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100 things about me!

2003-04-21 - 4:57 p.m.

100 Things About Me

This is a really bizarre list and it took me forever to finish. Hope you enjoy it!

1. I love monkeys, and even the word monkey. Noah and I call each other monkey a lot. I�m not sure when the obsession started, but it amuses me.

2. I had a double major in college, in Philosophy and English, and a minor in Religion.

3. I love writing papers, and I love reading good books. Unfortunately, one can�t really get paid for doing those things in the real world.

4. Right now I�m in school for nursing. It�s not the original path I had chosen, but right now it�s the right one.

5. I got married when I was twenty-two, to an amazing man. He was, unfortunately, also sick, and he passed away a little over a year ago. I was twenty-four, he was twenty-eight. I miss him every day, but I am forever grateful for having been with him.

6. A lot of the reason that I want to be a nurse is because I spent so much time with nurses when I was living in the hospital with Andy. I want to take care of people the way they took care of him. And help the families of the patients the way they helped me and Andy�s parents.

7. I work in a nursing home in Minneapolis, in Central Supply. I just recently passed my nursing assistant exam, so I will be doing that a few days a week too. I�m working on gaining the right experience and making a kick-ass resume for when I start to look for nursing jobs. UPDATE 01/2005: I am a TMA and filling in for staffing, same place.

8. I have a boyfriend, named Noah, who will hopefully become my husband soon. He�s two years younger than me, but most of the time I feel like he�s older. Right now he�s working on his Master�s in education. And everything he does makes me proud of him. I feel like a sixteen year old about him, and yet we have a really mature relationship. I also like to gush and that annoys people, so I�ll stop now before it gets too bad. UPDATE 01/2005: He's my husband now, thirteen months ago.

9. I�m a member, or rather an alumni, of a co-ed fraternity called Theta Sigma Tau. I don�t even know what to say about them. I�m grateful to know all of them.

10. I have three older sisters and one older brother. My brother is the next youngest and he�s eleven years older than me, so I was a bit of a surprise. It was hard to feel connected to them when I was little, but as an adult I�ve been able to get a lot closer to them, and I really appreciate having their experience to draw from.

11. Due to all my siblings, I have nine nieces and nephews. Almost ten�my brother�s wife is due in May. They are all really cool kids, although I�m ashamed to say that I do have my favorites. UPDATE 01/2005: Eleven now, newest is Amber Michelle Bright!

12. My oldest niece, Samantha, is only three years younger than me. We grew up more like sisters than aunt and niece. Now she lives out in California and I never get to see her, but someday we�re going to move Georgia together. Or somewhere, anyway. UPDATE 01/2005: She's back on the Cape and in a serious relationship with Helder (H is silent). He's cool.

13. When I was six years old I fell out of the car on the way to the mall with my sister, the day before Easter. I had fallen asleep against the door and I guess I hadn�t closed it all the way. So it opened and I just slipped out. Fortunately, a friend of my mother�s was in the car behind us and she stopped traffic for us. I was rushed to the hospital, but I hadn�t broken anything, just scraped up one side of my face. I still have a pebble under my skin on my forehead. And everybody was really nice to me at Easter that year, and gave me extra candy. So all in all it was a neat experience.

14. I�ve only broken three bones�my pinky, my ankle and my toe. But each of them was broken twice, because for some reason I always managed to hurt it again right as it was healing.

15. The only surgery I�ve ever had was getting my wisdom teeth pulled, and that was just last August (2002).

16. I�m addicted to Red Dwarf, a British comedy series. I can quote most of the episodes by heart, mainly because Andy and I didn�t have cable when we lived together and we watched our tapes of it over and over again. My friend Jaime and I made up a game where she gives me a random situation and I come up with an appropriate quote from Red Dwarf. It�s good stuff.

17. I used to play clarinet, from the fourth grade through high school. I�m not sure why I stopped when I got to college. I don�t think it was really a fully conscious quitting process, but now I kind of regret it because I was pretty good back in the day.

18. I�m named after my paternal grandmother and great aunt, or their middle names anyway. Helen Amanda and Sarah Mae, so Amanda Mae.

19. My maiden name is German for mountain climber.

20. My friend Dave calls me Xochi, because in high school it was my name for Spanish class.

21. He also calls me Chica Feliz, which means Happy Girl, and I have a collection of drawings that Dave made of a girl with silly hair and a big smile that�s supposed to be me.

