Saturday, November 04, 2006

100 Things

1. I like spicy food. I like Frank's red hot sauce, extra hot salsa, and whole pepperoncinis.

2. On my first report card my teacher previewed my lifelong hatred of math when she wrote, "Red will occasionally use her fingers to count."

3. I started writing when I was six. I used to wake up really early and write stories about My Little Ponies and Care Bears and Tom Sawyer.

4. When people ask what my favorite TV show is, I usually say The Office or House, and I do like those shows, but my secret answer is Friends reruns on TBS.

5. Everything you've heard is true: my first boyfriend became a woman.

6. Aside from her, I'm still friends with most of my exes. I've dated some really great people.

7. My parents didn't mean for me to be an only child, but my mom was really sick when she was pregnant with me and then I broke her ass during delivery so I think they figured, okay then, one is fine.

8. When I went to college, there was a computer error and my roommate and I ended up on an all guys' floor. They had to vote about whether or not she and I could stay.

9. Corny as it sounds, I think that computer error was kind of a formative thing for me. It taught me to appreciate and keep great guy friends in my life.

10. I love my female friends and am very picky about the women I get close to. I think all women have learned to be careful. Men can be stupid and ignorant, but they don't usually mess with you. Women, on the other hand, can really be evil shrews.

11. Having said all that, I have awesome friends.

12. I don't understand people who eat a few Thin Mints but not the entire sleeve.

13. I love to go out dancing, but I hate it at the same time. I wish there were places to go that weren't all drunk 22-year-old girls wearing uncomfortable shoes glaring at other drunk 22-year-old girls wearing uncomfortable shoes.

14. I have a hardcore product addiction.

15. Not to say that I'm a clean freak, but I enjoy my life a lot more when I know my home is clean.

16. Not to say that I'm a clean freak, but I have my students addicted to antibacterial hand gel. Now they run up to me, hold out their hands, and ask for either regular (straight Purell) or raspberry (Bath & Body Works black raspberry vanilla).

17. I'm so obsessed with peanut butter that I usually don't keep it in the house, because if I did I'd eat it for every meal.

18. If my home is messy and there's peanut butter in the cabinet, something is wrong. Feel free to ask what's up, but I may cry.

19. I don't mind when it gets dark early in the winter. I think it's cozy.

20. Although by the time April rolls around I definitely start to get anxious for more sunshine.

21. I feel like I'm on the phone all night long.

22. I can bust out with the A-Team theme song on command.

23. Movies I know by heart: Dazed and Confused, Clerks, Heathers, The Princess Bride, Clueless, Back to the Future, Napolean Dynamite, Singles, Reality Bites, Labyrinth, It's a Wonderful Life, and The Breakfast Club.

24. I love the board game Moods. Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, I know hates it, and no one will play it with me anymore. Things that have actually been said to me: "If I see that game again, I'll set it on fire." "If you don't stop bringing that game out, nobody is going to be friends with you." And sometimes simply "NO." (There are people on that website who like it. I wonder if any of them would play it with me. Maybe we could have a support group.)

25. I'm addicted to mints, preferably Icebreakers in the round blue container. I eat them all day long.

26. I used to love Olivia Newton-John. LOVE.

27. Yeah, it's my natural hair color. I'm surprised how many strangers care enough to ask.

28. When I was little, having red hair made me feel like the kid in the darkened square in the "which of these kids doesn't belong here" skit on Sesame Street or whatever show that was on. Then sometime around high school I stopped hating it.

29. My hair and I have really come full circle, you see.

30. I really don't care about animals. I don't kick puppies or anything, but I just don't have a need for animals in my life.

31. By day I aspire to be a woman of leisure. By night I solve crimes.

32. I'm weird about deadlines and anything on my to do list. I want to get everything done ahead of time or else I feel out of control. I think it's because my natural tendency is toward laziness and procrastination and I try to fight it.

33. According to Myers-Brigg, I'm an ENFP. I think it sounds a lot like me, but you know how it is with that stuff... because it's supposed to sound like you, it sounds like you. Kinda like horoscopes.

34. I don't have a Boston accent. I grew up in a suburb about an hour outside of the city.

35. I have two identical pairs of blue moon pajamas that I'd wear everywhere if I could. Everyone I know has seen them and I have worn them to friends' homes. I mean, not for parties. But still. Have I no shame?

36. I love owning movies, but I hardly ever watch them.

37. I like to read books about random crap, like sleep disorders.

38. I've been making fun song mix CDs for my friends for several years. They have songs like Coldhearted Snake and Rock the Casbah and OPP on them. Their names are: The Fun Mix, The Fun Strikes Back, The Return of the Fun, Did Someone Order More Fun, Would You Like Fun With That, and Go Fun Yourself. I'm always open to suggestion for subsequent titles. You know, things like Putting The Fun in Dysfunctional, Flora and Funna, that kinda thing. Only funny.

39. I loved college. I even mostly liked high school.

40. My one extracurricular activity in college was writing my column in the school paper. I also wrote all my friends' campaign speeches for their random positions in student government.

41. My grandmother lives in a retirement community that sounds like college but with nice accomodations and no gen-ed classes. Now I'm so ready to get old.

