100 things about me
1) I am female.
2) I am a gender nonconformist.
3) I am a nonconformist about a lot of things.
4) I tend to do things that aren’t good for me, like stay up too late at night and eat foods that aren’t healthy
5) I am overweight. I eat too much and move too little.
6) I do not really like myself much of the time.
7) I suffer from depression, and have for most of my life.
8) I am 46 years old (born in January of 1962)
9) The only extended period of time that I haven’t had a depressive episode since I was 10 years old is when I was in college.
10) I want to go back to college. I want to study anthropology and/or art, maybe some psychology, and who knows what else.
11) I live in “the South.” The southeastern United States. Always have. Hopefully always won’t.
12) I don’t handle heat well. When the ambient temperature outside is over 80° with the humidity we have in the south, I tend to get cranky and want to stay in air conditioned comfort away from nature. So why do I live in the south?
13) I’ve been married for 24 years to Superman. He hasn’t always been a super man, but I’ve always loved him, even when I was so frustrated with him I could scream.
14) We both agree that I am the one of this couple who is harder to live with.
15) We have a slew of children. 2,4,6. 2 biological + 2 adopted = 4 + 2 unofficial foster teenage gay couple = 6.
16) My idea of a perfect vacation getaway spot is a rustic cabin (with modern conveniences like electricity and running water) in the mountains. No beach for me, baby. Too much sun, sand, heat, and skinny minis making me feel really fat and out of place.
17) I was born in Daytona Beach, Florida. Ironically.
18) I am the oldest of 3 children, and the only girl. Yes, I was spoiled a bit, especially by my grandpapa. I was his only granddaughter.
19) Both my mother and father are oldest children, and I married an oldest child.
20) My parents divorced when I was 8 years old. Shortly after that is when I started being depressed.
21) I didn’t admit my depression to the doctor, therefore wasn’t medicated for depression until I was in my mid 30’s. The medication has helped, but not completely.
22) I have never attempted suicide, but have contemplated it. I was hospitalized, only for three days, in the psych ward for suicidal thoughts in 2006. My first psychiatric hospitalization. God, hopefully my last. That place was full of seriously crazy people!
23) I like helping people. It makes me feel useful. It makes me feel good about myself.
24) My current occupation is school bus driver. I drive a special needs bus. Yup, I’m the short bus driver. And no, I haven’t seen that movie.
25) I am very good at my job, but I don’t feel completely fulfilled, occupationally speaking.
26) I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
27) I am right-handed but can do lots of stuff with my left hand. Almost ambidextrous.
28) I like the taste of powdered milk. I prefer skim milk to whole milk. I prefer ice cream! But I like my ice cream to be not too rich.
29) I’d rather live out in the country than in a city. And I hate living in a planned subdivision.
30) I live in a planned subdivision. In a brick ranch style, 3 bed/2 bath boring rectilinear nightmare.
31) I love architecture. I draw house floor plans on graph paper for fun.
32) I love graph paper. Even my bed sheet looks like graph paper.
33) Office supplies thrill me.
34) I don’t like shopping, except at the home improvement store. We have a Lowes in this town, but no Home Depot.
35) Trees thrill me, too. I find great comfort in trees.
36) More often than not I’d rather be alone. Or with one other person. I don’t do well in groups. Parties typically make me uncomfortable.
37) I am basically lazy.
38) I am also messy.
39) I love words. I love playing with words, making puns with words, but I am not good with word games like Scrabble™ or the Jumble, or crossword puzzles, or word search puzzles. And I’m OK with that.
40) There is nothing that relaxes and sooths me like holding an infant (who isn’t cranky) and rocking him/her to sleep.
41) When considering children, infancy is probably my favorite stage of childhood. Infancy and late, late teens (like 22) when the kids are almost adults.
42) I am almost a non-smoker. I smoke socially. I like to smoke clove cigarettes, mild cigars, and I have 2 pipes that I enjoy smoking. One pack of clove cigarettes will last me 6 months to a year.
43) I never had any desire to smoke until I started driving a school bus. Driving a school bus can be very stressful.
44) I have trouble maintaining friendships because I am often uncomfortable around people. I like my friends, I just never get together with them. This makes it hard for them to be friends with me. I am a difficult person, really.
45) The internet is a wonderful place for me because I can visit with people without actually having to be around them. Sort of sad, really.
46) My house is very messy; cluttered and dusty and it smells funny. I should clean it, but I’m too… something. There are emotional issues involved, in addition to my laziness.
47) I am supposed to be cleaning my living room instead of playing on the computer this afternoon.
48) I don’t watch TV very much. The longer I go without watching broadcast TV, the more I despise commercials.
49) But I do like watching movies on my DVD.
50) I do not like horror movies. My tastes tend more towards romantic comedies and drama, with an occasional action flick thrown in if it isn’t too violent.
51) I own 3 of the 4 of the Lethal Weapon movies.
52) I enjoy sex very much. By all accounts I am good at it, though sex isn’t something I’d want to make commercially viable in my life.
53) I like to drive. Good thing, too, since that’s what my job entails.
