35 Random Things About Me On My 35th Birthday

I’m totally old now, y’all. In the spirit of pretending I’m okay with it, here’s a list. Because lists make me happy. (Hey, there’s a freebee!)

1.     I’m the firstborn of two firstborns. (Throw the Capricorn in there, and I should be more driven and neurotic than I am.)

2.     As it is (neurosis-wise) I always have to usually want to typically choose to touch the clock on my phone/computer when the digits are all the same (2:22, 5:55, 8:88, etc.). My heart practically stopped this year, November eleventh, at 11:11am.

3.     My heart actually did almost stop when I was nearly flattened by a car when I was two and ran toward a busy intersection tripping only at the last moment and barely not dying. Or that’s how my mother tells it. (I now tell the story to Uli but she likes me to use her name instead of mine so she’s the protagonist who narrowly escapes danger.)

4.     I was homeschooled. Justin says that’s why I don’t understand physics or football. I say my choice to believe in Star Trek and Stargate and Dr. Who and that new dinosaur show is forward-thinking and based on hope, and that it’s attitudes like his that will kill the future. Also: sports are boring.

5.     I'm semi-artsy/crafty! I know how to knit, crochet, sew, play the piano, whistle on prime grasses, sketch with charcoal and dance a short ballet routine my friend taught to me in the sixth grade. And I can do two of those things somewhat well. (Yes, one is the whistling.)

6.     I want to learn to play the guitar. It’s on my bucket list. (So is graduating from Harvard. Not all lists work out.)

7.     I attended a religious university in Oregon my Freshman and the first semester of my Sophomore years. I left that school to attend a less expensive community college. The transition from multi-million dollar private school to public community college went just as smoothly as you’d expect, so I became an official college drop-out. When I transferred to the UW-Madison years later, my application was accepted only after until I supplied the school with a handwritten note from my mother telling them I was super smart.

8.     I was five months pregnant with Uli when I graduated with my BA.

9.     I am still in touch with friends from my early teens and early college, but only one or two from my 20s. I was kind of an idiot in my 20s. Totally the opposite of now, in which I’m awesome.

10.  I’ve been in a bar fight. Kind of. And lost. (Definitely lost.) And deserved to lose.

11.  In my early 20s I was approached on three separate occasions by independent modeling scouts, and I threw out each of their business cards because I believed I was too short. I could just smack my young stupid short skinny self.

12.  I’m 5’6.5” but I tell everyone I’m 5’7”.

13.  I’m actually 5’6” but tell everyone I’m 1/2 inch taller after first telling them I’m an inch taller because it makes that 1/2” more believable.

14.  I’m a compulsive liar.

15.  I’m not actually a compulsive liar, though I do like to tell a good story.

16.  I was on a six month, no-alcohol kick (New Year’s Resolution) when I met my now-husband. Sober dating. It works. Who’d have thunk it?

17.  I am far too lazy to study something in which I don’t excel. I often use improper grammar and made-up words on this blog (and whilst speaking), but I swear I received my English degree with minimal effort and excellent grades. And only a few instances of I can’t drop off my [unfinished] paper because I have really bad cramps and it’s still the late ‘90’s so no one emails their papers yet. I believe you have to understand the rules, but once you’ve got ‘em, go ahead and mix it up.

18.  I started to type this list using the Roman numerals but at this point realized I can’t remember my Roman numerals. (Is anyone else so glad they stopped using those to tell you when a movie was released? Anything earlier than ’95 and it may as well have been made in ’35, for all I can tell.)

19.  I’m being serenaded by a baby right now. Sweetest ever reason to be awake at 4am.

20.  While I nurse Ilse, if I’m not so exhausted that I nurse her in my sleep, I’ve been known to watch TiVo. I’ve caught-up on Modern Family and Suburbia, Grey’s Anatomy, Bones, The New Adventures of Old Christine, that show about the nerds with that girl from the show where the one actor died, ANTM, Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Disasters, The Secret Circle, and How I Met Your Mother. I may have a problem.