42. Even though I've always been a mostly happy person, things feel very different now than they did when I was in my early 20s. Calmer, happier, richer (but not really in money).

43. I like going to the movies alone occasionally, but only at an off time during the day. I can't do it alone at night without feeling self-conscious.

44. I don't like any sports except for baseball.

45. I love baseball.

46. The quickest way to shut me down is to be passive-aggressive or overdramatic.

47. I thought getting older would make me feel displaced, but 29 feels about right. So far every age I've been has felt like the age to be.

48. I can't promise that that will be the last lame soundbite you'll ever hear out of me.

49. I'm very pale and sunburn easily.

50. I call the foods/drink that I don't like my Big Five: potatoes, (unmelted) cheese, beans, bananas, and coffee. Some people don't like one or two of them, but I've never met anyone else who doesn't like all five.

51. When I was little I did gymnastics, and during a recital one time I was doing a million somersaults through a tunnel, and I stopped halfway through and cried because I felt claustrophobic.

52. I love getting pedicures but still bite my fingernails.

53. My old school Nintendo is in my hall closet, and if I ever plugged it in, believe you me I'd play Super Mario Brothers and Tetris all the live long day.

54. When I'm in a hotel, I'm all like, "Where's the TV? I want to watch TV."

55. Which is kind of weird because while I have a TV in my bedroom at home, I hardly ever watch it.

56. I love nice hotels.

57. I'd love to live someplace in Boston that's ridiculously high-end with a concierge and doorman and floor to ceiling windows and granite countertops and warming drawers and a whirlpool bath.

58. Not to raise kids in or anything, but, you know, for now.

59. I can be a bit of a snob.

60. I was a cow in a school play in kindergarten. I didn't tell my parents until the night before, and my dad found me a cowbell and had the word "moo" printed on a t-shirt. My teachers didn't think it was funny.

61. I hate the show Everybody Loves Raymond. I don't like the generic humor, and I also don't like when marriage gets portrayed as one long, boring, impatient eyeroll. It's shows like that that keep single people promiscuous.

62. I love Dance Dance Revolution more than I can adequately articulate.

63. I have recurring dreams about missing the school bus.

64. I used to teach ESL on the side, but then I was all like, assimilate on your own, bitches.

65. I love bad soft rock from the 80s. Love. It.

66. When The Sixth Sense was out, I hated the people who said they knew Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, even though you know they didn't.

67. I didn't know he was dead until the big reveal. I own my slowness.

68. I dropped out of Girl Scouts because I hated them, all of them, and their stupid badges.

69. I secretly like the chicken fajita wrap at Applebee's.

70. I loved Sassy magazine.

71. I like pickles.

72. I sort of want to get my doctorate.

73. I hate all the letter shows: CSI, SVU, ER.

74. I don't like violent or scary TV shows or movies in general.

75. When I saw Rent, I very much identified with the character Mark.

76. I still do.

77. I'm watching Shopgirl on HBO right now. I hated the book (novella, whatever) but loved the movie.

78. I love books and movies that acknowledge that relationships can be complex and explore that without Hugh Granting everything up.

79. Did you see Spanglish? Or read Little Children? Those are good examples.

80. I still like to watch girly movies but I usually hate the way they end. When people fight all the time or can't get their shit together, they probably wouldn't make a very good couple.

81. Although I did like how that one girly movie, My Best Friend's Wedding, ended. Not just because she didn't get the guy, but because the characters ended up not being entirely black or white, totally lame or entirely perfect.

82. Whenever my girlfriends ask me for advice about guys, I find myself practically quoting Walk Away by Kelly Clarkson. That song has so many levels, people.

83. I don't really like anything floral: patterns, perfumes. But I love actual flowers.

84. I love the seasons in New England. I don't understand the appeal of living anyplace where it's sunny and warm year round. As Cameron Crowe said, the sweet isn't as sweet without the sour.

85. I get a headache if I don't drink Diet Pepsi by about 3:00. I guess it's my crack. At least it's cheap.

86. I like gummy bears, but don't you feel like we'll find out someday that they're really made of plastic and that they just sit in a ball in your stomach and you never really digest them? And that eventually we'll all give birth to an eight pound gummy baby? Were you with me until that last sentence?

87. I wear sunglasses all year round, even on overcast days, because my eyes hurt when I don't. My eye doctor told me that's because my eyes are so light.

88. I'm like an enzyme away from being an albino.

89. Well, not literally.

90. One of my first clients in grad school was a woman with severe brain damage from a bike accident. If I find out you ride a bike without a helmet, I will berate you, publicly if necessary, until you change your ways.

91. Same with wearing a seatbelt.

92. There are so many places I want to visit. A few are Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii...

93. I've been to Bermuda, Bahamas (come on pretty mama), St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Mexico, but not Europe yet. How lame am I? But on the flip side, how much of a thorough spring breaker?

94. I'm so done with guys with guitars who take themselves too seriously.

95. I'm not, however, done loving Eddie Vedder. 15 years and going strong. It's practically a common law marriage.

96. I enjoy people who wear perfume perfectly. They're very much in the minority. You hug them and suddenly can't believe how delicious they smell, but you're not overwhelmed by said deliciousness. How do they do it?

