Straight No Chaser

Half-Breed

i tried for another theme but couldn't decide on one i liked, so...twenty more unprompted facts:

61. i'm very long-winded, out loud and on paper. i lose most arguments because while i'm rambling toward my point, my opponent has plenty of time to line up his proverbial ducks.

62. i'm an ex-girl scout, and a member of this forsaken reared-in-the-eighties generation, but was spared of that accomplishment-grubbing nature we're always getting blasted for. i prefer long-term, self-directed projects to shorter, more manageable ones, and i get frustrated by overly rigid deadlines and specs.

63. that said, when it comes to writing prompts, i'd take a specific one over a vague one any day. i love to take a detailed prompt and twist it beyond recognition, just to see how far i can push the envelope without actually breaking the rules.

64. i think picking favorites is difficult and unnecessary. i couldn't pick an all-time favorite movie but i can say with some certainty that my favorite trilogy (not counting star wars, since that's become a six-ilogy--word for that?) is back to the future. i've probably seen all three installments fifty times (part two, maybe a hundred), and i feel almost as much at home in hill valley as i do here.

65. i'm a big tim burton fan.

66. i'm attracted to things that are shiny or translucent, interesting in texture and consistency. i love gemstones and jell-o and all the words used to describe them. it blows my mind that you can see through something as weighty as a tourmaline ball. i've spent hours in the "natural wonders" section of the natural history museum at the smithsonian (where they keep the hope diamond and the harry winston stuff).

67. my nerd friends think i'm a delinquent and my cool friends think i'm a nerd. and the people who are closest to me think i'm both, and a hippie.

68. at any given time, i'm almost guaranteed to be revealing at least four centimeters of midriff. i try to keep this to a minimum in the winter and at work, but under any other circumstances, it's pretty much a constant.

69. i have pretty low expectations of my future husband, but i will insist that he take good care of me when i'm carrying his babies.

70. the best book i read this year was the time traveler's wife, by audrey niffenegger.

71. my favorite book of all time is arabian nights.

72. growing up, i probably read an average of twelve books a week, and loved every minute of it. i got in trouble for reading when i should have been interacting with my family, for reading when i should have been paying attention to teachers, for reading at all the rudest, most inappropriate times. i'd hide a book in my lap in restaurants and classrooms, and read myself carsick on long drives. in first or second grade, my then-best friend told me that reading while i ate would make me fat. she made it up, of course, because she got tired of the way i ignored her during snacktime. i believed her, though, and didn't do it again until i was old enough to realize how preposterous it was.

73. i've never weighed more than 107 pounds, and i'm terrified of getting fat. i don't have an eating disorder; i've never binged or purged or dieted obsessively. but i did cut red meat out of my diet eight years ago, and just, i'm careful.

74. my first kiss came from someone i hated.

75. i have really active hands, and they perpetrate a lot of pretty compulsive nervous tics. i have the eyebrow thing under control for now, but i always have to keep lots of toys at arm's reach.

76. i can type 105 words a minute. it's probably because i took piano lessons for so many years.

77. i blame myself for everything that happens to anyone i know. i rarely go as far as to cry "karma," but i don't need to--i can always find a way to link an action of mine to even the remotest of consequences. butterfly effect stuff.

78. of all the animals i've seen in person, i identify most with the giraffe. they are tall and thin, herbivorous and consistently silent; they straddle that thin line between physical awkwardness and unintuitive grace, and they have the cutest babies.

79. i love babies.

80. this entry is named after my favorite cher song. i'm an undercover cher fan. more on that next...