100 Things

I first saw this idea on my friend Chris's blog: make a list of 100 things about yourself that others might not know. It's taken me a LONG time to make this list! I've pieced it together here and there over the past week. Maybe this is boring belly-button gazing, but here it is, anyway, 100 things about me:

1. I used to be a Close To My Heart demonstrator...but I really only signed up for the discount.
2. Because of #2, I currently own about 500 page protectors, just waiting to be used.
3. One of my clearest memories of television in the 1980s was that weird chick on VH1...Rosie O’Donnell. Weird, but also appealing. I still enjoy watching her but I also still think she’s strange.
4. The only TV shows I watched growing up were Little House on the Prairie and the occasional Love Boat on Saturday nights. People make references to TV shows from the 70s/early 80s and I am always clueless!
5. The only class I didn’t get an A in during my sophomore year in high school was geometry. In fact, it was the only class I hadn’t gotten an A in my whole academic life. I still think I could have understood it...my teacher was, after all, the wrestling coach, and our class was held in a trailer with a broken heater. Seriously.
6. I didn’t attend my senior year of high school at a public school. I went to a community college instead.
7. Because of #6, I don’t get invited to my class reunions, even though I received my diploma when they did (but I didn't walk). This only bothers me because it is evidence of how the Queen Bees still rule the world. At least a little bit.
8. I failed Shakespeare during my first year of college (when I should have been in high school) because the classroom was at the very top of the library; it was tiny —we’re talking room for about 15 desks—and claustrophobia trumps even Will S.
9. Back when it was the only word-processing software anyone in the civilized world used, I worked for WordPerfect.
10. I still, to this day, use WordPerfect. And I still have all the Function keys memorized, so I don’t have to touch the mouse for almost anything.
11. The first thing that made me fall in love with poetry was Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem "Well, I Have Lost You." Her Collected Poems was the first book of poetry I ever bought.
12. One of my life’s most influential people was my eleventh-grade English teacher, Mrs. Simmons. Even though I was going through some rough things and wasn’t the best or easiest student, she still encouraged me. I’ll forever be grateful to her for teaching me that all good writers aren’t dead white men.
13. The second thing that made me fall in love with poetry was the Bangles’ song "Bell Jar," which is about the poet Sylvia Plath. I now own two battered copies of her Collected Poems (as well as her notebooks/journals, her letters home, a few biographies, her husband Ted Hughes’ book about their relationship, Birthday Letters, and of course her novel The Bell Jar, but who’s counting???)
14. One of my life’s most embarrassing moments happened at an Erasure concert.
15. I’ve had stitches once...when a ring (the type that male gymnasts use) fell out of the ceiling at the gym and landed on my forehead. Nathan has a scar in a nearly-identical place!
16. I used to really and truly not be bothered by a messy house. The older I get, the more bothered I am if my house is messy. Since my husband is an avowed, dedicated neat freak, this process of changing has been good for our marriage.
17. My grandma died in 1990...sixteen years ago, and I still miss her.
18. If I am stressed, extra-tired, depressed, or anxious, I talk in my sleep. A lot. I’ve woken myself up before! This drives Kendell crazy, but as he is a snorer, I say "too bad!!!"
19. When I’m REALLY tired or anxious, I am also a sleepwalker. This happens a lot when I am pregnant, too. I’ll wake up in odd places, or quite often I’ve walked into my closet, gotten dressed, and then went back to bed.
20. One of my bad habits is that I crack my knuckles. I really want to NOT have this habit but by now it is nearly unconscious—I do it without any thought at all!
21. You know how sometimes, when you receive flowers, the leather leaf fern greenery they include has little black seeds on the back? Oh my gosh...those little black seeds FREAK ME OUT. They make my nose itch and send chills down my back. I can’t stand the fern seeds.
22. Although I like a lot of different musicians, I’ve seen Tori Amos in concert the most times...three. Each time with my friend Chris.
23. I wish I had more friends.
24. I still listen to a lot of the music I listened to as a teenager. Depeche Mode, the Cure, Peter Murphy. I love old U2 music but am lukewarm about their new stuff.
25. When I was about two and a half, my dad accidentally spilled hot coffee on my forehead. I seriously think I lost some hair follicles and that my forehead wouldn’t be quite so high if that hadn’t happened.
26. I have A Thing for Hoodies. I love big, comfy hoodies and wear them all the time. Even in the summer if I’m working in the basement, because it’s cold down here!
27. My favorite name for a girl is Moira. Unfortunately, Kendell HATES it, so even if we had had 82 girls, I don’t think I could have ever used that name.
28. The book that made me interested in reading literature is Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood. I read it in short story form during my junior year of high school and then was on a quest to find other books like it—it seemed like the first real book I’d ever read.
29. When I was in the fifth grade, I read Little Women ten times.