97. I'm not asking because I want to do it myself, because I don't really like to wear perfume, but I'd like them to educate others. You know who you are. Or actually, you don't, and that's kind of the problem.

98. That sounded vaguely threatening. I should say that I wasn't referring to anyone I know. YOU all smell good. Really. I can hardly believe the pleasantness that wafts from you. I'm talking more about people in elevators whose noses apparently don't work.

99. In high school my friend Alison's mom didn't have a sense of smell. That girl took advantage and smoked more pot than anyone alive.

100. I'm honestly starting to think that Mapquest is just screwing with us. I just do not know how to drive northeast.

17 comments:

Stefanie said...

It's probably ridiculous to start commenting on individual items here, but why would I let that stop me?

Per #13 - I have a friend who thinks the best idea for a dance club would be to play only wedding reception music. Yes, we'd have to endure "Fishin' in the Dark" and The Chicken Dance every night, but we'd also get "Come on Eileen" and "Dancing Queen." Plus, it's very likely that no 22-year-olds in backless tops (and uncomfortable shoes) would ever go there.

#24 - I've never played Moods, but I'd be willing to try if you could just find some people to play Balderdash with me. Seriously, no one will play that with me anymore.

#30 - Word. Thank you.

#50 - You don't like potatoes? Any potatoes? Mashed? French fries? Did I mention mashed? Mmmm. Mashed potatoes... It doesn't get much better than that.

#69 - I have voluntarily gone to "Crapplebee's" specifically for that Fajita roll-up thing. I won't tell if you won't tell.

Greg said...

4: Hells yeah.

17: Lately I've been on a peanut butter kick. It's addictive!

36, 38, 40: Hey, me too!!

43: I almost did that today, but I gave the wife the ol' frowny face. Works every time.

67: Yeah, me neither. But it's better that way, you know?

71: I've got a three-maximum limit.

I would do my own 100 things, but I'd probably fall asleep by #14.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Red, I love love love this list.

1. I must send you my buffalo-ranch chicken dip recipe, which involves a whole bottle of Frank's. Mmmm.

7. You broke your mom's ass?

13. One of these days, I'm going to open up a dance club and call it "Dance Club That Feels Like You're At A Wedding Reception". Or, well, maybe something a little catchier.

16. This is freakin' adorable.

24. I have never played this game, but I suspect I would love it.

33. Ohmygod! Me too! I've never found another one!

50. Until I read about your distaste for unmelted cheese and potatoes, I thought we were soul sisters. Dammit.

61. AMEN, sister.

79. Loved both. Esp Little Children.

88. This one made me snort. And, since I'm sick, it wasn't pretty.

96. I wish I could be one of those people! Step one: remember to wear perfume...

Liz said...

At 12:30 this morning I wrote (but haven't yet posted) a whole deal about my office supply addiction. After reading about your product weakness, I think I have a kindred spirit!

I like baseball too, but hardly anyone I know does. We don't have a professional home team, just a triple A, and I can't even get friends to go with me to those games. I like the shape of a baseball player. I can usually tell what position a guy plays by his build.

I'm talented like that.

MiMaw said...

#10 I adore stupid, ignorant men. I dislike stupid, ignorant women.

#7 You broke your mother's ass? You didn't just crack it?

Killer said...

Knock Knock...who's there...Fun!

Yeah, it's hard to do those without them sounding lame, but I understand the desire to keep the same theme.

lizgwiz said...

I have light sensitive eyes, too. I wear sunglasses from dawn to dusk, 365 days a year. People think I'm a little obsessive about it, but won't they be jealous when I'm old and DON'T have cataracts.

Joe said...

OMG OMG OMG! We are soul mates! Why? I made sure to go through this list so carefully, and we match up on 87 of your 100 things! For example:

31: I also solve crimes!
35: I also have identical blue moon pajamas!
68: I also dropped out of the Girl Scouts!
71: I also like pickles!
89: I am also not literally!
100: I think that Mapquest is screwing with me ALL OF THE TIME!

You are THE BEST! :)

Anonymous said...

#66

I saw The Sixth Sense with my mom (first time for us both) and the second you see Bruce Willis after the opening scene my mother leans over to me and hisses "HE'S DEAD!!"

For some reason I was still totally suprised at the end.

Red said...

I love y'all, but Joe, you rock my world, obvs.

Anonymous said...

Joe, it's not nice to make fun of other commenters. Poo on you.

Joe said...

I was just messing around. Red liked it, though. :)

Red said...

Can't we all just... well, you know where I'm going with that one.

Joe said...

Poo on me, though. I don't know how to respond to that.

Unknown said...

I love this post and I totally, um, borrowed it for my own blog. Forgive me.

Anonymous said...

The way to put on perfume is you have to be naked and freshly dried from the shower, spray one light spritz slightly up into the air, and walk through it so it lands on you in a gentle mist. Also (sorry guys) anything American is too strong - must be French, like Chanel #5 or Miss Dior.

Allie said...

an idea for #38...

Everybody Wang Fun Tonight

It sounded funnier in my head...