Wednesday, February 13, 2008

100 things about yours truly

I started this list many, many moons ago. Whenever I see one on someone else's blog I always read it. There are so many more than 100 things about any person, and I am fascinated by which 100 come up for people. I find these lists immensely satisfying, and I often wonder about the 100 things people choose not to share. I guess I'm just nosy like that.

Anyhow, here are mine:

1. I was actually born in Oregon, Ohio, not Toledo, Ohio. Oregon is a tiny city (pop. 19,355, and probably several have left since I started this list) 20-30 minutes from downtown Toledo. Since my mother was but a youth when she had me, she was covered under my grandfather's health insurance, which was valid at a hospital in the sticks.

2. When I was a kid I not only hated strawberries, but also was afraid of them. Something about their little black seeds seemed sinister and deadly to me.

3. I know I'm older now because I've found my hairdo. Hair-hopping is the province of youth. I've worn my hair in some version of this current style since 1998. Whenever I think about changing it, it seems like too much work.

4. Bananas. I tolerate them and can even appreciate a good one, but I don't really like them when they're raw. But, I love banana bread and can't resist a good banana pudding.

5. I've been the same height, 5'5.5", since 5th grade. My nickname then was Lurch.

6. I would like to try every hard drug one time to see what all the fuss is about. I never will, because I'm too chicken.

7. I find nothing as delightful as peanut butter ice cream.

8. I was married for the first and only time at age 37.

9. I don't much like being wet. I have a strong disdain for stepping out of the tub or shower on a cold morning.

10. I have two phobias: rodents and drowning.

11. I have a dent on my nose from having gotten chicken pox for my 21st birthday.

12. I don't know how to swim (see #10). I've taken group swimming lessons but was too afraid to move around in the water when the instructor's back was turned.

13. I believe the world would be a better place if we'd let one another be.

14. I am mildly afraid of height, but I used to be a house painter.

15. I have a BA in communications and English, an MA in English, and an MFA in film, but I've never taken the SAT, ACT, GRE or any other specialized entrance exam.

16. Steven (aka Mister Stevens) has been my friend for 27 of my 41 years.

17. I am the most rhythmless colored person you're ever likely to meet.

18. I have a play, a really good one, collecting dust in my desk drawer.

19. I have one child, which suits me just fine.

20. I am a step-mom (for how long, I do not know).

21. It took me the maximum number of tries (3?) to get my driver's license. I kept failing the parallel parking.

22. I got my driver's license when I was 17.

23. I have a pathological aversion to talking on the phone.

24. I love neither blue, nor purple, except when it comes to the sky or water.

25. I've been to 5 foreign countries.

26. My goal is to travel to at least 1 new country each year. I set this goal in 1998. I went to 2 countries -- 1 in '98, the other in '99 -- then things happened and I didn't go anywhere for a while. I'm kicking it off again, having gone to Paris last year. This year it might be Mexico, but I'm going somewhere.

27. I wore braces, as an adult, for 5 years.

28. The one thing that's shaped my life the most is reading.

29. My grandparents died 7 years and 7 days apart.

30. Few things make me happier than sewing, knitting, or somehow making things with my hands.

31. I am obsessed with writing, but sometimes love it, sometimes hate it.

32. Give up food or sex? Sex would have to go.

33. When I pursue an activity, I like to have all the accoutrements, even if I don't use them much.

34. I love taking pictures, and I think I have a good eye. Someday I'll get serious about photography and take a course. Or, at least, I'll read the manuals that came with my cameras.

35. When I went to graduate school at Columbia, both my parents were incarcerated.

36. I love me a road trip.

37. I've driven from California to Ohio. I mean literally, me behind the wheel.

38. The only clothing era I really care about is the 1950s.

39. I don't mind some fashions from the '70s, either.

40. When I was about 11, my grandmother, southern and very superstitious, thought someone put hoodoo (voodoo) on her. She paid this woman who was supposed to know how to remove curses to come in and remove the hoodoo. The woman did some investigating, futzed around in my grandmother's closet, and sprinkled some powder there. A few days later, I went into the closet and borrowed a favorite pair of my grandmother's shoes. I wore them. At the end of that day, my right foot was very badly swollen. It remained so, for no diagnosable medical reason, off and on (mostly on) for nearly 30 years.

41. My weight fluctuates between 130 - 142 pounds.

42. I'm an indoorsy gal.

43. Once, in Atlanta, I made money by lip-synching Patti LaBelle at a drag club.

44. Congested, sprawled, and expensive, Los Angeles sometimes feels uninhabitable to me.

45. I've lived in Los Angeles for 6 years.

46. I like to sleep under a blanket with a fan, air conditioner, or cool fresh air going at the same time.

47. Fashion magazines don't interest me.

48. My money management skills could use improvement.

49. My favorite color used to be red. In college, it changed to black. Now, it's changed to orange. (Each change has been a surprise to me; when I was a child, I thought if a color was your favorite, it always would be.)

50. I'm not much of a joiner.

51. It's hard for me to face a 9 - 5 work schedule. The sameness and duration of the hours get to me. (Who are we kidding? There's no more 9 - 5. It's 9 - 6. Ack!)

52. I don't need a large number of friends. I need (and have) a small number of good friends.

53. I have my mother's ashes.

54. I've always wanted to be a singer. Anything else is a compromise. Problem is, I won't say I can't sing (my dad says everyone can sing! that's why I love him), more like I don't sing well. Before Whitney Houston became the Whitney Houston we've come to know, I thought it was so unfair for one person to get so many goodies: voice, looks, money, fame, personality. I didn't want to be her, but I wanted to have her experiences.

