Fifteen Facts about Me

1.    I'm generally 5'2" but I have actually been measured at 5'3 1/8" at the doctor's office once.  That's when I found out that you are taller in the morning than at night because your back stretches when you sleep.  And then gravity pushes you back down into the ground all day.  But 5'2" rhymes better with "eyes of blue" so I just stay with that.  Speaking of…

2.    Blue eyes, no matter what that girl at the Clinique counter says!  I tried green contacts once and they actually just turned my eyes bluer.  *sigh*

3.    I've got a weird laugh. So weird that people routinely pick me out of a crowded room, just by my laugh. But they also tell me that they generally like my laugh, so it's not all bad, eh? :-)

4.    I loooooove broccoli!  If possible, I would have broccoli with every meal.  I actually pack up zip-loc bags of broccoli spears to take to work so I can microwave them (90 secs) and have steamed broccoli.  Delicious!

5.    I ran a marathon in 2003.  Well, I ran/walked the Baltimore Marathon in 2003 after training for six months with the AIDS Marathon Training Program.  I thought I was all cool and stuff because I was 40 and running a marathon and then found out that my running partner was 65.  Way to take the wind out of my sails, Jim!  BTW, we finished: 7 hours, 26 minutes.   But we finished!

6.    I love to swim.  I don't actually remember learning how to swim, just being taught how to do the strokes correctly.  Maybe it's because I'm a Pisces, but I'm at my best and most relaxed in the water. 

7.    I was engaged to be married once when I was 20.  But I got better!  Nuff said…

8.    I am an American, born in a British colony in the south of China, in a Catholic hospital, raised by Southern Baptist Missionaries, and graduated from a Lutheran high school.  No wonder I'm messed up!

9.    My natural hair color is probably gray.  I haven't seen it in 22 years, but I started turning gray when I was about 13.  

10.    My house is such a wreck I don't even know where to start to clean it.  So I don't… yikes!

11.    I don't have a car.  Haven't had a car since 2001.  Now, had I been smart enough to sell my car when I first thought of it, i.e. July 2001, I would have been OK.  But no, I waited until October and got virtually nothing for it. Dang terrorists...

12.    It took me 17 years to finish my Bachelor's degree.  I wasn't going to school for seven of those years, and most of the last seven were taking one class a semester while I was working full-time and part-time.  I look back at those times and wonder, "Who WAS that person?  I'm far too lazy to be that person…"

13.    I love to read everything written by an author, in order.  Maybe that's a bit OCD, but still – when I meet a new author, I like to read their first book, followed by their second, etc.  Most times it doesn't matter character development wise, but it's always fun to see the writer's progression as a writer.  The problem with this method is when an author dies or just stops writing.  What do I read next?!?

14.   I believe that people should treat people the way they would want to be treated. If everyone did that, then the world would be a much better place.

15.    When I was a kid, my favorite Barbie name was Elizabeth Donahue Megalopolis.  Doesn't it just roll trippingly off the tongue?