100 Things

  1. My real name is Meredith.
  2. I was born January 18, 1981.
  3. I was born in West Virginia, but I moved out before I was two years old.
  4. I have always lived within commuting distance from Washington DC.
  5. I took an organized tour around western Turkey in spring 2001 and I loved it.
  6. The longest any home I’ve lived in has been without a cat was three days.
  7. I have a tattoo on my back that echoes Man Ray’s photograph Le Violon d’Ingres from 1924. The process took five hours and I was in tears the whole time.
  8. I have taken piano lessons, played violin as a child, tried flute for a year, and played double bass beginning in eighth grade (but haven’t touched one since college).
  9. My heritage is Jewish (rather than any particular nationality), I was raised Unitarian Universalist and now consider myself an atheist and quite without religion.
  10. My Hebrew name is Maya Miriam.
  11. I graduated (with a merit diploma) from Wilde Lake High School in 1997.
  12. I attended Western Maryland College from 1997 to 1998, and I’m not so fond of the new name they’ve chosen.
  13. I have been diagnosed with and medicated for no fewer than four entries in the DSM-IV: 314.01 (Combined Type), 296.33 (Recurrent, Severe Without Psychotic Features), 300.02, and 307.42.
  14. I can’t stand mushrooms. Never have liked them.
  15. Sometimes I’m still a little bit afraid of the dark, and I have this weird thing about the ghost of Tupac Shakur hiding in my basement.
  16. Thanks to the earliest versions of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, my average typing speed is around 90wpm and gets above 100wpm if I’m just copying pre-printed text.
  17. I became an ovo-lacto vegetarian the day after Thanksgiving 1993.
  18. My natural hair color is medium brown, but I’ve been dying it various shades of auburn for a long time, and my hair is so long that auburn is pretty much my regular hair color now.
  19. When I was a kid, I said I wanted to be a marine biologist - until I learned that wasn’t the same as being a dolphin trainer.
  20. I have, at various points in my life, proclaimed my favorite TV shows to be Full House, Eureeka’s Castle, and Hey Dude.
  21. I’m just as happy with a Hershey candy bar as I am with Godiva chocolates.
  22. When I was a kid, I broke my left wrist by falling out of a tree while trying to pull a trick my friend had just done flawlessly.
  23. I just don’t understand all the fuss over Star Wars.
  24. I started first grade at age four, while most American kids begin at age six. Consequently, I graduated at age sixteen while most of my peers were eighteen.
  25. I used to think I hated roller coasters, until a friend’s family invited me to Hersheypark and I rode the Comet to avoid being left behind.
  26. I like squirrels. They’re cute little critters. I’d love to have a tame squirrel.
  27. I give my sexuality lots of labels. I identify as lesbian, dyke, queer, femme, and “peoplesexual.”
  28. My first language is English, but I studied French for about seven years in school.
  29. I first learned fingerspelling at age four, and proceeded to teach myself signing for several years before finally taking a class as an adult; by that point I was doing well enough to jump right into intermediate and advanced level classes.
  30. I would really like to learn Esperanto. I have a book that introduces you to the language, and a friend gave me Incubus as a birthday gift.
  31. When I finally stopped those annoying growth spurts, I was 5′4″ tall.
  32. I learned to read print at about 22 months, and was reading cursive by age three.
  33. I have no memories of my birth father, whom my mother divorced before I was two years old. He died October 30, 2005.
  34. Not only do I dislike smoking, I don’t even know how it works. I’ve watched people smoke cigarettes and joints but I don’t know how to do it myself without choking.
  35. It took me six years to complete the first major crochet project I started: a baby blanket, which I sent to friends who’d just had a little boy right as I was finishing the project.
  36. I have tried acid twice, but don’t plan to do it again. I didn’t have bad trips, but it wasn’t enough fun to justify the annoying parts.
  37. It is extremely unlikely that I will ever outgrow my ADHD.
  38. I will almost certainly be taking prescription drugs every day for the rest of my life.
  39. I sleep naked.
  40. I had my first kayaking lesson in New York City’s Hudson River on September 8, 2001. I was glad I wasn’t in town for a few more days.
  41. My skin is fair and I have a history of melanoma in my family, so my dermatologist recently suggested that I avoid the sun as much as possible. I’m supposed to wear long sleeves, and use SPF45 sunblock.
  42. When I was thirteen years old, I had my hair clipped down to about one-quarter-inch long all over. Sadly, this is how I look in my parents’ wedding album.
  43. I don’t have a favorite color.
  44. I own a hardcover copy of Het Achterhuis, Anne Frank’s diary in its original Dutch. I don’t speak Dutch.
  45. I hate shaving. Shaving sucks. It’s scary, and I wish I didn’t feel the need to do it.
  46. I adore peanut butter.
  47. I generally prefer processed foods to real home-cooked meals. I like those too, but I don’t cook for myself and I’m just as happy to toss a TV dinner in the microwave.
  48. I used to use Clairol Natural Instincts Indian Poppy for special occasions, but they seem to have discontinued that so I now use their Scarlet Shimmer dye.
  49. I think everybody should see And the Band Played On at least once.
  50. Family history includes the possibility that one of my relatives was among those saved by Oskar Schindler.
  51. My favorite car of all time is the Alfa-Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale. I’d also love to have a BMW Z3 (or the poor-man’s version, a Mazda Miata). A Plymouth Prowler would be nice too, but purple is the only good color.
  52. Except for a remission during the summer of 2000, I have been living with chronic urticaria since February 1999. In April 2002, I visited the top specialist in the United States, who said that most patients are back to normal within ten years. He also performed a test that showed the urticaria is a response to an allergy; in my case I’m allergic to a component of my blood. Put more simply, I’m allergic to myself.
