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2005-07-29 - 8:56 a.m.

The Big 100. In no particular order.

1. I have an extra curlicue in my zygous vein. I�m fancy inside.

2. If I had a sandwich named after me at the Carnegie Diner, I would want it to be smoked oysters, bacon, avocado, and tomato on a rye roll with arugula and balsamic-mustard vinaigrette dressing, served with purple cabbage coleslaw and a pickle.

3. I�m a list maker.

4. I am also an arranger.

5. I love to read. Reading is how I treat myself. If I can get my stuff done, it is how I reward myself.

6. My favorite books when I was a child were Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears by Verna Aardema, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, The Madeline Books by Ludwig Bemelmans, Robinson Carusoe by Daniel Defoe (my Mom would read me a chapter a night), and when I was a little older: The Boxcar children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. I loved The Little House books and anything by Madeline L�Engle,

7. My favorite books now are The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, The Harry Potter series, Ahab�s Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund, The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, Anything by Amy Tan or Margaret Atwood, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (I just found it it is being made into a movie, and I don�t know how to feel about that.) and, most recently, Mila 18 by Leon Uris. I could keep going, too, as there is just so much good stuff to read in the world.

8. What I�d like to get around to reading: Tolkien, Catch-22, Moby Dick, War and Peace, Candide, Pride and Prejudice, more David Sedaris, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore, Lucky by Alice Sebold.

9. I find it very difficult to identify favorites. I like a lot of stuff and it changes with my moods. I guess you could call me fickle.

10. Some of my favorite movies are Le Huiti�me Jour (The Eighth Day), Bamboozled, Am�lie, Fight Club, The Dark Crystal, Being John Malkovich, Magnolia, De-Lovely, The Sword in the Stone, The Secret of Nimh.

11. I hate fashion. I like the art of fashion, but people being dictated into clothing styles creeps me out. Plus, some of it is just stupid and ugly. Like ponchos. Who the hell brought those stupid things back? Also, capri pants. I despise capri pants. Every summer there is some variation on the shortened pant. Call it what you like this summer, but I think they look like ass on everybody.

12. I think the best way to know a person is to travel or camp with them.

13. My hub is the best traveling companion I have ever had.

14. When I was six I almost drowned because I didn�t know you had to know how to swim to jump off a diving board into the deep end of the swimming pool. It just didn�t occur to me. When I jumped up, bouncing off the floor of the pool, and yelled �Help!� the lifeguards thought I was playing around. I grabbed onto a raft that some kids were paddling around the pool, a popular activity at this pool party. There was a line of kids waiting for turns on the raft. �You have to wait your turn,� the kids on the raft said. They pushed me back into the water. Finally, some attentive mother saved my sorry drowning ass. My mother, hearing what had happened upon picking me up from the party, immediately enrolled me in swimming classes.

15. My summer jobs in college included dog groomer�s assistant and a basket weaving teacher.

16. As a dog groomer�s assistant, I bathed Bruce Springsteen�s pets.

17. From the age of 9 I grew up on an all-boys private school campus.

18. I am afraid of heights. In multiple storey malls, the ones that are open in the center, I have to stop myself from grabbing complete strangers and pulling them away from the railings. It�s a difficult impulse to control.

19. If I had the chance, I�d like to study Neuropsychology.

20. The hub and I are restoring an historic house. It�s a challenge. We can date the house as far back as 1862 with its past deeds, but we think it is probably from the late 1840�s. It is Italianate, though it has some Greek Revival qualities. I guess it�s what they call �on the cusp.�

21. Since the house is in a constant state of repair (PimpCups said it best, �It feels almost normal upstairs, and then you descend into war-torn Bosnia or some shit.�) we make do with a lot of stuff, like plywood across doorways to keep the dogs out of rooms that have no doors. The entire place is an obstacle course.

22. One of the rooms in our house is dedicated to being a room my husband has always wanted: a library with floor to ceiling bookcases, dark wood furniture, war memorabilia and chess sets. He calls it the War Room.

23. One of the rooms in our house is dedicated to being a room I have dreamed of since I was a child: a fantastic room that is painted to look like an oversized forest that makes you feel like you are an elf or some such. The carpet from my grandparents home, which was in my room when I was a child, will be in that room. It looks like fallen leaves. The rest of the house will be pretty �average� I guess, though there may be a few more murals.

