what i should have said was nothing: February 2009

i'm finally succumbing to the latest facebook trend of writing 25 things about yourself, which i will now share with the few close friends, many associates, and bunches of border-line unknown people who are now linked to me through facebook.

1. my left thumb only vaguely resembles my right thumb, and i have an extra line on my left pointer finger. in college, a guy named manish tried to read my palms and had to call his grandmother in india to find out the meaning of these things. i am not sure what he discovered, but i do know he never really spoke to me again.

2. i once talked on the phone for 15 minutes with a man named tony who i later discovered was anthony edwards (aka goose). i bet i would have been a lot less funny and a lot more uptight if i knew who i was speaking with.

3. i consider myself to be a good driver but have gotten in three accidents in the past ten years. i fear it is starting to sound less believable when i say that none of them were my fault.

4. i used to play a lot of soccer- almost every night of week when i lived in minnesota- but i tore my ACL in april of 2007 and still haven't gotten it fixed and haven't played since.

5. i can recite "the lorax" from memory. i consider that, along with my ability to remember childrens' names instantly, to be my two greatest talents. oh, and i can find four leaf clovers on demand.

6. i can beat you at scrabble.

7. i am so glad that my sister married someone who i already considered one of my closest friends because now i have a brother-in-law who i love having as part of my family.

8. and partially as a result of that brother-in-law, i have the cutest neice and nephew in the world.

9. despite many years of trying, i still can't steer with my knees (note: my attempts to develop this skill have NOTHING to do with the car accidents).

10. i'm afraid of heights. on my second-to-last day on the clearwater, i climbed aloft to the crosstrees, 80-ish feet above the surface of the water and thought i would die up there because i was too scared to climb back down. a good friend once told me that people who are afraid of heights are more highly evolved than everyone else. to people like us, it's just common sense, like not eating poo- we know it's not healthy.

11. i really admire everyone on facebook who took the time to write meaningful, revealing, introspective lists of 25 things. my list seems to be lacking in those three qualities. sorry.

12. the cat i currently own is the fourth cat i have had since senior year in college. the first got hit by a car, the second disappeared, and the third i gave away to a lonely old woman who wanted him so much more than i did. when i brought him to her house so she could cat-sit over the holidays, she had two bowls of (bottled) water out for him - one at room temperature and one chilled, so he could have his pick of what he liked better. she deserved him more than i did. i let him drink out of the toilet.

13. i hate hate hate washing dishes. this has, in part, led to the downfall of at least one (and maybe more) of my past relationships.

14. i love love love to rearrange furniture.

15. i was a vegetarian for 11 years, but last year, i joined a meat CSA and got 10 pounds of grass-fed, locally-raised pork, beef, lamb, and chicken every month. ohhhh, the bacon. i loved it. i can't decide if i am going to keep eating "good" meat- i do think animals can be an important component of a sustainable farming system, but i still feel like it is better for me and better for the planet if i don't eat them. i am intrigued by the idea posited by mark bittman in his new book, "food matters" that you should be vegan until 6:00pm. breakfast burritos for dinner? don't mind if i do.

16. i worked on a boat for two years on the hudson river and it was the greatest and most rewarding job i could ever imagine having. and since i don't really like boats and i have an over-developed need for privacy, it seems hard to believe i could love a job that forced me to live onboard for seven days at a time, sharing my space with 11 other people (many of them total strangers, some i had known for a month or two) with nothing separating me from them other than a sagging curtain around my bunk. and we had a bucket for a toilet.

17. i have a hard time keeping track of socks.

18. i am really bad at staying in touch with people, but am grateful that facebook allows me to learn what folks are up to without any real effort on my part. this is exactly the system i have been wishing for for years.

19. i was fired from one job in my life and i will never forgive the man who fired me. however, although i find it slightly upsetting that they talk to him, i have managed to forgive all the people who are still friends with this man.

20. i am very jealous of people close to my age who own their own homes.

21. i love my birthday and one thing i am very excited about is the number of people who will be able to acknowledge my birthday this year, thanks to facebook.

22. i have never seen "titanic" or any of the indiana jones movies.

23. if i ever win $11 million in the lottery, i will buy a farm, make sure my neice and nephew can go to whatever college they choose, adopt a lot more dogs, and then pay bruce springsteen a million dollars (plus an extra million to a charity of his choice) to put on a private concert for every person i have ever met (this means you, my facebook friends). it's going to be awesome.

24. i have trouble remembering to do things and i hate it when people say, "oh, remind me to do such-and-such..." because i can never remember to take care of my own stuff, much less help somebody else remember to take care of their own.

25. almost three weeks in, i still smile every time i hear the words, "president obama."