I'm jumping on the
100 Things bandwagon.
1. I was born in South Charleston, WV, at Thomas Memorial Hospital. I grew up in St. Albans, WV, and I now live in Lexington, KY. I like Lexington alot.
2. I have two siblings: an older brother (31, on Sept 18) and a younger sister (22). I also have a niece (8) and a step-nephew (19).
3. I am lactose intolerant. I carry a mini Altoids tin around with Lactaid in it.
4. I've been dating my boyfriend, Jay, since April 7, 2000. That night we went to a Kids in the Hall show in Cincinnati. I met him through a mutual friend, and the first time I met him in person was on a Saturday (I drove up to Florence, outside of Cincinnati, to see him.) We went to a Brothers Creegan show. I found him charming, which I can honestly say I've never found anyone before (or since).
5. We're buying a house next year. It will be an inexpensive house, by Lexington standards. We already have a good idea of where we want to live, but we'll probably look at a lot of stuff. The process of buying a house scares me.
6. I love concerts. There's something about the energy that exudes from the crowd and the artists that make me feel young. Unfortunately, I've not been as diligent about traveling to see shows that are farther away than my own town lately.
7. I really hate to feel anything around my waist. This causes me to buy pants and shorts that are often a bit too large, but are loose on the waist. My butt is never big enough to make it fit right.
8. My mother had a stroke on August 7th of this year. She's recovering slowly. She also has polycystic kidney disease. This is a genetic disorder that causes huge cysts to form on your kidneys, eventually rendering them useless and the size of footballs. I have a 3/7 chance of having it myself. I don't want to have the genetic test for it. It doesn't hit until middle age, usually.
9. I do not want children (see above disease.)
10. I was treated for dysthymic depression for three years. I'm much better now, thanks. I also have TMD (jaw pain) and allergies. I hate allergies. I had my tonsils and adenoids out when I was 14. That sucked. I had two broken legs in two years at ages 6 and 7.
11. I love Tori Amos and Ani Difranco. I've seen them compared in different places, but really, they're nothing alike. They're both chicks. End of story. Anymore I tend to be leaning more to the Ani Difranco side of things, though. I still like Tori, but I'm not as obsessed.
12. I do not like peas. I will eat them if it's unavoidable.
13. I use too much salt.
14. I have a vine growing around my office. It goes around about 3/4 of the office now. I have six plants total in my office.
15. I write HTML for a living, as a real job. Not many people do that anymore. I love my office. It has 6 windows, and it overlooks a pond that sometimes has various wildlife.
16. I love Ben Folds "Last Polka", and can listen to it over and over. Someday, I'd like to be able to play it on the piano.
17. I drive a 2000 Mitsubishi Mirage. It's an ok car. My Neon was better.
18. I like to travel. I've been to Paris, Rome, New York City, Washington DC, and pretty much all over the eastern seaboard, and to Minneapolis. I will go to Chicago in November.
19. I like my boyfriend's mom alot. She's a cool lady, and will make a good mother-in-law.
20. I once had tickets to see Milli Vanilli, right before their "scandal" hit. The show was cancelled. Dammit, those were 8th row tickets. This was in 9th grade.
21. I like to sleep. I am grumpy if I'm consistently sleep-deprived.
22. I like animals alot. I used to have a greyhound named Debbie, whom I loved very much. She got hit by a car my senior year of high school. My parents currently have a chow/lab mix named Princess. She is a wonderful dog in her own right. Playing with animals is fun. My cat is tortoise-shelled and named Anastasia. She's evil, but I love her.
23. Jay and I plan on adopting a retired greyhound next year after we've settled into our new premises.
24. I failed my driver's test 2 or 3 times. I've blocked the exact number. I think I've developed into a good driver, however.
25. I didn't curse at all until high school, and then used it sparingly.
26. I love to go to a local Italian restaurant (Bella Notte) and have their bread that you dip in a very strong herb/olive oil mixture. I taste this taste for a few days afterwards, but it rarely stops me.
27. I like to cook, but I'm not particularly inventive. I'm good at a few things. I branch out every now and then.
28. I am one of two girls in a company of 18 people. Our owner is 37, our receptionist/project manager is 35, and everyone else is 26 or younger (ok, except for our part-time accountant and one-third owner, who is in his 70's. He rocks.)
29. My sister has been in and out of treatment facilities for mental illness and drug problems. For that reason, I don't like drugs. Pot is included in this, even though I logically realize that it's probably less harmful than alcohol.
30. I have never smoked a cigarette, cigar, pipe, or taken any illegal drug.
31. I once was obsessed with a guy that doesn't dig chicks. For way too long.
32. I have two grandmothers. One suffers from dementia and is constantly stating that she only has a quarter of her heart left, the other buys a new car every year, has a boyfriend in South Carolina, and dyes my hair for me.
