100 Times

Here we go, the fabled 100 Things About Me for my 100th blog post (I missed it so I'm doing it now). You've all been holding your breath waiting for this, right? Well, exhale and read on!

1. I have a freakishly good long-term memory. I can remember things accurately going back to when I was just over 2 years old. I also can memorize things very quickly and easily. I remember ALMOST everything that I've ever read.

2. I will occasionally pretend not to remember something because people would find it weird/odd/stalkery for me to remember it/them, which I do thanks to #1.

3. I'd like to learn how to play the piano. This is my midlife crisis plan: no fancy car, just a piano and some lessons.


4. I'm a high school sports 'FAN' addict. Mostly football, boys and girls basketball and track. Daily I read local and national forums and newspapers.

5. I get slightly annoyed when someone sends me an article I already read that morning especially if they are close because I'm usually thinking "you aren't telling me anything I don't already know dingbat, I read that at 7am this morning.

6.I was a Brownie, then a Girl Scout and I still remember the Girl Scout Song and Kumbaya.

7. I love reading magaizines from cover to cover.

8. I was taught how to speed read in a Gifted and Talented program in 5th grade, and to this day, I read very, very, very quickly.

9. I failed my driver's license test the first time I took it (on my 20th birthday). I failed due to parallel parking. I can now parallel park my big suburban with the best of them.

10. I'm really, really talkative. Gregarious. Outgoing. Loquacious. Chatty. Expansive. Verbal to those I like. If I've sat next to you and not talked to you, I probably don't like you. (Sorry, just being honest).

11. Just kidding about #11. I talk to everyone, even strangers in line at the grocery store.

12. I always dreamed of being an actress or a teacher. Later my dream was to be a police officer but my near blindness quickly killed that.

13. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life.

14. I can't sleep without being on my side. If I had to sleep on my back I'd be awake all night.


15. I used to be in charge of a doctor's committee at Kaiser for Drug Seeking Behavior. I had no idea that so many people in the world were addicted to presciption drugs and the lengths they would go to get them.

16. I was raising one eyebrow long before THE ROCK!

17. I can still do the Fosbury Flop on que and high jumped with no shoes in high school.

18. I've never considered myself to be pretty.

19. The smell of most animals makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit. I think animals know that I don't like them so I often have to stand still and suffer as cats or dogs of friends "check out" my feet and legs but I really am not a pet lover.

20. I have had the same recurring nightmare since I was 16 years old.

21. I always dream in color. I didn't realize there are actually people who don't dream in color until one day at lunch when I was describing a dream I'd had to my coworkers and one of them stopped me to say he'd never dreamed in color in his life. I find that very odd, assuming one isn't colorblind, that one wouldn't dream in color. I mean, we LIVE in color, don't we?

22. I wasn't popular high school. I was so skinny that most of my socks didn't fit my ankles. (Get your laugh on) and I wore leg warmers and extra pants under my jeans to make myself look thicker.

23. My new ipod currently has 750 songs and I've listened to them all at least twice.

24. I have one slanted eye and one round eye.

25. I've been to 12 states in the United States.

26. I want to go to every state in the US someday. The state I'd like to go to the most, to which I've never yet been, is New York.

27. I have a fear of sleeping in public, and won't allow myself to fall asleep unless a loved one is there to stand guard.

28. I talk in my sleep. I have had entire conversations while sound asleep.

I've always wanted to swim with dolphins. (The closest I've come thus far is seeing them from a boat in the Gulf of Mexico out of Tampa Bay and touching one at the Mirage in Vegas.)
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist and a linguist. At the same time - I thought knowing many languages well would help with the world travel required for archaeology.
When I was a senior in high school, I played the role of "Smitty" in the school musical (we did How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying that year). A few years later, I began dating my hubby, who was nicknamed Smitty. I refused to ever actually call him that, though.