24. I collect cook books. I buy them wherever I travel. My favorite food to cook is probably Italian, since it is comfort food for me and what I grew up with.

25. Two trees planted in our backyard were moved from NJ. They both started themselves in our yard in 2000, the year we got married and the year our dog Mitzvah showed up at our house. Our wedding tree, an oak, has the top tier of our wedding cake buried under it. We never ate that on our one year anniversary because that is just disgusting. It seemed wrong to throw it out, so we planted it under the tree. I for one think the sugar did the tree some good. It looks great. Mitzvah�s ashes are buried underneath her tree, a maple. It has nearly doubled in the year and a half since we replanted it.

26. I am an impatient person. When people think I am patient it is because I am seriously doing a good job at faking it.

27. For a year of my young life, my parents and I lived in the caretakers� cottage of an estate. While my adult mind is aware of how that situation was hard work for my parents, that time was my utopia. I remember moving away from there knowing that my as-of-then-gender-unspecific-younger-sibling was on its way and felt genuine remorse that he/she would not know that place.

28. The woods surrounding that cottage fostered my love for all things woodland and fairyish. So did my mother. Every nook in the forest became a house, acorn caps were dishes and little hats, tree fungi were little terraces. My mom also had this seemingly ancient picture book about elves and fairies that I adored. It was giant, nearly as large as I, and had beautiful illustrations. She also had a set of Childcraft books from her childhood, revered and adored by my mother, sister and I, that greatly influenced my imagination. Their dark orange covers, covered in white, grey and black illustrations and labeled in gold, opened to reveal all sorts of fantastic worlds.

29. When I went to college the first time, I did not go about choosing courses sensibly. Receiving the course catalog was like shopping for me: some literature classes here, a history class there, ooh --- political science and philosophy, and how about a year in France? The result was five and a half years and two bachelors degrees and no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I enjoyed it. I could be a student forever.

30. I have five pets: three dogs and two cats, all rescue animals. Our two cats are brothers we found by the side of the road at about eight weeks. Snowball II and Ozark Potato currently have to live in a small area, since the house restoration construction is not cat friendly. Dogma and Philosophy (�Sophy for short) are litter mates and were adopted from the pound. They had a rough life before that, and they were meek and perpetually scared. Now they�re independent and sassy. Midrash was one of six puppies born under our house to a stray Chow mix. I call her Veruca, cause she�s a spoiled brat. Her mom lives next door with our neighbors.

31. Since we�ve been together, the Hub and I have had a pet rat named Turnip and a pet hedgehog named Spike. My cat from college, Beezle, still lives with my parents.

32. The hub and I had an amazing dog named Mitzvah whom we adored. She showed up about two weeks before we got married, and we fell in love with her almost instantly. She was a Shepherd mix, possibly with Doberman and Husky, but people often thought she was a Shepherd puppy, since she was petite. She was so sweet and followed me wherever I went, always traveled with us, loved to go hiking and had all sorts of sweet quirks like howling at the phone and fire whistle. She loved to swim, and always had a great time at the shore. It broke our hearts when she had to be put to sleep because of cancer. Putting her down was the most horrible thing I�ve ever had to do in my life. I still cry just thinking about her.

33. I have the best neighbors in the world. You may think you have good neighbors, so I am sorry to have to break this to you. My neighbors are the best, hands down. I could never have even dreamed up my neighborhood. I am surrounded by the most creative and diverse individuals every day. They throw the best parties. They do the craziest shit. I adore them.

34. I am also blessed with the world�s best next door neighbors. They are now practically family. The other half of the Sycamore Street Hussies, the genuine Southern Belle herself, lives right next door. She is full glam and teaches yoga in full jewelry, people! You have never met another person like her.

35. I did not know any of my neighbors before I moved to Petersburg, VA. Amazing people just flock there. I am telling you. Amazing.

