100 Random Facts About Me

1. I am a middle child. My older sister is 22 years older than me. My younger sister is 16 months younger. We all have the same parents.
2. I was an aunt when I was born, and had two nephews and a niece before I was six. I also had a great-nephew before I had my first baby. Currently, I have four nephews, three nieces, and that great-nephew who makes me feel old.
3. My father died of a heart attack one week before I turned ten. My sisters and I light a candle for him every October 26.
4. The best job I ever had was the one for which I was paid the least amount of money. (Barn crew for a dude ranch. I rode horses all day.)
5. The worst job I ever had was being a political phone survey person. Be nice to them, please. I assure you: they don’t know what time it is, they have no idea that you just came home from the hospital or a funeral, they don’t know you are late already for your job, and they had no idea that you’re on the Do Not Call List. Their computer dialed some numbers, and they take the verbal abuse. Cut them some slack and just hang up silently. You’ll both be relieved.
6. The only job I ever walked out on was the phone survey one. I lasted a whole two weeks.
7. I type 100 words per minute on average, though my personal best is 153 with 100% accuracy. At one time, I was the fastest typist in the state of Idaho.
8. Despite my typing, I cannot play the piano.
9. I do play the clarinet decently well.
10. I have a birthmark behind my left knee. It’s my only one.
11. I was born with clubfeet and spent most of my childhood walking in shoe supports of one kind or another.
12. I love the idea of scary movies, but hate actually watching them.
13. I think crunchy chocolate (Crunch bars, stuff with rice puffs in it) tastes gross.
14. I also hate pudding unless it is Rice.
15. I adore black jellybeans and licorice of any and all sorts (haha! Allsorts!)
16. I can do word search puzzles practically at the speed of light. It’s like my superpower. Do not race me. You will lose.
17. I have never lost a game of Blurt.
18. My husband once threatened never to take me out to dinner since I had to proofread the menu before ordering every place we went.
19. I did not exist for six months since I was secretly driving around delivering propane with my husband. Best Time of My Life.
20. I can pack an astonishing amount of stuff into the tiniest of suitcases. I do all our family’s packing.
21. I moved three times during the nine months of my pregnancy.
22. I hate to drive and will go to great lengths to avoid it, particularly if I’m driving with someone.
23. I love long car trips – if I’m not driving.
24. I knit – a lot.
25. I Love to see the look on a visitor’s face when they come in and see the yarn on the entertainment center. Should they comment, which I secretly hope they will, I adore seeing their jaws drop when I casually say that the stuff up there is just the sock yarn. The real stash is in the basement.
26. I can knit an adult sock in seven hours. I can knit a pair of baby socks in three.
27. I don’t have as much yarn as people think I do, but I do have enough yarn to knit without buying a single yard more than 100 pairs of socks, more than 20 sweaters, and a whole bunch of toys.
28. I crochet too, but save that for toys and afghans. Knitting is for clothes.
29. I am an Introvert with a Capital I. If I lived in Japan, I would be seriously tempted to become a Hikikomori and never leave my house.
30. Men over 50 make me nervous. I pretend very well that they don’t and have no explanation for this particular phobia.
31. I am very closed, but friendly. It takes a long time for me to open up to people.
32. My favorite book is the Little Prince.
33. My favorite movie is Samurai X.
34. I have not voluntarily turned on a television since I was in high school except the one time I watched Final Contact. I wish that I hadn’t.
35. I have never sent a text message and did not own a cell phone until I was graduated from college.
36. I graduated with a BA in English, minoring in Spanish.
37. I freak out a lot of Spanish speaking people who do not expect the blonde, blue-eyed person to know their language.
38. I would rather sing a solo than give a speech.
39. This did not stop me from giving the valedictorian address at my high school.
40. I can sing in most languages except French. The French is beyond my verbal capability.
41. I almost always rehearse what I want to say in my mind before I say it. It doesn’t usually help, and I stutter anyway.
42. I keep my mouth shut most of the time to avoid the stutter. It gets worse if I’m nervous. (Which probably makes a lot of men over 50 wonder about me.)
43. I automatically look away when talking to someone. I have to focus very hard to look someone in the eye while speaking.
44. I lose the stutter if I’m telling a story. It’s the only time when talking is easy, dramatics are fun, and I enjoy someone listening and paying attention to what I’m doing.
45. My pet peeve is when people leave kitchen cupboards open.
46. When I was young, I read the Bible and Bible stories exclusively.
47. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and love it.
