That 100 meme

[pat]

This was surprisingly hard. Some of these may have been mentioned elsewhere in my journal....

1. I was born on the day of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

2. I regret not having talked to my Dad more before he died.

3. If I have a crush on you, I will die before I tell you, unless you tell me you really, really like me first. At this point in my life, this applies to one, maybe two people.

4. I majored in history in college -- specializing in European women's history.

5. I was the managing editor of the 1990 Stanford Environmental Law Journal. This is not as big a deal as it sounds.

6. I was a good law student (I graduated with honors) but a lousy lawyer.

7. I wanted to be an defensive lineman for the Chicago Bears when I was growing up -- until it was explained to me that this was infeasible.

8. My favorite teams include the current worst team in baseball (The Tampa Bay Devil Rays) as well as the baseball and football teams whose franchises hold the records for most losses (The New York Mets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, respectively). What this says about me, I don't really want to think about.

9. I wear a cross I got in 1995 at a German cathedral 24/7... it only gets taken off for medical procedures.

10. I have led Bible groups for adults at my church.

11. At one point, I spent a year as the adult education coordinator for my church. I was also the lector (lay reader) coordinator for three years, which involved teaching new lectors, coordinating schedules, and "casting" the Palm Sunday Passion reading.

12. I find reading in church to be a profoundly moving experience. My favorite services are Easter Vigil and Lessons and Carols.

13. I blush when I am told dirty jokes, but that doesn't mean I don't like hearing them.

14. My ideal job, short of being selected as Alan Rickman's personal love slave, would be to write for an intelligent game show ("Jeopardy!" or equivalent.)

15. Until three months ago, I had a freelance job as a writer of trivia questions for an online game site. It allowed me to deduct my DSL as business expenses.

16. I generally do not find long hair on men attractive, although there are exceptions.

17. I find most science fiction boring. Exceptions include some (not all) of Spider Robinson's work, most Douglas Adams, and almost all Connie Willis.

18. I like fantasy, however. (I'm not sure how to classify Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels: the more it looks like sf, the less I'm interested by it.)

19. I used to die my hair red occasionally.

20. "I'm a Believer" will always remind me of the first woman I felt physically attracted to, and will always make me smile.

21. I once won an award at a Halloween costume party -- I went dressed as Interstate 75. (The group award, interestingly enough, was won by a group that went as the Golden Gate Bridge.)

22. I broke my ankle trying to leap down a set of stairs at MIT's Senior House in 1981 while very, very drunk. My first coherent words after breaking my ankle were to tell someone to go call and cancel the pizza delivery I had just ordered.

23. I can be very verbose. (Like you couldn't tell.)

24. I constantly struggle with feelings that I am worthless, ugly, stupid, and a complete and total burden to people around me.

25. My spirit -- unlike my body -- is tall, dark-haired, gray-eyed, and bears a strong resemblance to the country singer Kathy Mattea.

26. I own several CDs by Garth Brooks.

27. I like mystery novels.

28. I find forensic science absolutely fascinating. Once, in a high school summer program, a forensic scientist gave a slide show on identifying remains. Several girls next to me had to leave when he showed the bones and pointed out the saw marks on them, but I though it was great.

29. When I was a junior in high school, I received a scholarship to a summer program at the University of Florida. I helped a professor who was investigating cathecholamines in fungi.

30. Social gatherings scare the hell out of me. Under the right conditions, this can include lunch with one other person. I do them anyway.

31. I play a mean game of Trivial Pursuit.

32. I can't play chess, and have no real interest in learning.

33. I procrastinate.

34. Every so often, I have to reread "Pride and Prejudice."

35. I love travelling.

36. I would go to Amsterdam just to sit in the Vermeer room at the Rijksmuseum with "The Kitchen Maid."

37. I love art museums. Favorites include the Met, the Frick, the National Gallery, the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Louvre, and the Hermitage.

38. I have been to opening night at the Sydney Opera House (the opera was "Das Rosenkavellier" by Strauss, with Frederica Von Stade).

39. I always regretted not following the sign that said "Chinchilla Races, 3km"

40. I have driven a car in Paris. I have driven in Amsterdam. I have driven in Berlin. I would have driven in St. Petersburg, Russia, but the rental car agencies won't let you -- they insist you hire a driver -- so we took taxis instead.

41. The words "Road trip!" are sure to make me happy. I love to drive, anywhere, anytime, in almost any conditions. (Snow and ice being the exceptions.)

