100 Discombobulated Things About Me

1. I always wanted to have a name that shortened into a boyish nickname like Samantha (Sam) or Josephine (Joey) or Rachel (Ray). Instead my real name is rather girly no matter how you shorten it.
2. I have always secretly dreamed of being a successful writer.
3. Though we only ran into each other once or twice a year, for years the New Orleans’ author George Alec Effinger always asked me how my writing was coming along and though I didn’t care for his books, I will always remember what a nice man he was.
4. I wrote a novel in high school.
5. The novel was really bad and was rejected by all the big publishing houses.
6. The name of my novel was The Hunter and The Rose – inspired by two songs with those names and the British sci-fi show Blakes’ 7.
7. I wrote an article on women spies in the Civil War for Civil War Magazine; it wasn’t published.
8. I was published in every one of my high school literary magazines except one because I refused to change a single sentence in a short story that had been incorrectly interpreted by a dirty-minded censor. It’s probably the best thing I’ve written and I never submitted it to anywhere else.
9. I wish I could sing like Karen Carpenter.
10. I was in the church choir in high school.
11. I was an Honor student in high school.
12. I was in the Beta Club in high school.
13. I was in the Society for Women Engineers in college.
14. I was in the Association for Computing Machinery in college.
15. I was on the Student Council for the Baptist Student Union in college.
16. I consider myself to be a non-denominational Christian.
17. I was born in Ohio.
18. I was mostly raised in New Orleans.
19. I saw my first ghost when I was five.
20. I wrote my first short story when I was five. It was about talking to a child ghost outside my bedroom window.
21. I believe in ghosts.
22. I do not believe aliens have visited Earth.
23. I think the ship that crashed at Roswell was a predecessor for the Stealth Bomber.
24. I have general anxiety and chronic depression.
25. I have been diagnosed with IgA Nepropathy, Fibromyalgia, and Gastroparesis.
26. I am paranoid.
27. My shrink says I am not irrationally paranoid but come by it from actual experiences.
28. I have had five serious boyfriends in my life.
29. I dated one of those five for three months and then we were broken up for 18 months and then dated again for 11 months.
30. He is the only one I considered marrying.
31. I was mugged in his driveway on our first date.
32. I got my first flat tire on my brand new Jeep on our first date.
33. Most of my boyfriends didn’t have a car while we were dating.
34. I am still good friends with three of those ex-boyfriends.
35. Those three are also friends with each other.
36. Two of them have also dated one of my best friends.
37. I became good friends for a while with the third one’s now wife.
38. I have had very few dates outside of those relationships.
39. I do not care much for making out though I know that’s weird.
40. I am not a touchy-feelly person.
41. I think my mom thinks her brother may have molested me when I was little and that is why I don’t like touchy-feelly people, but I don’t recall that ever occurring.
42. Of my three first cousins, one committed suicide, one was anorexic and might have been on drugs, and one may not actually be my uncle’s kid.
43. All my first cousins are only children just like me.
44. I think mental illness runs in my dad’s side of the family.
45. I like playing role-playing games.
46. I collect odd dice.
47. I collect fairy art.
48. I used to do stained glass art.
49. I used to cross-stitch all the time but now it aggravates the tendinitis in my right wrist.
50. I got tendinitis from staying up all night to finish a present for my mother and working in the express lane at the Winn Dixie and an accidental fall. My dad says it’s the most expensive Christmas gift I’ve ever given her since it cost him $200 for me to go to the ER when I couldn’t move my wrist.
51. I prefer to be barefoot.
52. I do not want to get married or have children.
53. I realize I am not responsible enough to take care of myself and it would be unfair to a child if I tried to raise one.
54. I absolutely respect and admire my friends who are parents, especially the single ones.
55. Quite frankly I’m really not sure what to do with myself around children.
56. I have two piercings in each ear and one in my nose.
57. I would like to get my belly button pierced when I lose all my weight.
58. I also would like a tattoo but I’m afraid of the pain involved.
59. I am afraid of dying alone and no one finding me until the smell upsets the neighbors.
60. I am a slob.
61. I wish I was a neat-freak.
62. I have had six jobs in my career since college – one was an internship, one my government contract was not renewed, one I was wrongly accused of keeping the receptionist from doing her job (she was fired after she stole my final paycheck and some of the petty cash), one where I was harassed by my boss because I was the only female programmer, one where I was abused for six years by a male chauvinist pig before he found a way to trick them into firing me right before Christmas, and the one I’m in now that’s great.
63. I once lost 55 lbs.
64. I have gained most of it back.
65. I was a stand-up comic.
66. I did children’s radio shows when I was a kid.
67. I secretly wanted to be a DJ when I was in college.
68. I would love to be a professional chef.
69. I am a packrat.
70. I love shopping for shoes.
71. I used to be a Kitchen Consultant for Pampered Chef.
72. I always feel I’m not perfect enough for my parents and that they are disappointed in how my life turned out.
73. My mother not-so-secretly thinks I’m a lesbian.
74. I once fed a bottle of milk to a baby tiger and I have a picture to prove it.
75. I like to dress in costumes and go to sci-fi/fantasy conventions.
76. Twizzlers and air-popped popcorn are my favorite snacks.
77. I don’t wear yellow gold.
78. I watch way too much TV.
79. I don’t like Monty Python.
80. I’ve never seen Gone with the Wind but I’ve read the book and the horrible sequel.
81. I make the best brownies ever from scratch.
82. I once got sent home from Vacation Bible School for wearing a too-short skirt; I was the teacher.
83. I got in trouble for playing solitaire in the teacher’s lounge at Vacation Bible School.
84. My mother thinks I’m a computer genius, but most of the time I feel like I’m winging it.
85. I changed my major in college from Mechanical Engineering to Computer Science because it was the easiest major in the Engineering department and I knew my parents would not have approved of switching to journalism, creative writing, archeology, or accounting.
86. To be honest, I wonder if there isn’t a more interesting way to live my life than sitting at a computer all day, but I don’t have the ambition to go back to school and learn to be something else, probably with a pay cut.
87. I’m a liberal and this is not a bad thing.
88. I collect books.
89. Piglet and Eyeore are my favorite Winnie the Pooh characters.
90. I think my natural hair color is ash brown.
91. I believe in evolution and the Book of Genesis.
92. I think my black cat knows how to use the computer.
93. I have broken my left elbow twice in the same exact spot and I’ve been told if I do it again, I will be paralyzed from my elbow down.
94. I wish I could find a nice gay man to do couple stuff with – no romantic expectations yet a companion all the same.
95. I love real Mexican food the best.
96. My latest dream is to publish a cookbook.
97. My iPod Mini is green and has “do a loony-goony dance” engraved on the back.
98. I finally bought my first house at 35 years old, after living the American Dream of Credit Card debt and having to pay that off for about 10 years.
99. I am owned by two cats and a Pug.
100. I am trying to learn knitting.