I do a killer rendition of Barry Manilow's Copacabana. I perfected the routine when I was about five years old.
The first movie I remember seeing in the theater is Snow White. According to IMDB, Snow White was re-released in December of 1975, which means that I was 4 years old.
I have a serious fear of heights. Not heights, specifically, but of heights where falling seems possible. (For example, I've been to the top of the Empire State Building or similarly high places and felt fine as could be. When we went on a cruise once, I couldn't stand at the railing on deck because that didn't feel secure enough. Even watching a movie where a character or the camera angle is up high - like Cliffhanger - can make my palms sweat.) I'm not sure if "fear of falling from a height" is actually acrophobia, but whatever it is, I've got it!
I'm more concerned than I ever try to let on about people liking me. This stems from the years as a child where I had no friends (primarily age 7-12) and was utterly miserable. Consequently, I find it hard to say no to people, because I just want to be liked!
I can hang a spoon off my nose. I've also taught my daughter how to do this, because come on, isn't that an essential skill?
I never broke a bone in my body for the first 18 years of my life, despite being a huge klutz.
Two days after my 18th birthday, I fractured my skull and broke my nose while sledding.
Ever since I broke my nose, I snore, especially so if I'm the slightest bit congested. (According to Hubby, I snore very, very loudly when I'm congested, too. Loudly enough to drive him to the guest room when I'm sick just so he can get some sleep.)
I'm allergic to the sun. (It's called PMLE.) My sun allergy started when I was 18 years old, on a trip to Mexico. (Coincidence that it was the closest I'd ever been to the equator? I don't know...)
I have been to eight countries outside the US (Canada, Mexico, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, England, Wales, Italy and Switzerland).
I can walk down a flight of stairs while balancing a dictionary on my head.
I have been in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea.
I once came upon an adult (or at least it was quite large) octopus while swimming in the Mediterranean. I have never swum so fast in my life as I did to get back to the boat after encountering it.
My nicknames in high school were Mugsy and Heddy. There are very, very few people who still use these names.
The other name my parents were considering for me was Pamela. The reason I wasn't named Pamela was because my father has an aversion to nicknames and didn't want to give any of his children names from which a nickname was commonly derived. If I'd been a boy, I would've been named Derek.
I cry very, very easily. Books, movies, TV shows (and not just the Lifetime channel), even newspaper stories and TV commercials have been known to turn me into a blubbering mess. Even just hearing a sad or touching story told in real life can reduce me to tears.
I have been in the studio audience for both the Arsenio Hall Show and the Phil Donahue show.
I'm a naturally upbeat and happy person. I'm cheerful a lot more than I'm grouchy, and I like it that way. Optimist and glass-half-full is my general mode.

My favorite holiday is Christmas. I am a Christmas nut. My hubby had to enact a rule in which Christmas music is not allowed to be played except between the day after Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. Kiddo and I have amended that rule to "played in Hubby's earshot" and listen to it for much longer than that.
I have a snowman figurine collection. I love snowmen.
I do not, however, particularly love snow. I like snow for a couple of weeks in December, but by January, I'm over it. Unfortunately, I live in a corner of the world where it can start snowing in October and last through April into May. Seriously, Kiddo has been Easter Egg hunting in snowpants before.
I would love to live on a beach somewhere.
For our honeymoon, Hubby and I went to Disney World. The very first ride we went on during our honeymoon was the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. (Have I mentioned my fear of falling from a great height? Yeah. I thought so.) Somehow, not only did I not die from fright, but I enjoyed it so much that we spent the entire morning re-riding the ride.

I have never ridden on a roller coaster (or any other amusement park ride) that goes upside down. I plan to ride on a roller coaster that does go upside down for the first time next month when we go to Disney World. (That'd be the Rockin' Roller Coaster starring my beloved Aerosmith.)

I had two sets of adult teeth, and subsequently had 33 teeth pulled, not counting my wisdom teeth.

I have ridden an elephant and a camel and petted a lion cub.
I cannot stand pumpkin guts. The smell and feel of them makes me woozy. Real, animal guts? No problem, but pumpkin guts, ewwwww.

I would love to someday be a published author. Of what, exactly, I haven't decided yet, hence the "someday" part of this one............
Whew. 100 things isn't easy. Did anyone actually read them all? I don't think I'll be repeating this for 200 or 1000..............