48. I do not wear makeup, but have only been asked once if it was part of my religion.
49. I love to read, fantasy books are my favorite. (Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks, and Katherine Kerr particularly)
50. I also write; my English emphasis was creative writing.
51. To date, I have published two poems, one even for money, and two short stories.
52. I was once told by an English professor that A work from everyone else was C work coming from me.
53. The only B+ I received in college was from a math class.
54. In high school, I had two fan clubs: one in Kansas and the other in London.
55. I have been engaged three times.
56. I’m very grateful for all the relationships I’ve had that didn’t work. I’m much happier (and I’m sure they are too), that I have Rich and they have their sweet wives and lovely families. I’m also grateful that I’m on relatively good terms with all of them.
57. Pregnancy was very easy for me. I don’t know why I was so scared of it for so long.
58. I own a school bus.
59. I hate to eat in public and will not do it by myself. On the flip side, I also don’t like eating with a group. Eating with my family is ok.
60. I hate to ask for favors. It makes me anxious, and I have been reduced to tears when my husband asked me to ask a neighbor for an egg. I Cannot Do That. I would rather drive fifty miles to the store and buy the eggs than go next door and ask.
61. I have no trouble doing favors when other people ask. Egg? Sure! Ride to the store? Ok. Use my computer? No problem! This doesn’t make sense, but I don’t know how to change.
62. According to those funny personality tests, I have the most rare personality in the world. Slightly less than 1% of the population shares my personality type. I wonder where they are and if we’d get along.
63. I love symbolism – probably why I became an English major.
64. I can write a 3-5 page explication paper on any poem in forty minutes. This skill saved my college career.
65. I desperately wish that I could draw or paint.
66. I used to dance and once won a bronze medal in a college competition for my Foxtrot.
67. I adore listening to the mourning doves and sand hill cranes.
68. Fall is my favorite season, and Halloween is my favorite holiday.
69. I wish I lived in Maine.
70. I love sushi and wish I could eat it every day.
71. I hate to bake, but have been told that I’m pretty good at it.
72. I dream often of my best friend in high school. I always beg her forgiveness and wake up crying.
73. The dream I dislike the most is the one where I lose one of my teeth.
74. I have super spit (it has extra minerals in it and is a genetic thing). This means my teeth are extremely healthy, but I am rather prone to gum disease. It also means I can dissolve a hard candy in my mouth faster than you can.
75. I wore braces for four years, had multiple teeth extracted, and HATE the feeling of wet gloves in my mouth or on my face.
76. When I go to the dentist and get an X-ray, I have to use the child’s mouthpiece since my mouth is tinier than normal.
77. I love having my feet held, no massaging necessary.
78. I adore thunderstorms.
79. I watch Japanese animation and have not grown out of it yet. Watching that particular artwork helps me to write.
80. I can tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue, but I cannot fold it.
81. I have not grown out of playing with dolls, and I can’t wait for my daughter to play with me someday.
82. My favorite colors are black, blue, silver, and lilac. My least favorite colors are orange and yellow.
83. I think lists are fun (thus this one!), and I love crossing things off a list or using something up. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something.
84. I slept with one teddy bear until I got married, and now if Rich is ever gone overnight, the bear still comes into bed with me.
85. I wear hand-knit socks every day, and I can go for a month without wearing the same pair twice.
86. I had my ears pierced three times since I am allergic to nickel.
87. I wish I had some tattoos – a scorpion on my shoulder blade, a Chinese dragon around my ankle, and the phases of the moon down my arm. I will never get any of them.
88. My greatest ambition is to publish a novel that is later made into a movie.
89. I once knit costumes for a movie, one of which was worn by Danny Trejo. I am behind the scenes a lot in that movie and love to watch it with people to tell them that I’m hiding behind a mattress or just out of the camera range.
90. I find bald men mysteriously attractive.
91. I strive to treat everyone equally and with the benefit of the doubt.
92. I want to adopt an orphan girl from Asia and name her Hikari.
93. I can hit a target with a .45 rifle at 300 yards with open sights while standing up.
94. I was once hit by a car on my way to work. A truck driver pulled into the intersection, stopped traffic, and proceeded to call the police. I stopped him, thanked him, and explained that I was going to be late if I stayed for all that nonsense. It didn’t hurt until much later.
95. While I was in college, I engaged in self-harm. I wear orange and white on March 1 to show support and prove that quitting is possible.
96. I love musicals.
97. I have a powerful memory. I can memorize whole movies, pluck trivial details out of the air, and remember events in my life from when I was two until now. This helps me in my jobs, but gives me a disproportionate sense of time passing. My memory of an event is so clear that it must have happened last year when in reality, it was ten.
98. The first memory I have is of being passed through a Dairy Queen window to my older sister who showed me off and asked me to wave at her co-workers. I didn’t do it, but I don’t know why.
99. Every month, I get a migraine that lasts for three days and makes me feel like the left side of my face is melting. Sometimes I can work through it.
100. People tell me that I am funny. And crazy. I think they're related.