a drug habit I've ever had.
74. I have zines with my early, teenaged fanfiction in them. No, you can't see them.
75. I've been a vidder since 1996, and enamored of fannish vids since long before that. I have embarked on a project of recording every fannish vid I can get my hands on to DVD and creating a central fannish vid library. This is in conjunction with my mailing list for fannish vids and with VividCon.
76. Slash was not something I was interested in for a long while in fandom. I couldn't for the life of me understand why anyone would want to see Leonard Nimoy naked, to start with. All of the zines I had were gen and/or het, until 1993, when I read my first slash zine.
77. I cannot express in words what The West Wing meant to me for four years, especially Jed and Leo. I am resigned to making unintelligible noises.
78. After West Wing's first four seasons, I fell for Remus and Sirius. That was the first pairing I had been enamored of since Jed and Leo. Then it was John and Aeryn, and now it's Roslin and Adama. Oh, and House and Wilson.
79. I wish my grandmother were still alive.
80. I can live for weeks on nothing but Ramen noodles and yogurt. In college, it was Slim-Fast and popcorn.
81. I never used to sleep very much – I didn't need it and thought it was a waste of valuable reading time. My father would leave for work at 4am, and more often than not I was awake when he left. Now I love to sleep, even though I still feel like it's time I could be spending doing something entertaining.
82. I have to have it dark and quiet to sleep. I mean, obviously, eventually, I will fall asleep if it's light or noisy, if I'm tired enough. But I sleep best when it's dark and quiet.
83. I have very sensitive ears and eyes.
84. I have earplugs and a mask by my bed.
85. I've always been into computers. We had a TRS-80, and then a Commodore 64, and then an Apple IIe.
86. I asked my piano teacher to let me work on the Bach Two-Part Invention they used in the Commodore 64 commercials. She said it was too hard for me at that point. I learned it anyway. It was pretty hard, but not impossible.
87. I have had a crush on Hannibal Lecter since the movie Silence of the Lambs came out. This should probably disturb me, but it doesn't. Now I have a crush on Dexter. WTF.
88. There is a very large divot at the back of my head where my skull didn't form correctly. My head would look pretty stupid without hair – not unlike a loaf of split-top bread.
89. In junior high school, girls would befriend me in order to come over to my house because my father looked like Harrison Ford. Now I make my own friends and my father looks like Oliver Stone.
90. I have never been afraid of speaking in front of large groups of people, which is apparently the number one human fear. I'm not afraid of snakes, either. Or clowns.
91. I am afraid… not of heights, as I have stood atop both the Empire State Building and the Sears Tower without fear, but of being off-balance above the ground. I don't even like to walk on the curb or sit on people's shoulders.
92. I was a size 4-6 until I was 30 years old. I rapidly became a size 16. Words of wisdom to you women in your twenties - eat right and exercise *now*, not later.
93. I would very, very much like to become a teacher.
94. I got my ears pierced in fourth grade, and the holes are still viable, but I can't remember the last time I wore earrings. I very rarely wear jewelry of any sort, really. Or makeup.
95. I spent eight months in an intensive, six hours a day, five days a week group therapy program. It changed, and probably saved, my life.
96. I find the Laendler scene in The Sound of Music to be one of the most erotic things ever committed to film.
97. I have never had a broken bone.
98. Once in a while, I get the odd sensation that there should be thumbs on my heels, and they're just missing. I think this is because both of my feet pronate when I walk.
99. I delight in the intellect and humor of my friends; I am forever grateful for the invention of the internet, as it affords me the opportunity to spend all day with some of my favorite people on Earth. Nothing brings me more joy.
100. If I could do it all again, knowing what I know now, I would find a way to get away from my parents early on. And play the piano.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 01:13 pm (UTC)I meant to comment on this the first time around but I don't think I did.
It could be because flying gives you motion sickness at a low level and ginger is good for preventing this. Maybe you tried it one time and discovered (subconsciously) that you felt better when you drank it.
Something similar happened to me with italian food. Turns out I have a mild allergy to ricotta cheese, just enough to make eating lasagna etc. a rather uncomfortable experience. (And only ricotta. No other cheese bothers me and I'm not lactose intolerant.)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 01:36 pm (UTC)My husband rarely drinks ginger ale either but he always asks for it on planes ever since he read about the ginger thing (he gets motion sick pretty easy, it's why he hates being a passenger in a car.)
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Date: 2004-09-16 01:20 pm (UTC)30. I would go into outer space in a heartbeat. I remember thinking "I'd still go tomorrow" the day after the Challenger disaster.
