Yowza, it’s a crazy near-blizzard here! Pictures this evening or tomorrow… The Minnesota Department of Transportation is advising people not to go into work. Hmph – I’m already here.

A few weeks ago, Mama Tulip posted her list of 100 things about herself and inspired me to do so myself. Cute cat picture at the end if you make it through this list!

1. I’m sort of afraid (ok, phobic) about the spinning blades of lawnmowers and garbage disposals.
2. I’m also afraid of heights.
3. In Basic Training, they had to push me over the edge when we did rappelling because I wouldn’t go on my own.
4. Because I wasn’t ready and my spotter wasn’t ready, I dropped about 20 feet down the wall before my spotter recovered and stopped my descent.
5. Strangely, this did nothing to reduce my fear of heights.
6. Oh? You’re wondering “Basic Training”???! I joined the Army Reserve in 1987. (It was much safer then.)
7. I went to Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
8. Because I was unable to do any pushups when I got there, I spent an entire month in “Fitness Committee,” doing pushups and situps all day long.
9. I hated Basic Training with a passion. Strangely, it was not a good environment for an introverted, individualistic nonconformist.
10. I did my Advanced Army Training at Fort Sam Houston, which is almost in downtown San Antonio, Texas.
11. I trained to be a “91A” (91 Alpha in Army speak) – basically an EMT/litterbearer.
12. I picked 91A because it had a good signup bonus.
13. When I was 16 (beginning of 11th grade), I ran away from home in October, about a month before my 17th birthday.
14. Why, yes, there was a boy involved.
15. We went to Orlando, Florida (his idea).
16. He couldn’t/wouldn’t get a job and after I supported him for two months, he bought a crap car on credit, stole the battery from my car, and drove back to Minnesota.
17. At that time, I worked at a Burger King. I took home $90/week. Rent was $65/week+$5/week electric. It was a relief to have that guy gone – hard enough to have one person living on $20/week, let alone two.
18. I am not a patient person.
19. I used to drive a purple 1997 Escort Station wagon.
20. I loved that car. My knitting friends loved it, too, because if we were meeting somewhere, they could just drive around until they found my car.
21. My beloved Escort wagon repaid my love by blowing a rod at 141,000 miles.
22. Now I drive a silver 1997 BMW 318ti, which has 38,000 54,000 miles on it.
23. I am usually early or right on time.
24. I would rather wait for the next show than go into a movie 5 minutes late.
25. I am slightly dyslexic. If we go to a movie together and I tell you the time it starts, you would be well advised to independently verify that time.
26. I also have trouble keeping clubs and spades straight.
27. I have mnemonic for that: “Clubs is clovers. Spades is shovels.”
28. I can’t remember the rules for card games.
29. I read very fast.
30. I learned to read early and had library privileges in kindergarten.
31. I don’t watch TV. I have in the past, for brief periods, but I would rather read.
32. I have the kanji character for happiness tattooed on my left shoulder.
33. It used to be the character for good luck, but I got it changed in November 2005.
34. It’s hiding a weird scar from a mole biopsy.
35. The tattoo artist who did “good luck” said I should get lots more tattoos because I have a high pain tolerance and my skin takes ink well.
36. I don’t think that’s sufficient reason.
37. I live in the Uptown area of Minneapolis, which has its own entry in Wikipedia!
38. I love to ride my crappy old bicycle (a 12-year old Specialized crossbike).
39. I am phobic about my upper arms looking squishy in a tank top.
40. I love to wear tank tops in the summer.
41. I do a lot of pushups to keep my phobia at bay.
42. Chaos, Mayhem, and I live in a 637-square foot condo, top/3rd floor, NE corner.
43. I am allergic to cats, mold, tree pollen, apple and pear skins, perfumes and most strongly scented items, most skin care products for the face, and probably a crapload of other things that I don’t know about.
44. I learned to knit in the fall of 2000.
45. It was the first hobby I ever tried that “grabbed” my attention so completely.
46. I think it’s because there aren’t many concrete outputs of my job, so knitting fulfills my need to have visible proof of effort. (Because, really, how satisfying is it to produce an Excel spreadsheet or a really sweet SQL query?!)
47. People guess my weight 20-35 pounds less than it is.
48. I am extremely nearsighted (20/800 and 20/1000).
49. I am not a candidate for contacts or laser surgery.
50. I have peanut butter toast and orange juice every morning for breakfast.
51. I have at least one (preferably two) straight up soy mochas every day.
52. I don’t like coffee unless it’s mixed with chocolate.
53. I am lactose and gluten intolerant.