22. My pledge name for Tau is Bubba. The reason for that is that an English teacher from my high school got exposed as a porn director just before I joined Tau. His nickname was Bubba, so now mine is too. It�s really not a bad name when you know some of the other pledge names people have been called.

23. I was born on July 8, 1977, about a month premature of my due date.

24. My family lived on Cape Cod, but I was born in Dorchester (outside of Boston) because my mother was having some complications.

25. The Dorchester thing was good though, because my mother met a woman while she was in the hospital, and that woman gave birth to one of my best friends, Liisa Viitanen. We went to each other�s one-year birthday parties, but then our mothers stopped hanging out. We met again in sixth grade, and have been best friends ever since.

26. I was a junior bridesmaid at my sister�s wedding when I was thirteen. I had to wear a pink poofy dress, and learn to walk in high heels.

27. On June 14, 2003, I will be maid of honor for my one of my best friends, Liisa. That�s especially cool because she is marrying one of my other best friends, Alex.

28. In May 2004 I get to be a bridesmaid for my friend Cat, another great love of my life. Her fiance, Josh, was a fellow philosophy major, and fellow slacker for a while.

29. In August 2004 I get to be a bridesmaid for Amber, one of my new friends through Noah. One of Noah�s exes (actually, the ex, if you know what I mean) is the maid of honor. This should be interesting. UPDATE: I turned out to be the maid of honor, when the ex bailed. Wow.

30. Before I played the clarinet, I started the viola in third grade. I thought playing a string instrument would be fun, but either I was no good or it was no fun at all, so I quit to play the clarinet.

31. My favorite color is green.

32. Noah once told me that if there were a movie of my life, Jennifer Connolly would play me. Perhaps love really is blind.

33. I have enormous amounts of self-esteem (some may even call it overconfidence, but I wouldn�t) when it comes to the mental me. But the physical me and I have had some issues over the years.

34. Despite what number 33 says, a lot of my confidence is just a fa�ade, but no one ever calls me on it.

35. I am a bit of an elitist snob sometimes though. Once I dropped a class in high school because there were too many people in it who said things like, �Aren�t fish amphibians?� I�m not proud.

36. I keep a paper journal as well as the online one, in case I need to blurt about anything that I wouldn�t want anyone to read about.

37. I let Noah read more of the things I write than I have ever let anybody read before, including Andy. And I often wonder what that means.

38. I have more male friends than female friends and this has always been true, although I think the ratio is a lot closer as I get older. I think women are often too catty for me. But I have managed to find a good number of solid female friendships over the years that are not based on competition.

39. I have almost always had a boyfriend since I started the dating thing. The longest time I have been single since I was fourteen was 13 months, and I dated randomly during that time. I�m not sure what that means either.

40. My count is eight standard, and four otherwise. And countless almosts.

41. I have nine people that I think of as parents. Of course my mother wins, hands down. Then I have four adopted parents from friends, and four of the in-law type. Overall, I have a lot of people to turn to.

42. I used to collect cows. A lot of people thought that it was because I had moved to Wisconsin, but the obsession started before that. Now I really like frogs and, of course, monkeys.

43. I really like cutting things out of magazines and making collages. I have no real artistic talent, so I do that.

44. I have an obsession with highlighters. When I use them for a school I use four or five different colors, and each color has a different meaning. The weird thing is, I almost never go back to look at my highlighting in a random textbook.

45. Whenever I read any book I need to have a pencil nearby to underline things, and usually a notebook too, in case I want to take notes. I do this with all books, even fiction that I�m reading for fun. I think I just got used to it when I was in school.

46. I have a pet mouse named Turnip. The reason I have the mouse is that the apartment building doesn�t allow cats. And the reason his name is Turnip is that I was hoping it would discourage Noah from continuing to call me that. UPDATE 01/2005: Turnip died, as did our first cat, Monkey. So now we have a grey cat who thinks he is a tiger and his name is Bean.

47. I hate sitting at desks, so I always do my homework on the couch or the floor, and I almost always use the laptop instead of the desktop. I like to be able to move around and fold my legs up.

48. I like silly socks a lot. Sometimes I like the look of a pair of fluffy white socks, but mainly I want crazy colors and designs.