36. My music tastes are very broad. My father is a classical musician who exposed me to a varied array of music. I love spirituals but not modern gospel music. Same goes for country: I like blue grass and old country but hate that crap made today. I have a weak spot for pop music. If it�s catchy, I like to belt it out in the car. I�m fond of madrigals and renaissance music and classical guitar. I adore Jazz, especially Ella and Satchmo and Billie and Vaughn and Etta and Cole Porter and Gershwin. I love, love, love Chaka Khan. I�m fond of The Smiths, Morrissey, Steve Burns, Stevie Wonder, The Talking Heads, David Bowie, The Be Good Tonyas, TV on the Radio, Sleater Kinney, Bjork, Weezer, The Black Eyed Peas, Bree Sharp, daKAH, The Gorillaz, Paul Simon, The Sundays, Modest Mouse, Edith Piaf, Siouxie and the Banshees, James, Madison Avenue, Moby, Yann Tierson, Moe, Pascal Obispo, Ray Charles, The Flaming Lips, Oojami, Tricky. I love popular rap, hip hop, and R&B, but I get fed up with it, like I do with most popular music.

37. I wish I could fly, play the guitar and/or piano, do math in my head, budget better, and keep my house clean.

38. Every night before going to bed when I was a child, my Mom would wind a music box for me. It was a brightly painted, rather lumpy folk-art figure of Mary holding baby Jesus. This version of Mary was very friendly looking, and I liked her because she looked like she was inside a watermelon. Her cape was teal blue lined in a very pink red that sat stiffly in a perfect arc over her head. It rotated as the music played. Eventually it came off the base, but my Mom would still wind the base every night.

39. I love miniature things. I especially love miniature houses, but they have to be unique. I have a miniature garden that I am growing with dwarf varieties of plants and miniature accessories. A separate, regular-sized garden with average-sized things made into fairy dwellings is also in the works.

40. My fifth birthday was the best I have ever had, and any following pales in comparison to it. I came downstairs on the morning of my birthday to find a wrapped present in the middle of the dining room table, and in front of that was fanned a pile of comic books, and in front of that was fanned many packs of gum. It was a kaleidoscope-pattern of childhood bliss. In the box was roller skates. The metal kind you wore over your shoes. They came with a key, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. A few months later, the parking lot next to our house was re-paved and my sister was born, so I learned to skate on smooth asphalt by pushing her stroller. What luck.

41. I am taking Belly Dancing classes. You may have heard about this because I talk about it incessantly.

42. I hate to exercise, so I take dance classes. There�s the belly dancing, of course, and also African Dance when it�s available. I also have Carmen Electra�s Aerobic Striptease, which is pretty much just aerobic dancing with some slutty moves thrown in, like ass slaps and gyrations. I break those out when I�ve had a bit too much to drink and there�s some good music playing.

43. When I was in third grade, I desperately wanted saddle shoes. I knew them only from books. I ended up being the only kid in school that had them, so of course they were mocked wretchedly. (I have always been a trend-setter before my time. People just don�t realize it when they see it.)

44. I hate when people think you �collect� something and then give you crappy stuff remotely related to it. Not everybody, mind you, just people who are tacky or are not gift thoughtful. And you cannot re-gift that shit, cause everyone will know.

45. Oftentimes I am disappointed because I imagined something would be better than it would be, with the exception of Disney World. Those people are really good at realizing ideas. They are very attentive to details. Though the whole surreality of places like that freaks me out. I have a tendency to over analyze.

46. My earliest memory is putting on my Dad�s boots and walking in them. Now I know that we remember things incorrectly, and that our memories of childhood are generally informed, but it seems real to me. I see myself in a full length mirror walking in my Dad�s boots and they are coming all the way up my thighs, up to my diapered butt. The weird part about it is I recognize it as myself, but I am a toddler. It�s an odd sensation because I can remember it so vividly and I had no aid in remembering it. When I recently told my Mom about this memory, she was shocked that I was able to describe this when she knew it must have happened when I was about a year and a half old, since I described our home in Maine where we only lived a year. She was surprised that I remembered the mirrored closet doors.

47. I have other memories of Maine too, but I think they are mostly informed by photographs and stories from my Mom. It snowed so much when we lived there, and my legs were so short, that my parents bought a toboggan to drag me around. I think it was in Maine, according to my Mom, that I told a cow that it had such beautiful eyes and pointed out a cow with horns to my parents as the one that had handle bars.

48. For a year and eight months of our marriage, my husband and I lived apart. It was horrible.

49. I moved to Virginia by myself after I finished school (for the second time) to find a job and get us settled. The Hub and I had decided that we wanted to move, and I was the scout. It took a lot longer than we�d originally thought for many reasons. In the end, it was worth it, and we definitely know the strength of our marriage because of it. The hardest part may have been that the insurance companies considered us legally separated. I am woman enough to admit that having an insurance rep tell me that over the phone broke my heart and made me cry.

