100 Things Meme

These have been popping up all over blogdom lately, so I guess it's my turn.

1. I'm an only child
2. If my parents' first child had lived, and if my mom hadn't miscarried twice, I would have been third of four.
3. My dad was one of eight, and my mom was one of 3, and I am the only only child in the bunch.
4. I have second cousins who are older than me (all of the second cousins on my mom's side (except for one) and two on my dad's )
5. The first book I sort of remember being read to from was a big, huge Sesame Street book with lots of stories and activities.
6. I can only remember my dad reading to me once. My grandmother (Mum's mum) was in the hospital and my dad took me to the library across the park to entertain me (I was four or five). I don't remember the book, except that it had a boat in it, but I do remember the librarian shushing my dad. He got a little too into doing voices for the various characters.
7. The first book I read myself was the Sesame Street Cooperation book. My dad bought it for me at Revco, again to entertain me when my grandmother was in the hospital. I was sitting on the floor of the backseat of our Buick (one of my favorite places) and I started to read. Mum thought Daddy read the book to me in the store and I memorized it (something I was well-known for, apparently), but he hadn't.
8. I learned what a skate key was from that book.
9. Despite the fact that I love reading and writing, English and Language Arts were never my favorite subjects in school.
10. I majored in English anyway.
11. When I was very young, I believed that every church was literally God's House (something Catholic parents regularly teach their children - minus the literally part). Every time we'd pass a church with a man sitting on the steps, I declared that it was Jesus sitting on the porch of his Daddy's house.
12. Sometimes I wish I had never outgrown that belief.
13. I went through a period when I was around 7 or 8 when I wanted to change my name to Linda. I thought that was the most glamorous name in the world.
14. I had an imaginary friend named Eddie when I was little. He looked like a worm and lived in the walls of my room. At night, he and his little worm friends would put on puppet shows for me before I went to sleep.
15. Yeah, I had a vivid imagination.
16. I used to eat butter right off the butter dish.
17. I would then follow it by drinking lemon juice right out of the squeezy lemon in the refrigerator.
18. I never learned to ride a bike.
19. I did, however, learn to roller skate, and I used to be able to roller skate backwards.
20. I can't anymore.
21. I had a mammogram at the age of 11 because I got hit in the chest with a line drive playing softball and my whole breast turned black and blue.
22. It was horribly painful.
23. My coach didn't want to let me come out of the game. He was a...well, insert the epithet of your choice here.
24. I stopped playing softball because of the way he treated me that season. I realize now that it was emotional abuse. I should have realized then because my dad, who came from the, "you finish whatever you start" school of parenting told me I could quit the team if I wanted.
25. I didn't.
26. If you haven't guessed, I come from a long line of doormats.
27. I wish I had been raised to be more assertive.
28. I seriously considered killing myself when I was in eighth grade.
29. I've never told anyone that before, not even my Mum.
30. I have a tendency to be more emotionally honest and open in writing, even if someone I know is reading it.
31. I'm afraid of silence.
32. I'm even more afraid of dark silence.
33. I at peanut butter sandwiches for lunch every day for two straight years in sixth and seventh grade.
34. I haven't eaten one since.
35. I guess there is such a thng as too much of a good thing.
36. My first dog, Muffy, ran away the summer before first grade. We think the mailman left the front gate open, but even if he did, it was weird for Muffy, who was the best dog ever, to leave the yard.
37. We had to give our last dog, Harvey, away. My dad got her when I went away to college, but I came home to discover that I had developed an allergy to dogs that was almost as bad as my allergy to cats.
38. My dad loved that dog. I always wondered if giving him up hastened his illness and death.
39. I still feel vaguely guilty about that.
40. I'm attracted to baseball catchers and hockey goalies. I think I have a thing for masks.
41. In fact, I harbored secret fantasies that Mike Lavallier would leave his wife and fall madly in love with me.
42. Guess that isn't such a secret fantasy anymore.
43. The first time I opened a Bible I was six and my mom showed me hers.
44. The next time I opened a Bible was seventh grade. We had one class on the Bible, in between learning about the seven deadly sins and how God loves us but we are going to hell anyway.
45. The next time was Confirmation class in ninth grade. I had to write a one page summary of the book of Isaiah
46. The next time was my sophomore year of college, when I learned that it was impossible to write a one page summary of Isaiah because there were at least two and possibly three distinct writers of Isaiah.
47. Amazingly, Isaiah is my second favorite book in the Old Testament, despite that experience.
48. My favorite Old Testament book, and in fact my favorite book in the Bible is Jeremiah, because he had the guts to yell at God, and despite the fact that he thought God and pretty much screwed him, he followed through with his calling and he never really lost faith.
49. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I went back to St. Al's CCC for Mass some weekend. I have visions of being escorted out of the church.
50. I have a secret desire to dye my hair some outlandish color.
51. Guess that isn't so secret aymore, either.
52. I broke the same bone in my foot two different times in five different places. The bone is all of about two inches long.
