100 Things about Me, Part I

I've never done a 100 Things list and have always wanted to. I found it daunting to come up with 100 things at one go, so I'm going to post it in two installments. This is also a bit of cheating to help me stay on top of posting every day in November.

Anway, without further ado, here are the first 50 things on my list:

1. My husband has terminal cancer, and this thought is with me every moment of every day.
2. Sappy as it sounds, the thought that coexists with that is that I can’t believe that we found each other and have been sharing a life together for over three years. I never knew that another person could make me so happy.
3. I am the mother of boy/girl twins.
4. When I was a kid, I thought that being 27 would be the perfect balance of being a “real” adult but still young and footloose and fancy-free.
5. In fact, my vision turned out to be pretty much true. At 27, I graduated from grad school and moved to Boston, essentially on a whim. It was an exciting, humbling year.
6. I got my first job in Boston by cold-mailing my resume to a bunch of companies that I looked up in the phone book. The job really sucked, but it was the quintessential entry-level job: low pay, meager responsibilities, good experience in my industry.
7. The next job I got is the job that I still have.
8. I have a Master’s in Translation and Interpretation of French.
9. Pet peeve: I hate it when people say translation (written documents) and mean interpretation (spoken word).
10. I no longer do work as an interpreter, but being able to do simultaneous interpretation is a pretty cool party trick.
11. Speaking of party tricks, I can tie the stem of a cherry into a knot with my tongue.
12. I hate choosing favorite things, but if I could only have one food for the rest of my life, I’d have to go with ice cream.
13. I have lived in the United States, England, France, and Gabon.
14. I lived in Gabon because I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. I taught English, a useful skill for African kids in the jungle. Ha.
15. When I finished Peace Corps, I thought that nothing I did in life would ever be more difficult than those three years. I have repeatedly been proven wrong.
16. Peace Corps was life-changing, if for no other reason than it was a three-year experiment in bad decision-making. Loneliness and isolation can really cloud your judgment.
17. I am an optimist by nature.
18. I am an early riser by nature.
19. I have never pulled an all-nighter.
20. I learned to drive on a stick shift and to this day hate to drive automatics.
21. I always wear flip-flops in the shower, even at home.
22. I am terrified of the dark and still sleep with a night-light.
23. I play the oboe.
24. I look like my father, but my mannerisms are so much like my mother’s that people think she and I look alike.
25. I have an internal alarm clock. If I know what time it is when I go to bed, I can set it for the time I want to get up. If I wake up in the night, I have to reset it by checking the time.
26. I have a complex set of rules for deciding which side of the bed I will sleep on when I’m not in my bed at home. It has to do with the relative position of the bed to doors and windows.
27. I have a fear of vomiting.
28. I am allergic to mangoes, but just the skin, so if someone else peels it for me, I can eat the flesh.
29. My cat is named Dinner.
30. Nothing is more relaxing to me than sitting in a hot tub.
31. I am a fast, inaccurate typist and a fast, inaccurate reader.
32. About an hour after I’ve seen a movie, I only remember the basics of the plot and whether or not I enjoyed it. I have never understood how people remember lines from movies after only seeing them once. I usually can’t even remember the ending!
33. And yet, I really love to go to the movies.
34. I fall asleep really, really fast at night. According to my husband, it takes me less than 30 seconds to fall asleep.
35. I hate to talk on the phone and always screen my calls.
36. I love the color orange.
37. I hate, hate, hate clutter in my house.
38. In theory, I try to shop at locally-owned businesses, but in practice I am cheap and often end up shopping wherever I can get the best deal.
39. Ditto on buying organic food.
40. Although I always buy organic milk because it tastes sooooo much better.
41. I can be a little, um, how shall I say this? bossy.
42. I don’t like to eat food shaped like animals. If I do indulge, I will not eat the head. Exception for gummy bears, which don’t look like much of anything except blobs.
43. I’m the only person I know who has ever been told by her dentist to stop brushing her teeth so much. I used to brush 5+ times a day and I was brushing my enamel away. Now I’m down to 2 times a day.
44. I had braces for four years.
45. One year in college I made a New Year’s resolution to floss every day. I could count on one hand the number of day I’ve missed since then, and that was at least 13 years ago.
46. Ohmygod I graduated from college almost 13 years ago.
47. I had never worked out regularly until I moved to Boston seven years ago.
48. I love to bake and I have made three wedding cakes.
49. I used to speak harshly of people who talked on their cell phones while driving, but now I talk and drive all the time.
50. I’m pretty clumsy. When I was 10, I broke my foot walking up a flight of stairs.