21.  Words I've written have been published in a mazagine, but it was ghost written for someone else so I didn't get the credit.
22.  I love Trivial Pursuit but I prefer to play special house rules in which every correct answer wins a game piece rather than only when landing on the “proper” sections on the board, if you don’t know the answer to the question you pulled you can guess one of the other answers on the card without hearing the other questions (tip:  guess Germany and you’ll be surprised how often you’re right), and my competition should be at least one shot of whisky ahead of me at all times. (That’s my strategy for most games, in fact. Hasn’t failed me more than half the time.)

23.  I was a vegetarian for ten years, then I decided to re-introduce organic, free-range meats back into my diet but it quickly devolved into scarfing down items from McDonald’s dollar menu and loading up on ham at potlucks, so now I hate myself and am trying to decide whether I’m back to being veggie or if my family can commit to avoiding the Frankenmeats for real this time.

24.  For a while I challenged myself to write a poem a day as a mental/lingual exercise and I was able to sustain that for about six months. I continued writing poetry (thought less often) for years afterward. I have notebooks full of poetry.

25.  I once let someone read my poems, and she asked me whether I’d sought counseling for my emotional imbalances.  It’s true,  that actually happened to me.

26.  I love the name Keiko and considered it during both pregnancies, but it was vetoed (not pointing fingers. Just sayin’…). Someone doesn’t think we’re Japanese enough to name a girl Keiko. Nor does he think we’re Latino enough to name a boy Mateo (also a favorite of mine, also vetoed). I say: what’s the good of a book called 88,000 Baby Names if you have to stick to those of your own ethnic heritage? Luckily, the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples have rich cultures from which we were able to draw names we both adore.

27.  Back at my apartment, whenever I ran out of clean silverware (which, oddly enough, happened rather often even though I had a dishwasher) I would just use chopsticks. I enjoy eating with chopsticks.

28.  Of the Asian cuisines with which I’m familiar so far, my favorites, in descending order of deliciousness, are: Thai, Nepali, Indian, Japanese, Afghani, Russian, and Chinese.

29.  My favorite movies include, in no particular order: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (you have to use the whole title), Titanic, Almost Famous, Harry Potter (I and III especially. Mostly  because I love the books), Anne of Green Gables, Aliens, LOTR trilogy, Star Wars original trilogy, The Lion King, Princess Bride, and the Kill Bills.

30.  My favorite things to read include Agatha Christie novels, LOTRs (including the appendixes), anything by the playwright Martin McDonagh (brilliant) Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody mysteries, the Dune books by Herbert, and Vogue (even though it infuriates me and I had to cancel my subscription because it was so clearly evil and had ridiculous money-saving ideas about dresses that cost only $400) and natural parenting and birthing blogs. 

31.  I can sing anything to the Shaka Zulu theme music. And I do. Often.

32.   I hate driving in the snow but I hate even more being a passenger in the car when someone else is driving in the snow. I yell out helpful things like Watch out! and That patch looks slick! and Slow down or we’re gonna die! Drivers appreciate my advice.

33.  I haven’t worn makeup regularly for nearly two years now. I now feel really fancy when I put on mascara when I used to think I looked naked without it.

34.  I love to wear jeans but wish I preferred to wear dressier trousers. They are so much classier. I avoid sweatpants in a probably misguided attempt to look presentable.

35.  I used to wear beautiful high heels and spent a good portion of my take home pay on  stylish clothing. I also suffered from back and knee pain and an inability to pay my bills (I found just throwing them unopened into a box in the closet worked well to reduce the no-money stress). I have since reformed into a Birkenstock-wearing, rather frumpy-clothed woman who can pay her bills. I prefer the mother I’ve become to the girl I once was. Even if I’m a wrinkly 35 years old.


And there you have it. More than you ever needed to know about someone whom you may only know from the internet. ;-)