• Posted By landismom @ 8/08/2005 05:01:00 PM • • •
Monday, August 08, 2005
100 things
I got tagged by Desperate to be a Housewife to do the 100 things post. It's taken me quite a while to do it!
Here goes:
1. I was born in Middlebury, VT.
2. I have three younger brothers, three step-brothers and three step-sisters.
3. I was a heavy smoker until I was 26, when I quit cold-turkey.
4. I am older than my husband. By one day.
5. I am a cat person--we have three cats.
6. When I was 21, I lived in Boise, Idaho for 13 weeks.
7. I left college without graduating, just three credits shy. It took me until I was 30 to finish my degree.
8. When I was 22 years old, I drove from NJ to CA with a friend who was moving there, and then took the train home to NJ by myself.
9. On the train, I met a guy who got taken off the train by the cops, a guy who had just been released from prison, and a guy who had just left Long Island for the first time in his life.
10. I corresponded with the Long Island guy for several years, and he visited me once when I lived in San Francisco.
11. Before I met landisdad, I was engaged to marry someone else.
12. My ex-fiance was an ex-con. While we were living together, he was on probation.
13. His probation officer used to make home visits to us at 7 a.m., and would routinely make sexist comments to and about me.
14. That really pissed me off, but who do you complain to about your boyfriend's probation officer?
15. I once did setup work for Cirque du Soleil.
16. I got to use a jackhammer.
17. I was the only woman on the crew, which consisted largely of theatrical carpenters and homeless men. One of them said, "shit (landismom's real name), you sure are strong for a girl!"
18. Both of my children were 2 weeks overdue & had to be induced.
19. I had epidurals both times.
20. I was once homeless in Pittsburgh, PA. I swore I'd never go back. So far, I've kept my word.
21. My footprints have appeared in a museum exhibit.
22. When I was on maternity leave with the Bee, I drove to Baltimore to look at props that were being sold from the set of the recently shut-down TV series Homicide: Life on the Street. I bought a jacket that had been worn on the show by Clark Johnson. I later found cards that he had made notes on in one of the pockets.
23. I love gardening, but hate weeding.
24. No one who has seen both of their parents think my kids look like me.
25. I can roll my tongue.
26. I wear contacts because I'm very near-sighted, but also vain.
27. I watch too much TV.
28. When I was 19, I lived in a haunted house. I never saw the ghost, but two of my roommates did.
29. I had a transgendered roommate when I was 25.
30. I love to throw parties, and now that I have kids, I've stopped getting drunk at them and can therefore enjoy them more.
31. I have a tattoo, a pierced nose, and three holes in each ear.
32. I make great guacamole, but hate to cook almost everything else.
33. I've been in a bar fight, but I didn't start it.
34. In the last year, I read 85 books.
35. When I was a kid, I had a print of Picasso's Guernica in my room.
36. I have over 50 first cousins.
37. I correctly guessed the gender of both of my kids during pregnancy (before the ultrasound).
38. I no longer know any of my childhood friends (and with this life story, you can start to see why).
39. I have knocked on thousands of doors in my organizing career. Very few of them were slammed in my face. People, overall, are friendly.
40. I could tell a lot about you by looking at the outside of your house or apartment.
41. I was once lucky enough to work on a campaign where several of the volunteers were Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
42. I like jigsaw puzzles.
43. And inside jokes. Especially when I'm the only one who gets them.
44. I will probably never learn to ski.
45. I love to dance.
46. I've read Joyce's Ulysses twice, but never Finnegans Wake. Or Remembrance of Things Past, for that matter. Someday...
47. I have eaten a madeleine.
48. I can type about 60 wpm. I have worked as a word processor for a corporate law firm.
49. I kissed my first boy at age 14. He wasn't the last.
50. I love office supplies. The Levenger catalog is like porn to me. And not cheap porn, either.
51. One of my best friends calls me Martha Stewart, because she once came to visit and I was baking a cake for the Bee for Valentine's Day. She didn't realize it was the only thing I baked that entire year.
52. When I was in fourth grade, I was the second-best high jumper in South Jersey (of girls in my age group).
53. I lived in California twice, once for a year in San Diego, and for 8 years in the Bay Area.
54. I started getting gray hair when I was 18 years old. I started dyeing my hair when I was 16. There was no connection.