33. My cousin Emily is the only family member of my generation that I really identify with. I turned her on to Tori Amos. Next up: Ani Difranco.
34. I sleep with a stuffed blue monkey named Hugmy that Jay won for me out of a claw machine.
35. I'm pretty good at claw machines myself. I have a collection of horribly ugly stuffed animals from them.
36. When I was younger I collected Cabbage Patch Kids. I have about 25, I think.
37. My sister had a beautiful red-headed talking Cabbage Patch Kid that wore a velvet green dress (not a real green dress, that's cruel). She refused to play with it because it reminded her of Chucky.
38. My father was once in Newsweek and the Washington Post. It was about 1986, I think.
39. My two favorite authors are Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. They tie in with my favorite bands/artists quite well, I think.
40. I've known my roommate/best friend since 9th grade, when we were in Honor Society together. We've lived together for seven years.
41. I like candles. My favorite is a super-sweet vanilla candle that I can only find at Garden Ridge.
42. My father built my bed. It's a nice bed with drawers underneath, but it's a pain in the ass to move.
43. My mother had me after a bout with a severe form of anemia. The doctors advised terminating the pregnancy, but she didn't see that as an option. (and as far as I know, there weren't any complications to the pregnancy.)
44. I don't usually take too much time to pick out clothes in the morning. I'd be more fashion conscious if I had more money and was a morning person.
45. I hate mornings. I never feel rested.
46. I really really really really hate racism. I don't like to hear epithets, racial jokes, or implications that race, physical aspects of a person's body, will govern how they act.
47. I have the same dresser and desk that my mother had as a child. They badly need refinish. They have glow on the dark star stickers on them.
48. I have a BA in Advertising from the University of Kentucky. I was pretty good at advertising, but I don't like the lifestyle (and I like my liver).
49. I'm not horrible at volleyball. I am horrible at soccer. We have a soccer team at work. I haven't played in several months.
50. I get really pissed off when a telemarketer mispronounces my name. It's phonetic. On the same note, it really annoys me when people misspell my roomate's name Amiee.
51. I've seen Neil Gaimain do two readings.
52. I hate paying Ticketbastard fees with a vengeance. My cousin Emily, my sister, and my friends Tara, Andrew, a few others have all worked for Ticketbastard at some point.
53. My first job was at Wendy's in St. Albans, WV. I am not good at food service. My brother works there now, as does my nephew.
54. I took swimming lessons from the ages 3 until I was about 9. I took dance lessons from 3 until 8. I can swim, but I sure as hell can't dance. However, I am fascinated by ballet.
55. I'm agnostic. I believe God MIGHT exist, but I think logically this is unlikely. I think I'd like to believe, but I just don't.
56. I despise Barney the dinosaur. I tried to turn my niece against him as a small baby by turning it on and saying, "BAD. BARNEY IS BAD." I don't think it worked, but she was never too bad about it.
56. I play clarinet, flute, piano, saxophone, and basically any woodwind instrument. I own two clarinets, a saxophone, a flute, and a piccolo. I don't play them enough. I started playing clarinet when I was 10. I was section leader and first chair in high school. I was a total band geek.
57. I prefer PCs to Macs. However, I managed an all-Mac computer lab for a year in college.
58. I DESPISE most forwards. When you forward stuff to large amounts of people, it gives their email addresses out to potential spammers. Most of the time whatever you're sending is misattributed, and not by who it says it is, or is just a false urban legend. And those stupid-ass poems and sappy glurge that people send out make me wanna retch. Don't send me a forward about How Some Little Girl needs an operation and will get it if you save pop-tabs, or a poem about womanhood or god or any of that. It's trash (now don't I sound like a bitch?)
59. I think it's cute when my cat kneads my bed. I'm not sure why.
60. I wear glasses. My eyes are pretty bad. I tried contacts earlier this year, but they weren't working out, and were very expensive.
61. I'm not good with money, but I'm learning. My family didn't overwhelm me with examples of financial responsibility growing up.
62. I will not copy and entire cd verbatim for someone, as I think that's really just taking money from the artist. However, I have no problems with making mix cds.
63. I love Kevin Smith movies. My favorite is Chasing Amy. I have them all on DVD (that pretty much IS my DVD collection.)
64. I love McDonald's Hot Cakes and Sausage platter. Mmmm. However, I'm not a big fan of breakfast food, particularly in the morning.
65. My apartment backs up to a fairly busy road. This is really crappy when you want to open your window at night sometimes. But our rent is pretty good, so I won't complain too much.
66. I have never carried a purse. I don't like carrying something where the weight isn't distributed equally. I carry a backpack when I need to take stuff that's too large to fit into my wallet/key ensemble.
67. I really value a lot of the people I've met (or gotten to know) online. However, I've met a few really creepy people. And some that are just asses.