I'm also one of those people that would drop huge sums of money to take a short flight into space, and I don't know many people (if any...I can't think of one right now) that gets that.
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Date: 2004-09-16 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 03:49 pm (UTC)Thanks for the list, it was a wonderful read.
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Date: 2004-09-16 04:35 pm (UTC)Even if we can't don't road-trip up to see K, we can road-trip to PET LLAMAS!!! Because I want to hang around you too!
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Date: 2004-09-16 04:43 pm (UTC)Don't worry, I am an extremely considerate smoker. After hearing about your surgery, I would never expose you to my smoke.
I was singing the vidshow llama song to my niece today, and she loved it. I don't like babies or children, either, but Caty is family, and pretty darn cool in small doses.
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Date: 2004-09-16 05:11 pm (UTC)16. I have a very loud laugh and I'm not ashamed of it.
You and me both. Though I do sometimes frighten small children with mine.
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Date: 2004-09-16 05:20 pm (UTC)Isn't that the whole point?
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Date: 2004-09-16 06:10 pm (UTC)66. Twice.
heh, me? Three times at least, and in this sense I meant there were flames around the saucepans. The times when I'd actually just scorched the bottom of the pan black 'cause I forgot about it are too many to count...
no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 06:46 pm (UTC)LOL. Me too. I can still do most of the Friday night prayers from memory, but couldn't tell you the order or what specifically the prayer is about. :)
Waldo.
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Date: 2004-09-16 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 07:38 pm (UTC)Sorry.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-16 07:16 pm (UTC)Dear God. The Apple IIe was my first computer. Dad got one when I was...3, I think, and we had it until just before I started high school. I've tried describing to my younger sister how big the floppies were, but I think she thinks I'm making it up.
Shhh, a sekrit- when I first played around on a more up-to-date machine(in said high school's computer lab), I thought it was magic. ::facepalm:: You may mock me now.
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Date: 2004-09-16 07:28 pm (UTC)Who says it isn't? Computers are mystical beings. They run on smoke. If it leaks out, the computer doesn't work.
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Date: 2004-09-16 08:30 pm (UTC)#101: You honored your own recovery by passing it on. From seven hundred miles away, you pointed out some home truths to me, argued when I wavered, explained away my fears, until I had enough of my own strength to pull myself off the floor and into therapy and meds myself. For which I will will always love you and be grateful. And I'll bet you've done it for others too.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 05:03 pm (UTC)What invention is this? I've been working on #1. I'm in Grade 6 RCM so they're all just out of reach. Like you said, not impoissible since I'm pretty good at sight reading.
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Date: 2004-12-20 05:09 pm (UTC)http://www.npsnet.com/danf/cbm/inv13.mid
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Date: 2004-12-20 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-21 04:12 am (UTC)Now, just being happy you took it well. :-)
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Date: 2005-05-19 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 04:37 pm (UTC)I loved the 100 Things meme. I read every one I can find.
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Date: 2005-05-19 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-19 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-06 08:32 pm (UTC)before i read any further, i just want to tell you that that statement made my body cold
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Date: 2005-09-06 09:06 pm (UTC)22: *flails!* *claps hands over mouth so as not to guess*
45: I get that. I think my eyes about bugged out of my head when I read 44.
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Date: 2009-02-08 06:27 am (UTC)44. My father bought me a gorgeous, honey-colored Mason & Hamlin 1928 AA grand piano for my 13th birthday. When I went to college, he had holes drilled in it and installed an electronic player-piano device.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Way to fuck up a beautiful acoustic instrument, right there... I suppose my grandfather's stripping the useful guts out of a 1928 Zenith floor console radio to put in a hi-fi system wired to his stereo pales beside your piano story O_o ....
45. My father beat me, whipped me with a belt, constantly screamed at me for no reason, tortured me emotionally, mentally, and verbally, and destroyed any semblance of normalcy in my life, but the player piano installation is the only thing I'll never forgive him for.
Your father, my mother. Although my mother became less fond of the belt, and more fond of the handles of wooden cooking spoons. Her favorite was the wire handles of flyswatters, because they offered no air resistance in their journey into childish flesh. To this day I will not strike my ownchildren - all of whom are model citizens, for the most part.
...I should invite you over someday to meet the family.
I'm the computer geek, although my 9 year old son is catching up; my wife is the sci-fi fan and gamer.I revoked my own geekhood on the discovery that I forgot an "em" tag :D
no subject
Date: 2009-02-08 06:34 am (UTC)Computer geeks and sci-fi fans should *always* create children and not hit them.