100 Things

I realize that this is a hoary old meme, an ancient meme, probably a cavememe, but I like reading other people's 100 Thingses, so I might as well put up mine.

1. I was born in California. Bay Area, woo.


2. We left when I was 4 months old, so I remember absolutely nothing about it.


3. I lived mostly in Columbus Ohio until I was 13.


4. I also remember very little about Columbus. Just the house.


5. And the park.


6. And some people.


7. I'm never bored.


8. I like number games.


9. And crossword puzzles.


10. My feet look just like my dad's (except I don't think he wore red nail polish on his toes).


11. My B.A is in Social Science: psychology, anthropology, history...


12. But I'm moving into IT, which I am not at all cut out for.


13. Because I want to have a job someday.


14. We'll see how that goes.


15. I am utterly, absolutely inept at making small talk.


16. I am a coffee snob. Starbucks can bite me.


17. I am not a good cook.


18. I have two sons.


19. I live in a suburb of Munich (Germany), which has me in a sort of permanent identity crisis.


20. I have one friend in this town. She's English.


21. I love happy movies. Don't care much for the other kind.


22. If I could read all the time, I would.


23. Fiction.


24. I like science-fiction, but there sure is a lot of crap getting published lately.


25. Ditto sword-and-sorcery stories.


26. I've been proofreading off and on for over 17 years, and I have no patience with bad writing.


27. I would love to have one of those zippy, informed, aware, interesting blogs about What's Going On, but I just don't have the attention span.


28. I tell people I'm from Seattle, unless they're from Seattle.


29. Then I say I'm from Port Townsend.


30. Well, nobody else knows where Port Townsend is.


31. It's beautiful, though. I miss it every day.


32. Even though living there drove me crazy.


33. I like to knit, but I'm not all that good at it.


34. I have one brother.


35. My dad was married three times. I still keep in touch with both my step-moms.


36. I've been with my husband for eleven years.


37. I hated every single minute of high school.


38. College was better, but I still dropped out 6 times.


39. I finally got my B.A. when I was 31.


40. I am a cat person.


41. I have three tattoos.


42. I really like graph paper. I have a lot of it.


43. I am very difficult to wake up.


44. I think trains are cool.


45. My birthday is October 21.


46. I am geekily fond of Star Trek.


47. And the Muppets.


48. I should be studying right now.


49. When I'm not a student, I feel restless and bored, like I'm just treading water.


50. So I sign up for a course (currently, Database Management) and then I feel stressed and overwhelmed.


51. The thing I miss most about the U.S. is public libraries.


52. And used bookstores.


53. I don't like really hot weather. I hate really cold weather.


54. Big cities intimidate the hell out of me.


55. I wear jeans almost every day.


56. I am almost never on time.


57. I have a bad temper.


58. My favorite color is green.


59. I wanted to be a dancer.


60. I should have tried harder.


61. Silver. Not gold.


62. Sometimes little kids ask me if I'm a witch. Not in a nasty way, they're just curious.


63. I had waist-length hair when I was 20 or so.


64. Then I had green hair.


65. Then blue.


66. I shaved my head after my dad died.


67. I dance in the kitchen, while I'm cooking or cleaning.


68. I can't sing at all, but I do it anyway.


69. When my older son was little he used to cover his ears and cry when I sang to him.


70. I really should take better care of my teeth.


71. I got my first driver's license when I was 26.


72. I don't like to shop.


73. I really like being a webmaster, but I doubt I could make a living at it.


74. I'd like to, though.


75. I can write, but I don't. It's too much like work.


76. I fall over a lot.


77. I smoked for five years, but then I quit. It was hard, and I'm proud that I did it.


78. I like palindromes.


79. And big words.


80. I don't like housework. Okay, nobody does. But other people seem to bear it better than I do.


81. I don't care for sausage. But I live in Germany, so I have to eat it anyway.


82. I am always trying (and failing) to get myself organized.


83. I love my PDA, but I mostly use it to play games.


84. I want to like spiders, because they kill the bad bugs, but the fact is, they give me the heebie-jeebies.


85. When I get stressed out, I lose weight because I forget to eat.


86. I don't like vacations much. I like my normal life.


87. Weekend jaunts to Rome, however, or a few days in Spain, are a different story.


88. Yes, I do realize how fantastically fortunate I am, thanks.


89. I could theoretically count to 1,023 on the fingers of one hand. I say theoretically because I've never actually done it. But I could.


90. I think I'd like to have another baby, but my husband says it's not a good time. By the time he thinks it's a good time, I probably won't want to anymore.


91. Some people think I have a talent for languages, but all I can really do is mimic accents.


92. My dad died at 45. I think about that a lot.


93. My mother died recently. Now I don't have any parents. I do have the stepmoms, and that's almost the same, but not quite.


94. My favorite thing to look at when traveling is cathedrals.


95. I also really like castles. Not chateaux, big-fancy houses for people with too much money, but the real, feudal, defensive structures. Buildings as weapons.


96. I really need to live near water. Ocean, lake, river...something big and obvious.


97. Mountains would be good too, but water is more important.


98. I've mostly stopped biting my nails.


99. My older son calls me the Queen of Sarcasm. He's probably right.


100. I thought of all 100 things in one day. Another useless skill to add to my arsenal.