68. I used to meet people in line/during concerts. It was interesting, but I'm not up for that anymore.
69. I love the cartoon King of the Hill.
70. I did the drama thing in high school and college. I was in three plays, and worked on a few others. I took a few college level acting classes. I'm too uptight to act well, though.
71. Auditions scare the living bejeezus out of me. A few times I got so flustered my glasses fogged up.
72. I like stars. Both the five-pointed things and the things in the sky. When I was a small child I wanted to be an astronomer (yet I never took a college astronomy class. duh.)
73. I got out of Math 109 (college algebra) because of high SAT scores. Ironically enough, I probably wouldn't have been able to get through it without a lot of tutoring. I hate math, and didn't retain much of it.
74. Girls scare me sometimes. The closer they are to my age, the more they intimidate me. I don't understand this. I'm not very girly myself. I rarely wear makeup, I don't want kids, and frilly things look ludicrous to me.
75. My car is always a mess. It needs detailed.
76. My father knows nothing about computers, but has picked up just enough lingo to confuse the hell out of me when he calls and asks for help.
77. I thought growing my own tomatoes would be a rewarding experience. It turned out just to be a pain in the ass. The tomatoes don't even taste that
good.
78. I've inherited the tendency to go to the store several times a week from my mother. I never get everything I need on the first trip.
79. I am scared of snakes. I think there's something Freudian about that. I have nightmares where there are snakes everywhere, and I can't get away. I also have nightmares about being on the beach, and lots of sea creatures wash up and try to attack me. I've always been afraid of ANY animal in the sea, including hermit crabs and tiny harmless fishes. This fear also extends to lakes and resevoirs.
80. I can't live without callerID. Ahh. So convenient.
81. I love making lists like this about myself, for some reason. I'm not quite sure why.
82. I get really annoyed when people slack at work and it directly effects me. (I'm never sure whether it's effect or affect. You'd think by age 26 I'd know this.)
83. I love grape juice popsicles. I have given myself frostbite on my tongue a few times lately because of that.
84. I get a little thrill when my Priceline bid is accepted.
85. I discovered and completed the Anne of Green Gables series when I was 21. I've also read all of the Little House on the Prairie books, and have read a few biographies of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
86. I have gone through several sets of keyboard trays at work. I keep breaking them somehow. It's not a big surprise that I have carpal tunnel syndrome.
87. On top of my monitor I have: A Peanuts Woodstock character, a plastic dinosaur dancing with a neon plastic lizard, a purple die from Vegas, a small seal, a paperclip holder, an Erin Beanie Baby (all Ty tags removed, thankyouverymuch), and a picture of my niece holding my cat when she was a kitten (the cat, not my niece. She was never a kitten, to the best of my knowledge.)
88. My niece is a great kid. For everything she has going against her (economically and socially), she's a very nice, polite, loving child. I don't see her nearly enough.
89. I love Bonne Bell Lip Smackers. One year, I got over 20 tubes of it for Christmas. I use a lot of Blistex Lip Medex, too.
90. I feel as if I've copied stuff from other people's lists, and that makes me feel slightly guilty. hehe. Also, a lot of these items have probably been mentioned elsewhere in my blog in my two years of blogging.
91. I turn into a complete moron when I meet a celebrity or semi-celebrity. I stutter and act like a two year old meeting Scooby Doo at a theme park.
92. I only really LISTEN to music in the car or when I'm wearing earphones. The rest of the time it's mostly background noise, but I have to have something on when I'm working. The sole exception to this is if I'm writing. Then the only thing I can listen to is classical at a very low volume.
93. I think it's really neat when I see the URL of a site I've created on TV, the radio, or in print.
94. My favorite meal is stuffed green peppers. MMmm.
95. I want to be cool, tall, vulnerable, and luscious. At least I have the tall part down, if compared to an average female (Average female: 5'4". Colleen: 5'6".) Thanks to Liz Phair.
96. My taste in music severely lacked until about six or seven years ago. Most everything I listened to was crap from the radio, and I eschewed exploring other music. Thankfully, Tori Amos and They Might Be Giants turned me around and showed me the light.
97. I know one of the brothers of the Backstreet Boys. It amuses me. In all actuality, though, I haven't talked to the guy in several years and I'm not positive he'd know who I was if I saw him.
98. I get very unsettled by repeated loud noises around me that I'm not participating in. This includes: people putting with a golf club in the hall outside my office, hammering, and loud bass.
99. I'm often amazed at how simple things came to be. Who originally had the idea to take an uncured olive (very bitter), and soak it in brine to make it palatable? If you've ever been in a forest and seen how dense it was.. how did pioneers find their way? How did they get the idea to smelt ore to get metals? Did this stuff just happen by accident, and people took advantage of it? It really gives me respect for our ancestors.
100. I don't like to argue for the sake of argument. I don't really like to argue at all.