42. If I could live anywhere, I would live in New Zealand.

43. I need to live within at least an hour's drive of an ocean, even if I don't visit it that often.

44. I was inducted into the State Bar exactly two weeks after my first son was born.

45. Last year I made beeswax candles for lots of people for Christmas.

46. I enjoy baking for people I love.

47. I think The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" is the greatest rock song ever written.

49. I registered as a Republican for the 2000 election, to vote against GWB in the primaries. Didn't work.

50. I was involved in the "Million Mom March" for gun control in Oakland on Mother's Day, 2001.

51. Although I flip-flop on abortion, I am staunchly opposed to the death penalty. While I think there may be an argument as to whether it is morally justifiable in a perfect legal system, the legal system in the U.S. is so broken that capital punishment will eventually lead to state-sponsored murder, if it has not done so already.

52. I don't like salmon.

53. I don't like Scotch.

54. I have had a singing lesson with an professional singing teacher -- I wish I could have more.

55. I wish I could dance without being self-conscious.

56. I painted or drew all my LJ user icons.

57. I have a weird dislike of taking pictures of people I love (I picked this up from my dad -- long, sad, story there).

58. I detest having my picture taken and do not think I have ever seen a picture of me that I actually like. However, I have learned to smile cheerfully when people whip out their cameras. As long as I don't have to actually see the pictures of myself.

59. I like sex.

60. I find talking about sex to be boring. I generally don't discuss particulars of my sex life with people I'm not having sex with. (There have been exceptions -- this is a general rule, but not hard and fast.)

61. I love movies -- especially musicals.

62. I occasionally yell at people very loudly.

63. I am related by marriage to an Antiochean Orthodox priest.

64. I detest Martha Stewart.

65. I am a very, very, very bad housekeeper.

66. I worked for the Democratic Party doing voter registration in 1992.

67. Like several hundred thousands of others, I was on the Mall for Bill Clinton's first inauguration.

68. I love poetry, and like memorizing poetry. When I was younger, I could recite all of "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from memory -- now I can get maybe 80% of it.

69. I'm a sucker for a Southern accent.

70. I'm very bad at keeping in touch with people -- in part because I have a hard time believing that people gain anything by having me in their life. This drives some people crazy.

71. I spend far too much time in my life being afraid.

72. Intolerant people make me angry. Intolerant "Christians" make me livid.

73. My favorite painter is Vermeer, although I like art from a wide variety of schools.

74. My favorite names for boys are Michael, Andrew, and Matthew. No, none of my kids have those names (although two of them are middle names) -- but none of them are named Henry or Charles, either.

75. In spite of joking about it occasionally, I don't regret having only boys.

76. I married the first man I dated seriously. It's lasted twenty years, so I think I made a pretty good choice.

77. For three years running, I have organized the annual reading day at my local elementary school (getting people from the community to come into the classroom to read). The best part has been that I get to pick out the books.

78. I once got an e-mail from Steve Jobs.

79. I love reading children's books.

80. My favorite Powerpuff Girl is Buttercup.

81. I am nearsighted and suffer from migraines.

82. I wish I were more articulate and wrote better.

83. I get angrier over slights to people I love than over slights to myself.

84. I like lots of different types of people.

85. I make very good pumpkin bread.

86. Most of the time, I feel I am very boring.

87. I wish I were a stronger person.

88. I have passed the "Jeopardy!" contestant test three times, but was never called to appear. I may try again this summer.

89. I do not do well in cold weather. (And yes, xiphias, 45 degrees F is cold for me.)

90. After fifteen years in the SF Bay area, I don't do well in really hot weather, either, although I suppose I could get acclimated to the South again if I had to.

91. I went to college in Massachusetts. I can live very well without snow, thank you very much.

92. When I was a child, the worst punishment my parents could devise was to lock up my books.

93. I was so terrified by the nuns in first grade Catholic school that I told a teacher I was Jewish so I wouldn't have to attend mass and walk past all of them (the nuns sat in front -- the kids who were late, as I was that day, had to walk past them to get to their seats). The teacher didn't believe me (she knew my parents), but decided I was so hysterical at that point I would have a complete breakdown if she made me go to mass.

94. I can sing the Marine hymn, and know what "the halls of Montezuma" and "the shores of Tripoli" actually mean.

95. I like bad puns, although I am not usually a good improvisational punster.

96. I have a fondness for academic garb and college graduations.

97. I am very bad at returning library books.

98. I would like to get a tattoo, but a general cowardice about pain and a reluctance to deal with the fallout in my personal life has kept me from doing so thus far.

99. I would love to have an evening gown, but would have absolutely no place to wear it, so I can't justify the cost to myself.

100. I installed the cable, phone and data jacks in my bedroom and in my sons' rooms.

Comments

[sisterfish125.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could come up with 100 interesting facts about me. I'll have to put some serious thought into it, when I have a little more time.

28. I find forensic science absolutely fascinating.

I promise, sometime, I'll spill my guts on some interesting case I'm working on. Right now, they're pretty boring though. Unless you count the "gunshot wound to the head" case from a little while back, where the deceased's head has not been found (but the rest of the deceased was found).