54) I own a 1991 Ford F-150 pick-up truck, with a 4.9 liter, 6 cylinder engine and manual transmission. It is red and white, with an extended cab. That means it has a narrow back seat in the cab. I really like my truck, but I’d rather it not be red.
55) I don’t really have a favorite color because I like all colors. However, red is my least favorite color. Whether or not I like a color depends so much on how it is displayed. I like red hair, but not red cars. And not rooms painted red, typically, although there have been exceptions.
56) My major in college was Sociology, and I got a minor in art.
57) I love to throw pots… in an art/ceramics kind of way, not in anger.
58) When I am really mad I sometimes slam doors or throw my shoes on the floor. Other than the shoe thing, I don’t usually throw things when I’m mad.
59) I don’t get mad all that often. I tend to get sad and self-defeated instead of getting mad. I also tend to cry when I’m mad, and that makes me mad. Duh.
60) I don’t want to be younger than I am. I worked hard to get this far and don’t have any desire to go back. I do wish I was lighter, though, not as overweight. But I don’t do much to address that.
61) My mother and I didn’t get along very well when I was a child. We started having a good relationship after I got married and moved out of her house. I really enjoy visiting my mother, but not for too long. We get on each others nerves after a couple of days.
62) I do not have a very good relationship with my in-laws. They don’t understand me, therefore I make them uncomfortable. I understand them pretty well. They are old fuddy-duddies. I hope they never read my blog!
63) I have never lived completely on my own. I moved from my mom’s house to a dorm in college, then married before I graduated and have lived with my husband ever since. Sometimes I dream of living alone, though I don’t know if I’d like it.
64) My oldest daughter left for college this fall, and I am doing very well letting her go. Mostly. She is doing very well being away, and that helps.
65) Sometimes I want to send my two youngest children to boarding school, but then I feel guilty for thinking that. I couldn’t afford it anyway.
66) I am a poor money manager, speaking of things I can’t afford. I have way too much debt.
67) There is a lot of new technology that I don’t understand. What the heck is TiVo? I wouldn’t know what to with a BlackBerry. This makes me feel old.
68) I like to be honest about my feelings. I hate emotional games. Scarlett O’Hara is a conniving bitch of the first order, and I have less than no desire to be anything like her.
69) I like old Jimmy Stewart movies. But not the westerns, so much. I love the sound of Jimmy Stewarts voice.
70) I didn’t see It’s a Wonderful Life until I was in my late 20s, even though it ran on TV every Christmas for my entire life. It is one of my all time favorite movies.
71) I like taking naps.
72) I snore. Actually, I have sleep apnea, so I stop breathing in my sleep. I use a C-PAP now to keep my airways open when I sleep. That keeps me from snoring so much.
73) I have a quirky sense of humor.
74) I lived in Macon, GA from 1980-1988, except for a couple of years spent in Atlanta while Superman finished his degree at Georgia Tech. Macon is a very strange place.
75) I experienced painful orthodontia as a teenager. [I wore braces on my teeth]
76) I first got glasses when I was 11 years old. I needed them a couple of years prior to that, but didn’t realize it. Just last year my eyes got old enough to need bifocals.
77) Newsprint is really small. I’ve discovered this in the past couple of years.
78) My husband and I had two weddings. There was the big-ish public wedding in the chapel at Mercer University that my mother helped plan, but a month before that one he and I went to the courthouse in Atlanta and were married by the prison chaplain of the Fulton County Prison system.
79) I wore denim overalls to my wedding. The first one.
80) I resented my mother’s intrusion into my wedding plans.
81) She found out about the first wedding a year later at my brother’s wedding. She was really pissed off about it.
82) I greatly admired my paternal grandmother. She was a bit odd. I am somewhat like her in many ways. I think this bothers my father.
83) My oldest daughter is bi-sexual. I’m OK with that. So far she hasn’t had any serious love interests that I know of.
84) I really like chocolate. Really really. Dark chocolate especially.
85) I homeschooled my two oldest children until they were in 8th and 6th grade.
86) I am not very good at keeping records or doing that sort of paperwork.
87) I had my tonsils removed when I was 4 years old. I don’t remember very much about it.
88) None of my bones have ever broken. Yet.
89) Shopping for shoes is one of my least favorite things to do. I get antsy if it takes longer than a few minutes.
90) I have worn my hair long for most of my life. It has been short for the past 4 years, but I am letting it grow out again. I have good hair.
91) I like bluegrass and classical music.
92) I am currently talking two different psychotropic prescription medications. I still suffer with the depression.
93) I am allergic to cats.
94) I love watching the sun rise, but wouldn’t get up that early if I didn’t have to work so early.
95) I have never been to a foreign country. But I did go to Key West once when I was 4 years old.
96) I went backpacking in the mountains in Colorado with my dad, brothers, and step-mom when I was about 15. During that trip I crossed the continental divide. On foot. With a back pack on my back.
97) I sang Mozart’s Requiem in college with the choir. I sang soprano. I wasn’t good enough for a solo part. Didn’t want to sing a solo!
98) I can’t read music.
99) I was in a pretty serious relationship with another man when I met my husband. It was a long-distance relationship, though. It didn’t survive. I’m glad.
100) I’ve been in a few car wrecks, but never as the driver.
Moving Along, but Adrift
10 years ago