54. I was diagnosed with celiac disease (gluten intolerance) in 1997.
55. I still crave chocolate and almond croissants.
56. I have never intentionally cheated on my gluten-free (GF) diet.
57. I make great GF pizza (I eat cheese when I make it).
58. I love unsalted roasted cashews and almonds.
59. I think dark chocolate is the only chocolate worth eating.
60. I don’t snack.
61. I love red wine, but all of it gives me migraines – except pinot noir (which was cheaper before Sideways came out). No wine – it all gives me migraines now. Bless gluten-free New Grist beer.
62. I also love margaritas on the rocks.
63. I grew up on a farm near the Rochester, Minnesota, International Airport, which has two runways.
64. I am so not a farm girl – give me the city any day.
65. My memory is simultaneously very good and very bad. Because it’s so good on some details, when I say I can’t remember something, some people (usually at work) think I am “dissing” them.
66. My memory is very good for many (but not all) aspects of telephone switch call detail record processing and billing (work), Star Trek TNG trivia, X-Files trivia, and knitting.
67. My memory is very bad regarding parts my own past and the plots of books and movies.
68. I consider not remembering the plots of books a benefit of sorts – if I really love a book, I buy it and can happily reread it every other year as if I was reading it for the first time.
69. I tend to avoid reading books that generate a lot of hype because I develop unrealistic expectations of them, which they can rarely meet.
70. The song “Pop! Goes the World” by Men Without Hats always makes me want to dance crazily.
71. I played piano for 12 years.
72. I quit when my teacher wanted me to start competing – mostly because I might have to practice.
73. I wasn’t a very good piano player – but I was a very good sight reader.
74. I played alto saxophone from 5th through 10th grade.
75. That was by parental choice – I wanted to be a percussionist.
76. I also took guitar for a few years in junior high.
77. Eventually I gave my guitar to a friend in community college.
78. I didn’t go back to high school after I returned to Minnesota from Florida.
79. Instead, I went to community college, which was paid for by a local high school through Minnesota’s PSEO program.
80. I got my Associate of Arts (Liberal Arts) in May 1987.
81. I got my high school diploma from a high school I’d never attended in June 1987.
82. I worked as a physical therapy orderly at St. Mary’s Hospital (part of the Mayo Clinic) for several years.
83. I waited tables throughout my teens and into my early twenties.
84. My great hope is that I will never work in food service again.
85. In the summer of 1991, I worked in the Black Hills National Forest marking timber and fighting forest fires.
86. In the summer of 1993, I lived and worked in Itasca State Park.
87. My very favorite color is black.
88. After black, other favorite colors are purple, royal blue, and forest green.
89. Doing home projects is not one of my favorite things, so I can put them off near indefinitely.
90. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies with a Forestry minor from the University of Minnesota (U of M).
91. I have an MS in Forest Recreation from the U of M.
92. Realizing that Forest Recreation was insanely unemployable, I also got an MS in Rhetoric and Technical Communication (aka technical writing) from the U of M.
93. I got my current job because of a karate class.
94. I used to go to a lot of concerts at First Avenue.
95. I can’t even remember most of the concerts I’ve seen.
96. I have a five-second spot in local band Arcwelder’s video for their song “Smile” – I’m waving and smiling.
97. Why, yes, I was living with the guy who made the video. 🙂
98. I got married in 1989.
99. I knew I was doing the wrong thing because I had an anxiety attack during the wedding, but I went through with it anyway.
100. We separated in 1990 and divorced in 1991.

List updated 12/6/2007.

“Look into my eyes. You are growing sleepy… very sleepy. When you awake, you will remember nothing… except to send tuna.”

Mama Tulip, EE, and some other bloggers are doing a “Blast from the Past” this week, so I thought I’d dig out a few of my ancient and amusing pictures. This should help you understand why 80s fashion should not ever return!

1982, with one “Patches” at a friend’s house. Badly permed hair and short shorts. Ewww!

1986, at a holiday party. I am so drunk in this picture. I was a cashier in a liquor store – boy, do liquor store employees know how to party or what… Anyway, note the big hair, dangly single earring, and gorgeous sweater dress.

1987. Would you buy a used car from this woman?!

1989. If you weren’t a bride in the 80s, count your blessings. If you were, you can commiserate. Big asymmetrical permmed hair. Whoa. There’s a reason I don’t wear makeup anymore – I got it all out of my system in the 80s…