30. The book that made me want to become a writer is A Handmaid’s Tale, again by the impeccable Margaret A.
31. I got to meet Margaret Atwood once. It was thrilling and I still get annoyed at myself for not bringing a camera!
32. I own all three extendo versions of the Lord of The Rings Trilogy, and I watch them once a year.
33. I love going to fabric stores. Not the big chain stores like Joann, but the little ones. I like to think about all the stuff people could make with that fabric.
34. When I was little, I sometimes would get a plastic lunch bag and "sew" it—just random threads in and around and through it. Those little sewing projects are very clear in my memory, although the motivation and/or purpose for them is lost.
35. I was named after my great-grandma Amy. My grandma (her daughter) used to tell me all kinds of stories about her, but I can’t remember any of them.
36. When my mom was pregnant with my sister Becky, I insisted she name the baby Nathan, even if it was a girl. The Amy I was named for was married to a Nathan. So when I found out that Nathan was a boy, I didn’t have any qualms: he would be named Nathan. We didn’t name Jake Nathan only because our close friends also have a Nathan who’s not much older than Jake.
37. It took us forever to pick out Jake’s name. Same with Kaleb. They both came home from the hospital without a name.
38. February 13^th is our wedding anniversary.
39. I knew Kendell’s sister, brother, and Dad before I knew Kendell—we all worked together back in the working-at-WordPerfect days.
40. I love Lake Powell. We went there nearly every summer when I was growing up and it is one of my favorite places in the world.
41. I have a deep fear that one day we will have to move somewhere hot, seasonless, and mountainless like Arizona or Texas.
42. I once won a literary award for a poem I had published in my school’s lit mag.
43. In real life, I am shy.
44. In the hidden compartment of my jewelry box, I still have some of my goth-girl necklaces. I sometimes like to look at them and am immediately engulfed with how it felt to be a teenager.
45. When I was growing up, we also went to Las Vegas nearly every summer. Now that I am an adult, Las Vegas isn’t as appealing to me.
46. I don’t paint my fingernails. Nor do I have acrylic nails. I pick my nails, and keep them obsessively clean, but otherwise they are very neglected.
47. I can’t stand to have anything underneath my fingernails. Dirt under someone else’s fingernails creeps me out.
48. I like to sew, but I am not very good at it.
49. When Kendell surprised me with my sewing machine a few years ago, I broke down and sobbed. We’re talking head-flung-back weeping here. I’m still not sure why.
50. I would really, really like to go back to school. At least to get a Master’s, but a PhD would be even better. I think I would be very happy as a university English professor.
51. I’ve also thought about going to law school.
52. I have a problem with returning library books on time. I’m serious, I’m always paying fines. SO stupid!
53. I am very self-critical. . . I nearly always have a sort of internal monologue going on in which I berate myself for failures. I know this is not a good way to be but I’ve not found a way around it.
54. I competed in my last gymnastics meet on my sixteenth birthday. I fell on my back handspring layout on the beam and so got second place in the all around instead of first.
55. The floor exercise music I used during that meet was from the movie Top Gun. I still remember the entire routine.
56. I wish I had the means to travel more. I’ve been to Hawaii but that’s about it. One day I want to spend weeks and weeks on the British Isles.
57. I can speak enough Spanish to give someone directions or help them in a gas station or the post office, but only if they speak very, very slowly. I know this because I’ve done all three.
58. My favorite breakfast food is pancakes. I adore pancakes! When I cook them I make an enormous batch and then reheat them in the toaster oven.
59. I have eczema on my right index finger.
60. Two weeks ago I had a corn removed from the bottom of my foot. I thought it was another plantar wart. Gross!
61. One of my 2007 resolutions is to spend much less on scrapbooking stuff. So far (all 26 days of 2007, lol) I’ve been successful.
62. I hate seafood.
63. One of my clearest memories from childhood: the night my mom made a salmon loaf, like meatloaf only with canned salmon. Her words still send chills down my back: "the bones are chewy, you just eat them." Now let’s stop to wonder why I don’t like seafood.
64. Seafood is Kendell’s favorite thing to eat. Luckily Red Lobster has a chicken dish I like!
65. I don’t do anything without my wedding ring and the emerald ring that Kendell gave me. I just never take them off!
66. I don’t wear any earrings except for my diamond studs. I used to have that earring-obsession thing (which Haley has definitely inherited!) but once I started having kids, I stopped wanting to wear anything dangly.
67. From age 18 to age 30, I had NO cavities. Then I turned thirty and have had one every time I go to the dentist.
68. I think most clearly when I can curl my toes under my feet. If I’m trying to write or do something creative, I can’t have any shoes on because then I can’t curl my toes.I can also stand on my toe knuckles.
69. The longest run I’ve ever gone on was 15 miles.
70. I started training once to run a marathon, but about half-way through the training (at the 15-mile mark!), I started having knee troubles.