50. While we were apart, I had three jobs (not at the same time), bought our house, went through a hurricane, dealt with a vicious dog who had a litter of puppies beneath our house, and was the general contractor on the house�s Restoration Loan. I kicked ass.

51. I love science. I wish I better understood it from the inside, but I am destined to be a distant admirer, observing it from afar like a tone deaf music lover admires a concert pianist. I can appreciate it, but I cannot be a part of it.

52. When I was a child, I wanted to be a cowgirl. And a jazz singer. I loved professions that had outfits. I loved to sing and wanted to ride horses with a lasso. I had a vest that I considered my cowgirl vest and wore incessantly. (Sometimes with the saddle shoes. Like I said, I�ve always been a trendsetter.) A family friend made the vest for me. It was brown with an appliqu�d ice cream cone on the back (with a smaller version of the cone on the front) and reversible to a brown gingham floral. I still have the vest. And the aspirations. Neither fit.

53. When I told my mom that I wanted to be a cowgirl when I grew up, she told me it was a profession that was inherited. Evidently, you need to be born into cowgirling. This made me resent my relatives. My mom tried to soften that blow by telling me I had some cool relatives, including pilgrims who came on the Mayflower. Pilgrims are not cool. They have terrible outfits and those stupid guns shaped like trumpets.

54. My favorite color is orange.

55. The hub and I bought a karaoke machine for my 30th birthday party, as the idea was to have a 30�s-inspired German-style Kabarett as my induction to the thirties. Many of my neighbors came dressed up in vintage clothing and played the fool that night. They cannot just sing karaoke: they have to have back-up singers and moves and do it all elaborately. One of my favorite moments of the evening was when two of the Supremes fought mid-song over just who was Diana.

56. I attended an all-girls boarding school. Some parts of that experience I loved, others I hated. I don�t think I would have been very happy at a public high school though. I realized after graduating that I had more opportunities to prove myself because individuality can be expressed with less fear in a small community, since people know you intimately. It�s much harder when people only are acquainted with one another from afar.

57. I am a designer by trade. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I�m quite good at it.

58. My husband was my RA in college. How naughty am I?

59. I hate when people broadcast their beliefs all over the place. Bumper stickers largely confuse me: why must you proclaim all your beliefs to the world on your car�s ass? I especially cannot stand bumper stickers that reference other bumper stickers. A belief system founded within that much propaganda does not deserve acknowledgement.

60. I studied Painting and Art History in college. This applies more to my life than you�d think.

61. The sexiest thing on either gender is intelligent conversation and insightful thought. After that, wit. A nice ass is just icing on the cake.

62. My husband amazes me every day. He is the most insightful and amusing person I know. I married him for the simple reason that I could never bear to not be with him.

63. I despise hypocrisy.

64. I would love to have a vintage Vespa. I vacillate between powder blue and orange. Either way, I�d like a matching helmet and sneakers and vinyl backpack.

65. I try very hard to garden, but I am not very good at it. My mom can take clots of earth that she rescues from a construction site that thoughtlessly plowed over some coveted plants and revive these wads of dirt into luscious plants. I did not inherit this trait. I am quite good at cultivating weeds, though.

66. I think it is wrong to separate career behavior from personal behavior. If an action would be considered unacceptable outside of business, it is always unacceptable.

67. The one thing I regret in my life is the amount of time I spent fighting with my sister when I was growing up. We wasted all that time and energy and friendship when we could have been allies. However, I think sibling discord is an evolutionary trait serving to protect parents from the organization and overthrow by their offspring.

68. I hate when people say they are just being honest as an excuse to be hurtful. Tact may indeed be a form of lying, but I think it is valuable and necessary for polite society.

69. I get frustrated by shallow people. I hate small talk.

70. Before my husband, I did not believe in marriage. (For myself, at least.) Now don�t get all Freud-y on me, my parents have a great marriage and all, but I hate all the baggage that goes with marriage. Historical baggage, like ownership and blah blah blah, as well all the socio-political crap projected on it today, blah. I also resent that individuals think that they can tell other people what marriage should and shouldn�t be. That said, getting married was the best thing I�ve ever done for myself or for someone else.