49. I also really like shoes. When I was in high school I worked at a shoe store for a while and got a discount. It got really scary. Now I�m down to about ten pair.

50. The only time I ever left the continental United Stated was on a high school band trip to Ireland, my sophomore year. I had an amazing time, and I�d like to go back someday. UPDATE 01/2005: I went to Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Mexico for my honeymoon last year, and there's a trip to Europe planned in May.

51. I have an aversion to other people�s feet, because feet tend to be scary.

52. But I think my own feet are really cute, and they�re probably my favorite part of my body.

53. My fantasy job would be fulltime college student who gets paid to go to school, rather than having to pay. I don�t see it happening anytime soon.

54. My favorite game show is Jeopardy. I used to keep score for myself while I watched, and I also played a drinking version of it with my college friends. Now I own two versions of the computer game, and have the online version bookmarked.

55. I have, with my boyfriend, season tickets for the Twins. Before I started dating Noah, I had barely a passing interest in sports, but now I love going to the games and I even have a variety of hats and jerseys and t-shirts.

56. I like playing role-playing games, especially White Wolf games. That�s also something I used to feel weird about, but my husband got me into it and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I haven�t gotten to play anything in a log time, and I miss it.

57. I used to do a lot of drugs, but I haven�t done anything in quite a while. The reasons are varied and complex.

58. I really like comedians who have something to say about our world, who are informed and intelligent and don�t rely on bathroom humor. The best example is Bill Hicks, but I also really like Eddie Izzard and George Carlin.

59. I read a lot. Under normal conditions, I read about a book a day. Since I�ve been with Noah, I�ve spent more time interacting with him, so my average is down, but I still attack books with ferocity whenever I get a chance.

60. Sometimes when I�m at work and reading my book on my break, someone will say to me, �Must be a good one,� implying that it would have to be really good to make me want to read it at that time. This actually happens at least once a day, as it is my practice to always have a book with me. My response is usually, �They all are.�

61. I also don�t know how to answer when someone asks what I like to read. I like to read everything�anything put in front of me really. Of course I do have preferences, but they tend to vary week to week. I just like the experience of reading.

62. I like to write and have, on occasion, referred to myself as a writer. I don�t know if that�s actually true or not, but I like to think of it that way. The two major problems are that I have a definite lack of consistency and motivation in my work, and that I usually hate to have other people read it. That might rule it out as a career, but I still find it cathartic.

63. Between the time that I was ten and when I got an apartment with Andy and our friend Tom (when I was 20), I never lived in one place for more than three years. And actually, now I think of it, three years is still the longest I have stayed in any one home.

64. Because of living like a nomad child with my mother for years, I have a huge urge to buy a house before I have kids and have them grow up in it, and still be there for them to visit with their own families. That probably won�t happen, but I am definitely aiming to break the three year mark.

65. I live very far away from my own family, and really close to Noah�s family. This sometimes results in jealousy.

66. My family is, of course, quite prone to Jerry Springer like episodes, in which I am often happy to be too far away to be much involved.

67. Plus, I think I was destined to live far away from home. First I picked a far away college, then I married someone who really had to stay in the area, and then when I planned to go home after he died, I stayed just long enough to get involved with another Midwest man. I think it�s meant to be, for whatever reason.

68. I am one the luckiest, most blessed people in the world when it comes to family and friends. I have a really amazing family, despite, or perhaps due to, our intense level of dysfunctionality. And I have always managed to meet the most incredible friends in every place I�ve lived. And more importantly, I�ve managed to hang on to the majority when I went to a new place.

69. I drink Mountain Dew like it�s going out of style. I�ve tried to stop, or even to transfer my addiction to something else. But there�s nothing quite like it.

70. I despise pretension. That doesn�t mean I am not sometimes guilty of it.

71. My biggest hypocriticism is that I am absolutely intolerant of people who are intolerant. I know that everyone has some prejudice, but I think we can work on getting over it. I really just wish everyone could be chill about everyone else, but I know it can�t happen.

72. I was Catholic until I was ten years old. My mother, who rejected the religion herself when she was young, regretted not giving my siblings a religious background. So when I was little I went to church and CCD and all that, because it was the only religion she knew and she just wanted me to have a base to start from. When I was seventeen I converted to Mormonism. It made sense at the time. It took about two years before that wore off too.