  53. I used to write sonnets, and I used to be pretty good at it. These days I just get frustrated trying, so I don’t bother very often.
  54. I honestly enjoy proofreading when I’ve been asked to do it, but seeing careless errors in grammar and spelling really gets on my nerves.
  55. Approval is very important to me. I live to please the people around me.
  56. I generally eat all of one food on my plate before starting more. (I will finish the sandwich before touching the chips, that sort of thing.)
  57. As a kid I took gymnastics lessons and ballet lessons; in college I took a tap dancing class for my physical education requirement.
  58. The first car I owned was a 1983 Chrysler New Yorker, which my girlfriend’s parents sold to me for $200. I promptly put stickers all over it, had about $2000 worth of repairs done, and then had it towed for being parked on the street and not in our driveway. I never got it back.
  59. I think I can sing. Sometimes I can. I do a pretty good rendition of the Tori Amos song “Silent All These Years.”
  60. I actually think Morningstar Farms burgers are better than Boca Burgers.
  61. I have a funny habit of writing on money, which has caused people I know to look at me funny more than once.
  62. I think the scene in Salmonberries where k.d. sits on a satellite dish howling at the moon is one of the most amazing and powerful scenes ever filmed.
  63. I would love to live in Manhattan.
  64. I’ve been told I resemble Holly Golightly in more ways than one.
  65. I adore making lists. (Can you tell?)
  66. I took fencing lessons once, but it didn’t appeal to me as much as I’d hoped. Too bad, though - I’d have liked to be a fencer, it’s a neat sport.
  67. As a kid, I watched the 1988 Olympics on tape over and over. We had a few thin strips of Astroturf, and I’d line them up end to end and do cartwheels and pretend I was one of the gymnasts.
  68. After trying to get my license at age 6 and again at age 12, I finally earned a No-Code Technician ham radio license at the age of 16. (It was a requirement my parents set for me, I had to get the ham license before I could get my driver’s license.)
  69. I’m a voracious reader, though I don’t read books as much as I used to - mostly I read online.
  70. I am a certified sign language interpreter, and this is my main profession.
  71. Since being diagnosed with depression in May 1998, I have been on Prozac, Paxil, Celexa, Serzone, Wellbutrin, and Effexor. Wellbutrin was the only one that I felt really honestly helped me with depression; I take that and add in Celexa for anxiety control.
  72. I use some shareware without paying for it, and have looked up serial numbers online to gain full access. More recently I’ve just purchased software I really like.
  73. In high school, I was the yearbook’s primary photographer my sophomore year. In my junior year I was photo editor, and I was copy editor my senior year.
  74. I attended Girl Scout Camp several consecutive summers when I was young.
  75. I never have gotten into Usenet. I’ve tried, but it just doesn’t hold my interest.
  76. I’m sure I would be happy if I just had More Things. I wish I were independently wealthy!
  77. I like sex. Oh yes.
  78. My first major purchase was a waterbed. I started saving at age four or so, and my mother put in matching funds. Finally when I was about eight I reached my goal.
  79. I know most of the lyrics to a number of musicals, including Fiddler on the Roof, Hair, Cats, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Cabaret.
  80. I’m terrible at bowling, but I enjoy it anyway. I don’t go to get a high score, I go to be goofy and have fun.
  81. I don’t like drinking water. I just don’t. I don’t know why. Give me soda or juice or lemonade any day.
  82. I have lots of freckles all year round. I used to actually dislike them, but I don’t notice them as much anymore.
  83. I think school uniforms may not be a bad idea. I always wished we had to wear them when I was in school.
  84. I cannot cook. Really, I can’t. I made a fireball when I tried to sauté garlic, and I scalded myself pretty badly while making ramen. I even make a mess when I’m just microwaving one of those pasta dinners.
  85. I was a Wiccan solitary for a few years in my very early teens. I had dozens of candles and performed all the rites, but only once attended a coven’s gathering.
  86. In the house where I grew up, my bedroom walls were painted Ballerina Pink.
  87. The theme song to The Andy Griffith Show makes my skin crawl.
  88. For a while when I was a kid, my weekly allowance would be equal to my age. When I was old enough to get a real job, I stopped getting an allowance.
  89. My first real job was answering the phones at a Pizza Boli’s, where I was one of two female employees and one of two Caucasian employees.
  90. I can remember the lyrics to cheesy J-pop and memorize Space Ghost monologues and tell the name of a Next Generation episode just from a few moments of plot - but I can’t remember things that are actually useful.
  91. I was very into Rocky Horror my first semester at college. I would go on both Friday and Saturday nights for several sequential weekends.
  92. I am proud to say that I was the “page 12 pinup” in the October/November 2000 issue of On Our Backs, a by-lesbians-for-lesbians porn magazine. I wasn’t planning to run for public office anyway.
  93. As a senior in high school, I taught Sunday School to second and third graders at my family’s church. The class was mostly boys. I don’t plan to repeat the experience.
  94. There are so many things I’d rather do when I have to be sleeping. Sleep is such a waste of time.
  95. I had a little late-night show on the campus radio station when I was in college, and I really enjoyed it.
  96. When I was a young kid, I used to go outside during summer rains and dance in the street in my bathing suit. When I was ready to come in, my mother always had a towel waiting for me.
  97. I hate being cold. I prefer summer to winter, because I don’t like being chilled.
  98. I always sleep with at least a sheet over me. I think it’s a security thing.
  99. I get bored quickly. I like to have the TV on while I sit at the computer, and even then I usually have a book or magazine handy to flip through while webpages load.
  100. I was on my high school’s quiz bowl team all four years. In my junior and senior years, I was the captain and got to appear on the local televised game show associated with the quiz bowl. Both years, my team won the first round and then lost in the second round.