1. One of my legs is longer than the other.
2. When I was a child I had a black cat named Ambrose.
3. We lived in Spain from the time I was 5 months old until I was nearly 4 years old.
4. We had a gardener and a housekeeper in Spain (labor was cheap at that time) and the gardener used to cuss me out in Spanish for picking the tomatoes before they were ripe.
5. Thirty five years later my own child is picking the tomatoes before they are ripe, but I don't cuss at her, in Spanish or otherwise.
6. I do not like soft cheeses such as Brie or similar.
7. I got an A in third term calculus.
8. I am allergic to many common antibiotics.
9. Everyone in my family is taller than I am, but not by much.
10. I love Sharpies. (the pens) Especially the fine point ones.
11. I never got detention in school.
12. I can't roll my tongue.
13. There is a very dark, almost black freckle on my forehead that total strangers have tried to wipe off of me. It has been there most of my life.
14. I suffer from performance anxiety when testing, such as on driver's tests or other exams where you have to demonstrate your ability.
15. However, I enjoy written tests.
16. In 1984, I got 1300 on my SAT's, not bad considering I didn't study.
17. I was quite nervous about it and by way of encouragement, my then-boyfriend made a bet with me that I would beat at least one of his scores. I beat them both.
18. I am not particularly mechanically inclined.
19. I am good at calligraphy and can draw a bit.
20. I love to drive.
21. I do the crossworld puzzle, sudoku and jumble in the paper nearly every day. In ink.
22. I studied in Russia when it was a communist country.
23. I love rain and wind and blustery weather.
24. In high school I decided I would never become a nurse.
25. I start nursing school in January.
26. I am mildly-to-moderately claustrophobic.
27. When I was a child my brother used to occasionally stuff me headfirst into a sleeping bag while we were roughhousing. (see #26....)
28. I am a cat person, more than a dog person.
29. I love to sing.
30. I can carry a tune but I don't really have a good singing voice.
31. I secretly enjoy Renaissance Festivals and would go to one in costume but can't yet admit to that kind of geekery.
32. I love peanut butter.
33. Especially with chocolate.
34. I do not love peanuts.
35. I am deathly allergic to tree nuts.
36. I roller-skated a lot as a child.
37. I won the All-City spelling bee in the 5th grade.
38. Some friends and I went to Disneyland when I was about 27, and drank in every bar at the Disneyland Hotel (there are many).
39. Then we went into Disneyland with a glass bottle of Tropicana orange juice which we had cunningly doctored with vodka, and rode a bunch of rides drunk.
40. By the way, this is against park rules, but we didn't get caught.
41. I like to buy toothpaste in foreign countries, as a souvenir to take home.
42. I also like to buy stationery goods, such as spiral notebooks.
43. My favorite season is Autumn.
44. I don't like spicy food.
45. I have one brother and no sisters.
46. I have a tendency to try to look knowledgeable about things that I'm not knowledgeable about.
47. I have discovered that this can be detrimental so I work hard to counter this now.
48. I once had to deal with a mentally ill person carrying a deceased squirrel around in a basket for a week. (I ran a group home at the time.) She had found it in the street and thought it was "sick." She covered it up so nobody knew what was in the basket until it started to smell.
49. I secretly enjoy vacuuming.
50. I am not afraid to touch worms or rodents (safe disease free ones) but spiders totally creep me out. But only if they touch me or get too close. I don't mind looking at them from a respectable distance.
51. Once I swallowed a fishbone and it scratched my throat so bad I had to get x-rays at the ER and the next day I had to go back and get examined by an ear/nose/throat doctor because it felt like the bone was still there. It wasn't, but I got a whopping rx for codeine so at least it didn't hurt anymore.
52. I have had every single extremity in a cast at one point or another. Some more than once.
53. Stress makes me clumsy.
54. As if I needed anything to make me clumsier.
55. All clumsiness aside, I am not bad at folkdance such as contra dancing or Russian folk dance.
56. Across the street from my dorm when I studied abroad was what I was told was the newest, largest and last statue of Lenin ever erected in Moscow. Here is the actual statue, in Oktyabrskaya Square:
57. Christmas is my favorite holiday.
58. I have put my left sock and shoe on first since I was 11.
59. However, I can put someone else's shoes or socks on in any order (for instance my daughter's)
60. When "Aladdin" came out, I saw it in the theater five times.
61. Most of my stories about studying in Moscow begin thusly: "One time when I was really drunk..." or alternatively, "One time when I had this terrible hangover..."
62. I don't drink very much now.
63. I used to go to the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" every chance I got when I was in my mid-teens to early twenties.
64. As a result I had a mad, passionate crush on Tim Curry for years.
65. Perhaps I still do.
66. I once dreamt that I got into a posh, old-fashioned elevator in a fancy hotel and John Cleese was inside, along with the be-uniformed elevator operator. The doors closed, and by the time they reopened, Mr. Cleese had asked me to marry him and I had said yes.
67. I once had a dream that my father had died and it was so vivid that for several minutes after waking up, I thought he was actually dead.
68. I also dreamt once that my mother had died and that my father kidnapped me afterward and held me captive to try to prevent me from digging up her bones where they were buried in some kind of park. The bones were supposed to tell me something important. I woke up just as I was unearthing the bones.
69. I only like bananas if they are still kind of green. If there is even one brown spot, the banana is too sweet and mushy for my tastes.
70. I am a pen whore and if I find a really nice pen at work, I might be inclined to, um, liberate it. But not if it's a valuable one like something fancy.
71. I rode an elephant once at the zoo when I was a child. Most memorable thing about it: the way the elephant smelled, and the swaying. Also the bar behind me was digging into my back.
72. I once saw something that I can't explain in the sky. It looked like an egg, way up high, and the only reason I think it might have been something other than a "weather balloon" is that I watched it make a 90 degree turn. And then disappear. This was on a clear, beautiful summer day, and I was not under the influence of anything.
73. My grandmother drove trucks in Guam during the war.
74. My other grandmother was a WAC and was buried with military honors when she died 3 years ago.
75. I was in the Army.
76. Did I tell you about my flat feet?
77. I wasn't in for long.
78. I got 145 on my Defense Language Aptitude Battery. The score was so high that the recruiting office kept calling the testing center back to confirm the score. They had only seen one score higher than mine. (My friend qualified with a score of around 100.)
79. I sound really impressive here but in real life I'm quite normal and uninteresting.
80. I play World of Warcraft.
81. I came out at 22. (Mel, this is why I mentioned a boyfriend! What can I say, I was young...) It wasn't pretty and in some ways still isn't and never will be, but I am fortunate to have a wonderful family. Mostly.
82. My first car was a 1966 Chevrolet Bel-Air. Four doors, an enormous metal dashboard, and a 3-dead-body trunk that opened with a screwdriver because the lock had been popped. I was 28 years old.
83. I am an enthusiastic motorcyclist although I do not currently own one.
84. I have never colored my hair.
85. I once told off a very good friend of mine via email because I was very angry at her for something and now she's not my friend anymore. I apologized and we kind of tried to be friends but it didn't work out, she was too hurt. I'll regret it forever.
86.