71. I still want to run a marathon.
72. I used to have size six-and-a-half feet. Then I started having babies, and they’ve grown a half size during every pregnancy.
73. I am thinking about ripping out all the grass under one of my trees and making a shady flower garden underneath it instead.
74. At one point, the street where I live had 45 kids on it! Now it’s a mix of kids and teenagers. Kaleb is the youngest on our street.
75. Once I decided to switch to a digital camera, it took me three tries to find one I love (the 20d).
76. When I started scrapbooking in 1996, everyone I knew used Creative Memories albums. I filled up five CM albums before I decided that I hated them. The little staple binding things bug me! I still wish I had used something different for those albums.
77. Ever since I could read, I have loved to sit in the bathtub and read.
78. I seriously loved being pregnant.
79. One of the best things about pregnancy is that your belly is the perfect hands-free cradle for a bowl of ice cream when you’re reading in the tub!
80. I love to click around Amazon. If I let myself I’ll literally spend hours there, following different links and discovering books. Anything I want to read goes into my cart...but I hardly ever actually order anything!
81. One of my dreams is to own a secluded cabin in the woods somewhere.
82. My favorite books as an older kid were the Little House series, the Anne of Green Gables series, and anything by Steven King. (I read The Shining in the fifth grade.) Talk about disparate tastes!
83. My parents gave me the first three books in the Clan of The Cave Bear series when I was 13 or 14. I’m pretty sure they had no idea there is so much intimacy in them, lol. That first book, though, is still a favorite of mine.
84. I have about 50 tulip and daffodil bulbs that are waiting to be planted. They came too late in the season for me to plant. So as soon as we get a day that’s somewhat warm, I’ll be out in the cold dirt, planting them.
85. I love pajama pants. I would stay in my PJs all day if it weren’t embarrassing to answer the door in them.
86. My standard stay-at-home-mom uniform: a pair of jeans, a Shade under T, and a Perfect Tee from Old Navy.
87. Every spring and summer when Old Navy comes out with more Perfect Tee colors, I go and buy all the ones I don’t already have, plus a new black one.
88. I have three sisters and no brothers. I often wonder how I would be different if I’d had a brother.
89. High school was pure misery for me. I had one entire term where I’d get up and get ready, then drive around the back roads drinking coffee from 7-11 and crying until my mom left for work, then I’d go home and watch MTV all day. And cry some more. I got straight Fs that term, which for a girl who’d nearly always had straight As was both a catastrophe and a catalyst.
90. I’ve worn contacts since I was eight.
91. I always thought I'd have two girls, and I am still sad that Haley didn't get to have a sister.
92. Each of my kids' names have some sort of family connection.
93. When I met Kendell, he had come in to the office where I worked because his sister wanted to set him up with the girl who sat next to me. He saw me and wanted to get to know me, instead. Funny thing...I nearly called in sick that day, which might have changed the whole course of my life!
94. One of my biggest fears is dying before my children are grown.
95. One of my biggest hopes is that I live long enough to get to know at least a few great grandchildren.
96. I have a Thing About Notebooks. Not the plain spiral kind you used in school, but small, unusual ones. I have made a rule for myself that I can't even look at notebooks for awhile, because I am helpless in the face of the notebook's siren call.
97. I have a repeating dream about the bathroom at Lagoon, an amusement park in Utah. I have this dream at least once a month.
98. I love roller coasters.
99. One of my favorite snacks: a croissant (one of those big ones from Costco) with a thin layer of both nutella and raspberry jam. Yum. Let's not think about how fattening that is.
100. One of my earliest memories is of picking raspberries with my dad. I wasn't older than three, but it's a very clear memory.

That was challenging!

Comments

[Heather Ales]

WOW... I really loved reading all of those fun things about you. There are so many more things we have in common. Shades shirts rock! I have a bunch of them from Impel, but Shades are better. And those Old Navy T's ROCK my world.... I have them in long sleeve and short sleeve - all crew neck. I went through a goth stage too. I wonder what my YW leaders thought about that.

[Kayci Bitton]

That was fun! We have a lot more in common than I ever thought! Just so you know you and Becky were like my idols when I was little, it is fun to see how much we are alike. I wanted to go through a goth stage and I tried when I was like 12 but my mom got bugged at me and told me to stop. So I did:) Love you Amy!

[Mimi]

Thi sis so neat to read, April Amy! Great post.

[Karen Greenfield]

Oh Amy--how I wish you lived near me!!! I am not sure we'd be the bestest of friends (though we have a lot of things in common)BUT you would have such a good time talking to/listening to my husband the English PhD!! Discussing books with him is so much fun ---and you could go to England with him instead of me!!! Seriously, I know that would never happen...but it would be fun to talk about. And you could hear all about the latest trip (2 weeks ago) and see all the theatre programs and start planning to go next January. Wanna move to Tacoma???