55. I want to live on a street with a lot of trees.

56. Sometimes I write poetry.

57. I wrote a poem for my wedding invitations. I used trees as a metaphor.

58. I heart New York City. I lived there for almost 7 years. I left Ohio and went for graduate school. I wouldn't want to move back right now; I would have difficulty keeping up with the pace.

59. I left Toledo when I was 29.

60. I got my first apartment when I was 18.

61. I had my son when I was 18.

62. If I never see snow again, it'll be soon enough.

63. I have all my college notebooks.

64. I could live in the woods as a hermit, were it not for having to trap my own food.

65. I love to travel alone.

66. I'm very happy with my birthday, May 16th. I think May is the perfect time of year, everywhere you go. And it's just such a sweet-sounding date.

67. I get discouraged too easily.

68. I've flirted with Buddhism.

69. I think the library is the greatest thing ever dreamed up by modern society.

70. I usually have a library fine.

71. I am planning to give up television for a year.

72. My passport expires this year.

73. I worked at Pizza Hut off and on (mostly on) for 6 years, before and during college.

74. It took me 6 years to get my undergraduate degree, but I did it with honors in English.

75. I've taken guitar lessons, but I don't play because I'm not so good with practicing.

76. I've seen a few therapists. I really liked two of them.

77. When I was little, we had dogs. The only one I remember is the one I named, Bittywit.

78. In my world, sports don't exist.

79. Math is not my strong suit.

80. I'll go anywhere without makeup.

81. My shoe size is 8.

82. I can knit both English and continental. I'm most comfortable with English.

83. When I like something, I eat it or read it or watch it or log-on to it until I get absolutely sick of it, and then I abandon it completely.

84. I'm nowhere near as neat and tidy as I think I am.

85. I buy stuff just to get packages in the mail.

86. If I could, I'd survive on cookies and potato chips.

87. I have friends from various cultural and racial backgrounds. I love the differences and similarities we all share.

88. One of the kindest, most generous people I know is an atheist.

89. I am not an atheist, nor am I agnostic, but I leave room for people to believe what they want.

90. My favorite food is pizza.

91. I'm nocturnal. When left with an open enough schedule, I'll go to sleep at 5 or 6 in the morning and get up around noon. I don't get to live this way too often, because I work and all. My body is always thrown off by having to go to bed and wake up like normal people.

92. I was baptized at 12, because that's the age Jesus was baptized, according to my grandmother.

93. My mother died when I was 33 and she was 49.

94. Barbados is my favorite place. I want to build a house there.

95. I'm both an only child and a sibling. My mother never had more children, but my father married a woman who had 4 kids already, plus they had another one together.

96. I love my step-mom, Blanche, to pieces. She died from multiple-sclerosis in 1991.

97. A friend of my mother-in-law's once took me stunt flying in Texas.

98. I was born at 4 in the afternoon. (Maybe that explains #91.) My mother couldn't recall if it was 4 on the nose or minutes after, which means I can't get a true astrology chart done.

99. My first address was 118 Roff Street.

100. One skill that I'm glad I have is the ability to drive a stick shift.

*If you've got one of these lists of your own, kindly point me to it.*

12 comments:

carlita dee said...

Aw, thanks for the well wishes last night, my friends. :) I'm feeling much better today and hoping to make a b-day gift for a co-worker. We'll see!

Christie said...

Totally interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Adrienne said...

neat list!! Ummm NO TV for a year? I have problems when my cable goes out lol

Anonymous said...

I never made it past 39 things... http://noirbettie.com/blog/?page_id=1836

knititch said...

that is great. hope you will come to this country once. and i would add a #101 for you. "i am extremely good looking" because you are. no need for makeup i am sure.

Ellen Bloom said...

Ooooo...I knew we were wavin' on the same length, Carla Doll! We have lots in common: 3, 13, 23, 30, 32, 34, 36, 49!, 53/Dad, 65, 79, 84, 85, 87!!

I'll have to do one of these someday.

Anonymous said...

What a neat list! I was laughing out aloud at times, other times with tears. Are you sure you weren't born in April?
One of these days I'm going to start a blog and write a list like this...we have so many things in common....you probably have many things in common with 100 others too...LOL..

Heather

Deborah said...

your list reads like a great character mystery. i loved reading it.

I'm afraid of writing one of my own, i think that I am a secret. Strange right, considering I keep a blog?

Lola and Ava said...

We always talk about doing list, but never get around to it. I guess Laziness would be #1.

I'm very familiar with your #1. I went to school at BG & SK's family is from Toledo. We're there once a month & going back next weekend to introduce Tuck to the family.
-L

carlita dee said...

Thank you all for reading my list! Now I'm off to come up with 100 more! Just kidding. That would be a bit much. :)

Heather, do it! Start a blog and do this list. I'll be there reading every word!

Home ec new Haven said...

May 16th is a fine birthday indeed (it's my middle daughter's)!

I agree with #98.

Very interesting list, I enjoyed reading it :)

afrowalking said...

Mmmm, not sure my comment got posted so I'll try again.

LOVE THIS GURL! I was under the false impression that you had stopped blogging so hadn't checked in a long while until today. So wonderful to catch up with you online! Miss you! Let's hookup soon xoxov