53. The first time, I was practicing the Mexican hat dance ion the doorway of our living room for our Girl Scout troop's performance in the council's international festival so I wouldn't bother my dad while he watched the news. I walked on it for a week before the pain got to be so bad I couldn't stand it. I was in a cast and on crutches for 10 weeks.
54. The second time I was walking down the steps of the mens' wing in the Kirk House the day we came back from Thanksgiving break my sophomore year of college. I had gone upstairs to see the quasi-obscene pictures one of my housemates had drawn on the chalkboard up there, and as I was walking down the stairs, I suddenly found myself at the bottom of the steps on the floor. I still don't know how that happened. I waited a week before I went to student health, because I was afraid I didn't have health insurance, and I wasn't sure what would happen if I had to see a specialist or go to the hospital.
55. Well, that and my fear of health care providers.
56. I avoid going to the gynecologist because everytime I find one I like, she leaves the practice. Then the whole crappy cycle has to start over again.
57. Plus, I'm scared to death that a doctor is going to find something seriously wrong with me when I go in for something routine.
58. And if they don't, I feel like I'm wasting their time.
59. Did I ever mention that I started my college career as a pre-med major?
60. I used to be afraid of Santa Claus.
61. In fact, in every picture we have of me sitting on Santa's lap, I'm sobbing like mad.
62. I was so afraid, that I ran away from him at Allegheny Center Mall when I was very little. All I remember is that the security guard found me by the fish tanks in Sears.
63. I adored my Aunt R (my grandmother's baby sister) and Uncle C and used to beg my parents to go over to their house.
64. Conversely, my Aunt V always made me uncomfortable and I used to beg to stay home when we were going to their house, despite the fact that I loved my Uncle L (my mom's middle brother, who was 12 years older than her).
65. Aunt V thought it was OK to give me old catalogs, crappy comics, and the plastic "eggs" that L'eggs pantyhose used to come in for Christmas, while she gave her grandchildren all kinds of brand new toys. At first I was naive enought not to know that was wrong, but even when I did I still told her wonderful the "gifts" were.
66. What she didn't know was that Uncle L always slipped me money every time he saw me.
67. Uncle L also bought me a typewriter in 10th grade so my chemistry teacher wouldn't take point off for my bad handwriting.
68. He never would have admitted it since I was a girl, but he was proud of the fact that I was the first on that side of the family go to college.
69. Even when I am being all emotionally vulnerable, it's hard to come up with 100 things.
70. I once ran myself over with a 15 passenger van.
71. I still have a lump on my leg, 13 years later.
72. I didn't realize until I moved to Louisiana that food was actually supposed to have flavor.
73. Not all food in Louisiana is mouth-burning hot.
74. But having said that, don't eat the potatoes or mushrooms at a crawfish boil. I learned that the hard way.
75. The tomb they used to put on the back altar of my church in Pittsburgh on Good Friday really creeped me out.
76. The risen Jesus they put there on Easter creeped me out even more.
77. Another secret fantasy of mine is to one day have a really good mattress topped by ridiculously high thread count sheets.
78. I'm a texture slut. I've bought sweaters I don't really like before just because they were soft. When I was little, I used to embarrass my mom because I would hike up my skirts so that I could finger the silky slip underneath.
79. I still do that on the rare occassions I wear a slip, but I've learned to be more discreeet.
80. It is very hard for me to ask for help with anything. Ever.
81. It is very hard for me to accept help when it is offered.
82. Somewhere in the back of my mind I think that needing help is a sign of failure.
83. However, I don't think other people are failures when they ask me for help.
84. I would really like to own a brand new car.
85. I could get my life on track financially (and then some) if I had $50K.
86. Getting my life on track in other respects is a whole 'nother story.
87. I sometimes wish I had the guts to go to an African American church.
88. I think Finding Nemo is one of the most spiritual movies ever made.
89. I hated the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I feel guilty for admitting that because it was the kind of movie I should like.
90. I wish I had gone to grad school right after I finished college.
91. I always wondered what my life would be like if I had spent grades 1-8 in public school.
92. The first time I realized that I was an introvert was 2nd grade. All the girls in my class were busy forming little circles and talking on the playground at recess. I was perfectly content to stand along the permiter of the playground and just watch. My teacher tried to make them include me, but I always ended up on the outside of the circle - they literally closed me out of the ciricle.
93. I'm an INFP, according to Myers-Briggs.
94. I'm an off the scale I, and a boderline F.
95. My favorite thing to have for dinner is mashed potatoes and corn and broccoli. If I could get enough protein from that, I'd never eat anything else.
96. I once ran over a stop sign at a grocery store shopping center in Erie. I got two flat tires, but I never told anyone why.
97. If I let myself, I could eat Swedish Fish until I made myself sick.
98. Mum made the best cranberry sauce ever. She would make three or four big molds every holiday, including Easter and my birthday (she bought the cranberries in teh winter and froze them). She, my Uncle L and myself (and my grandmother when whe was alive) could make a meal out of just cranberry sauce.
99. As hard as I try, I just don't particularly care about football. I love the Steelers, though.
100. I can't believe I reached a hundred.

And as a bonus

101. It took me almost two hours to write this list.