73. I have always been a very spiritual person, and usually very religious. But I have had a difficult time accepting any one school of religion, and I�m sure that studying Philosophy was no help. Now I do my own thing, based heavily on a mixture of Buddhism and Paganism.

74. I�m super neurotic. I have a lot of little issues, like the inability to drink water from the bathroom tap, that my friends like to tease me about.

75. My favorite piece of clothing is a grey fleece shirt that my mom made for me, which is referred to as my fuzzy. I also have a couple of sweatshirts that Noah has bought for me that get a lot of wear time, and I just bought a pair of baby-blue corduroy capris that I feel will be a favorite.

76. I think grey is the most comfortable color to wear, especially when one is planning on cuddling in on a rainy night.

77. I just started working a nursing assistant. I�m keeping my current job, and only working as a CNA every other weekend.

78. Now I get to wear scrubs to work. It�s like waking up in the morning and putting on pajamas. It rocks!

79. I am obsessive about making lists of things. To-do lists, lists of things I want to do, long-term goals lists, lists of people I want to keep in touch with, etc., ad nauseum. I�m not sure they ever accomplish anything, but I like to make them.

80. Noah and I like to camp a lot, and we keep our tent and sleeping bag in the trunk of his car, in case we have the urge to go on a moment�s notice.

81. I watch a lot of movies. Noah likes them a lot too, and we have a really unhealthy problem with buying DVDs.

82. I was two hours late to my own wedding. It was my sister�s fault, and it�s funny now, but it was certainly not funny then.

83. I knew all the words to the Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack, and most of the audience script, before I ever saw the movie. My sisters used to listen to it all the time.

84. I have a lot of lines from a lot of movies memorized, as well as passages of books and countless song lyrics. I sometimes wonder what useful things I could be using all that brain space for instead. But Noah is fond of telling me that the brain is not a hard drive, and has unlimited space.

85. I once met Robert Ramonus, the guy who played Mike Damon in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He came in the restaurant I worked in, and I was the only one brave enough to ask if he was that guy.

86. I also met C. Thomas Howell, best known to me as Ponyboy in The Outsiders. He came in my restaurant too (different restaurant, years later) and I was waiting on him and his wife, whose family apparently lives in Wisconsin. Of course he was older than he was in the movie, and he had grown a beard, so I had to ask him why he looked so familiar.

87. I really want to have sons. I think boys will be easier for me because I have never really been very good at being a girl, so I think I would have problems raising one and not giving her the same problems.

88. I have a fear of being a packrat. I think I am one, but not to the degree my mother is, and I am always motivated to get rid of things by thinking about my mother having drawers full of ridiculous things, �because you never know.�

89. I have wanted to get a tattoo for a long time now: a pair of angel wings between my shoulder blades. But I can�t bring myself to actually make the permanent mark.

90. I have had my ears pierced since I was five years old. I don�t wear earrings very often at all, but they have never closed up. Once I got the top of my right ear done, but it got infected. And I got a second hole when I was in New York once with Liisa and Dave, but that closed up. I have always wanted to pierce my tongue, but I can�t go through with that either.

91. I react in absolutely classical ways when people tease me, which makes them do it more. I can�t help it.

92. I am extremely ticklish, and most of my friends take advantage of that on a regular basis. Andy used to tell people that even the air around me was ticklish.

93. I�m a cancer, and I think the description fits me. I don�t really believe in horoscopes, per se, but I believe in the idea behind them.

94. I read Tarot cards, but I only believe in them to the extent of the knowledge of the people doing the reading.

95. I am seriously introspective. I spend most of my time inside my own head, and it makes me less observant about the world around me than most people probably are. And I have a tendency to over-analyze everything.

96. I think that everything that a substantial number of people believe in is true. But that only means it is true for them. This is certainly not an original idea, but I like it.

97. I�m terribly with money, always have been. Thankfully I have Noah now, who takes care of all that stuff for me.

98. I react really easily and often to other people�s emotions, and I can usually feel them really easily, especially if I know you at all. If I am really close to a person then I feel them all the time.

99. I am a hopeless romantic, and I believe everyone can find that absolutely sublimating love. And I have found it twice.

100. I am super happy that I finished this list!!

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