25 Random Things About Me.

This is something going around on Facebook, where you write 25 random things about yourself and then tag people and they do the same. I was tagged by several friends, so felt compelled to do it. I thought since I had already spent time on it, I might as well throw it up here. I won't tag anyone, but it was a fun little thing to do. It made me think of things I hadn't in a while. Try it if you like.

1. You know how people like to say that they are "spiritual but not religious;" I think I am the opposite. I like rules and pomp and costumes and rituals. But I don't believe in any of it. It started when I was 8 and had my throat blessed for St. Blaise's Day. I got strep the next day.

2. I'm not sure how I ended up working as a statistician. I never saw myself as someone particularly good at math. But I love puzzles and stats is a lot more like that than it is like calculations.

3. I see myself as mean, petty, pompous, and lazy. But I get my back up if I think anyone else thinks those things about me. I'm the only one that's allowed the be critical of me--I do a better job of it than other's ever could. Except maybe my mother and grandmother. When people compliment me, I assume they are lying to make me feel better about myself.

4. It's not that I'm a perfectionist; I just like things done correctly--which they never are.

5. About once a year, I have a good cryfest. It feels good. The worst was when it happened on a plane from London to Philadelphia. It started with "What Dreams May Come" and lasted the entire flight. The person sitting next to me asked to be moved. I felt so good walking off that plane.

6. Although I'm terribly critical of everything. I think most people don't fully realize how beautiful they are; and they rarely see the best things about themselves.

7. I internalize things quite a bit. I passed out in health class on mulitple occassions because I would get caught up in imagining how painful various things would be--like childbirth. I'm sure I could have had stigmata if I lived in a different century.

8.  I find that a combination of a few choice large words and the ability to know one or two facts about any topic convinces people that you are much smarter than you are.

9. I think that I have some sort of electrical short between my ears and my language processor. I often hear things that are entirely non-sensical. So if you see my walking and smiling it's probably because I've just heard something like "And then my uterus was a fork."

10. Along that line there are certain frequencies that are practically inaudible to me -- my brother's voice over the phone, for example. I can usually piece things toghter through context clues, but I am often saying "What? Speak up" to him. However, the noises that electronics make is always and persistenly in my ears.

11. I occassionally get crazy strong migraines. They run in my mother's family, but only among the women. Raw onions (or scallions, leeks, chives, garlic, shallots) are one of the triggers for them. In the midst of them, my sense of smell becomes super accute and I lose the ability to effectively regulate my body temperature. I had this really effective medicine for them, but it turned out the tightening of the throat that I experienced when taking it was anaphylaxis, and my doctor told me I couldn't take it anymore.

12. I'm not sure why, but I strongly believe that the folks I graduated from college with look much younger to me than the folks I graduated from high school with. Maybe it's just that they've changed less?

13. The categories for dates and days are in different parts of my brain that rarely intersect. If next Tuesday is the 5th, I have no problem booking events for both "next Tuesday" and "the 5th" without realizing that those are, in fact, the same day.

14. Most things my mother taught me to do, I do left handed. Those I learned from my dad or at school, I do right handed. When I got to kindergarten, I could write with both hands at the same time. My teacher, Mrs. Morgan, made me sit on my left hand all day.

15. I had an intense feeling at 12 that I had lived half my life already. I honestly thought I wouldn't live past 24 pretty much right up until my 25th birthday.

16. I often have dreams that take occur in the same "place" again and again. There are whole buildings that exist for me that I've only ever been to while sleeping. But I could draw detailed floorplans of them. When, in a dream, I find myself in one, it's like coming home again.

17. I have a horrible sense of direction. I still get lost in places that I've lived in for years. Also, if I've only driven someplace at night, I struggle to find it during the day, and vice versa. Everything looks different.

18. In second grade, my teacher, Mrs. Burger, told me my handwriting was atrocious. I thought any word that big must be good thing. It's only gotten worse since then.

19. I love words and word games. That's mostly what I played growing up. Boggle, scrabble, upwords, perquack(e)y (it's like yatzee but with letters) -- I enjoy them all. They remind me I'm not as smart as I think I am--there are so many words to know.

20. When I was in elementary school, I went to a summer nerd camp. I loved and hated it there. I was finally at a place where I wasn't picked on, but I also wasn't the smart one anymore. I'd cry almost every day on the way there, but didn't want to leave when the day was over.

21. I was in a boys' choir from 4th-8th grade. I traveled to 30 states and Japan with them. I got to see how so many other people lived (we often stayed with host families). It forced me to see the world as a bigger and more open place than my small town.

22. I am extremely introverted. This often surprises people, because I also love talking. Being around a lot of people profoundly tires me, though. Only being alone and letting things in my brain sort outreenergizes me.

23. I love the semi-colon; I've been accused of overusing it. In an article I wrote for a journal a reviewer actually counted all of the semi-colons up in my paper and reported the number to me (using three exclamatin marks to do so); it seemed mean.

24. I can rarely sleep past 8am. In the summer it's worse. Before Indiana switched to daylight savings time, the sun would start to come up in the summer around 4am. I know because that's what time I was waking up every day. Most of the time I like being up early. If I can get two loads of laundry done, walk the dog, make lunch, check my email, and go running before work, it feels like a good day to me. I'm slowly learning the joys of sleeping later, though. On the flip side, around 3pm I start to slow down. And by 7, there's little productivity left in me.

25. I didn't start drinking coffee until about a year ago--thanks Camille. I don't have it often, but when I do it's about 1/3 coffee, 1/3 milk, 1/3 sugar (or more likely some combination of non-caloric sweeteners; I don't really trust them to be safe, but I figured if I use some of each, I'm spreading my risk around).

And one bonus one that I just thought of.
26. When I was about 12 my family was on vacation in the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. We were waitng to get on a boat for something. I was sitting away from my family  and this woman sitting behind me kept staring at me. When I got up to go, she grabbed my arm and said "I'm a psychic and when I look at you I see that you will get everything that you want, but that won't always be a good thing." I didn't know what to do, so I just said "Ok, thanks!" and walked away. I wish I could go back and ask her more about that.