55. I was on the swim team for a while when I was in middle school. I love to swim, but I'm not a very fast swimmer.
56. My family went to the beach (aka, down the shore) every summer when I was a kid.
57. I will never live in a land-locked state again, after being in Idaho.
58. I have always wanted to speak another language, but my attempts to learn have all failed.
59. In college, I studied Russian. It was the only class I ever got a 'D' in in my entire life.
60. The Potato's first word was Spanish, but I couldn't recognize it.
61. As a child, I dressed up as a tube of toothpaste for Halloween one year. It was my idea. My mom made the cap out of a cardboard paint bucket, and a toothbrush (to carry) out of some long piece of cardboard with a brush attached. Aren't moms great?
62. When I was in sixth grade, the principal called my mom after I got into an argument with my social studies teacher wherein I was articulating the position that prostitution should be legalized.
63. I still believe in legalizing prostitution.
64. I am a pretty good amateur photographer.
65. Some of my favorite photos are, of course, of my kids.
66. My other favorite photos are from demonstrations.
67. I am addicted to caffeine. If I don't have it, I get wicked headaches.
68. The mental image that I have of myself is stuck at age 21. I am constantly brought up short in front of the mirror.
69. Landisdad and I have been together for 11 years, and our seventh wedding anniversary will be this fall.
70. It was raining on the day that we got married, and everyone said that was lucky. I think that people will tell you anything is lucky, on your wedding day.
71. Before he met me, landisdad had only been drunk once in his life. That is no longer true. I corrupted him.
72. Before we had kids, I swore I would not be one of those mothers who used the TV as a babysitter.
73. I've learned to be a lot less judgmental about other people's parenting practices.
74. Nearly all of my close female friends have uttered the phrase, "when I first met you, I thought you were such a bitch!" about me.
75. They were right.
76. But as I age, I am better able to control it.
77. I love ice cream way more than is good for me.
78. I am a third generation union member.
79. My kids will be (I hope) the fourth generation (on both sides of the family) to go to college.
80. Both landisdad and I had maternal grandfathers who were immigrants to the US.
81. Both of us also have one parent who was an only child.
82. I was raised as a Catholic, but left the church when I was 16.
83. I think my mother still believes this is 'just a phase.'
84. Landisdad and I took a four-day honeymoon. We went to Catalina.
85. I have 40 feeds in my bloglines account. Not all of them are mommy/daddy blogs, but most of them are.
86. I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't eat mammals.
87. As a young child, I was afraid of The Count on Sesame Street.
88. When I was 5 or 6, a former student of my dad's came and lived with us for about a month before going to the Peace Corps in Africa. He was a vegan. He ate Cheerios with orange juice instead of milk. I guess there wasn't as much access to soy products then.
89. Also, he ate kelp. As in seaweed. You can imagine my revulsion, as a 6 year-old.
90. As an adult, I have known a lot of vegans, and have even been to a vegan wedding. So far, no one's offered me any kelp.
91. When the Bee was a baby and toddler, she would fall asleep every night holding on to the thumb of either me or landisdad. Our "thumby" was her security blanket.
92. At one point, when she had to go to the ER, she insisted on having some thumby. The RN in charge said she had never seen anything like it.
93. The worst moments of my life were the three times that the Bee had to go to the ER (2 febrile seizures and a broken leg).
94. Both of my children have middle names that one of my grandparents have had.
95. When I graduated from college, I lived with my grandmother for a year. Doing her taxes gave me a real appreciation for the benefits of Social Security.
96. I knew a bunch of actors in college. Occasionally, some of them get work.
97. I have been backstage at a number of Broadway theaters.
98. Now, I have more friends who are lawyers than I do friends who are actors.
99. I will never love anyone as much as I love my children.
100. The only things that I regret doing in my life are the ones that hurt other people, especially those two little people.
Wow, did you actually get through all that? I'm not going to tag anyone for this meme, because it took me so freakin' long. But if you do it (or you've already done it and I just didn't notice) send me the link and I'll be sure to read yours all the way through, too.
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