71. I am a skeptic.

72. My mother did not believe in videogames. She believes they kill your attention span. Likewise, I was not allowed to watch much television growing up, save for PBS. I have huge gaps in my popular knowledge because of this.

73. I do not have television now. We have a television set and a DVD player, we even have cable for our internet service only, but we don�t watch television. Surprisingly, I don�t miss it at all. Even more surprising, the Hub says he doesn�t miss it.

74. My bitch PimpCupsand I have an interesting history: we both worked with the same evil person in two completely different companies and cities and she got us both fired. On the second day I worked with this she-devil, she actually told me all kinds of shit about an Art Director and had bragged about how she had gotten him and a Creative Director fired. That Art Director was �Cups. How�s that for a small world?

75. I don�t believe in ghosts or most paranormal things. I think there is always a rational explanation for experiences perceived to be supernatural. However, I can always hope.

76. I am the easiest person to scare because I have an overactive imagination.

77. My favorite dreams are the ones in which I fly. I have it down pat now, where I can hop up and tighten the muscles in my torso a certain way and I am able to soar. It used to require the application of a magical lipstick given to me by �Al� from Quantum Leap, but it was just an aide, like Dumbo�s magic feather.

78. Yes, I am completely aware of how weird that last item is, but they�re dreams, people! Dreams don�t have to make sense. And yes, I do have serial dreams and reoccurring themes.

79. I really like to sleep but rarely have time for enough of it.

80. The only time I�ve really sewn was when I made my wedding dress. I wanted something very specific, and I didn�t trust anyone else to do it. So I learned from books and made it myself.

81. The first time I met my friend Miss M. I thought her voice sounded exactly like my recorded voice.

82. I am a honeymoon baby.

83. I am not a beach person. First of all, I�m pale as all hell and burn faster than the time it takes to get from the cabana to the water. Secondly, I am scared as shit of sharks and various other beach creatures, like Portuguese men-o-war. I like making sand castles though.

84. I really prefer historic sites and museums to lying about for vacations. I like to do stuff. Sometimes I feel like I need a vacation after a vacation.

85. My favorite alcoholic beverage right now is Stoli Vanil with diet Coke and grenadine and a cherry.

86. I also like Gin. It tastes like Christmas.

87. A lot of people have told me I shouldn�t do things the way I want to do them. I say they can bite me.

88. My favorite computer application is Adobe Illustrator.

89. I don�t have any children and don�t know if I ever will, but I am at that time of my life that other people are starting to feel like I should. Those other people are generally quite verbal about things that are none of their damned business.

90. I like ritual and tradition. Sometimes I make up my own. And sometimes I force other people to take part in it and use the tradition angle to justify my bossiness.

91. I love church because of the ritual and tradition and music. And the sermons too, if they�re good. I just wish it didn�t have all that dogma and judgmental crap or the ladies with vibrati that sing all loud and shit.

92. I love to entertain, to cook for and feed people, and to decorate for holidays and throw themed parties. I absolutely love to have a group of people whom I hold dear around a dinner table.

93. My favorite holiday is Halloween. My goal (once our darn house is more restored) is to have a whole Halloween set up with realistic, old-looking tombstones out front and the foyer decorated with glass vials and cauldrons and caged creatures to look like a witch�s house.

94. I also adore Christmas.

95. I believe it�s not a vacation unless you had a drink with an umbrella in it.

96. I think everything tastes better with an umbrella in it. Try it with Nyquil.

97. When I got married, I kept my name. It wasn�t something I thought about because I knew what I wanted. A lot of other people thought about it though. I got reactions from people that ranged from, �Well that�s good if you get divorced,� to �Don�t you want people to know you love him?� (Well, I�m marrying him, aren�t I? That�s a pretty good indication.) Everyone was asking my hub what he thought about it. (What?!) My mother in law told me that a.) I hadn�t done enough in my life to warrant me keeping my name and b.) I had better get with the program. To this day she still addresses my mail to Mrs. Husband�sName McHusband�sName.

98. People still want to know what we�re going to do about naming our children.

99. Our pets names are all hyphenated.

100. I don�t know if I believe in another go round after this one or not, but it is my mission not to waste this lifetime.

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