25 random things about me

I have now been tagged for the "25 random things" meme about ten times, so I suppose I should actually pony up and generate a list.  Many of you should recognize some or all of these, but people who are newer to cat.net in general won't know all of them.  For extra bonuses, I'll link to some entries.

  1. I have broken my right wrist twice. I have full use of the wrist, but it is significantly weaker than my left wrist.
  2. I've never had a manicure or pedicure. I don't like strangers touching my hands or feet, so the thought of a manicure or pedicure deeply squicks me.
  3. I clear my throat before speaking on the phone, because I hate it when my voice breaks.
  4. I am intensely competitive, and as a result I generally choose not to compete against friends so as not to be The Asshole Friend.
  5. Children are completely bewildering to me.  Cats, on the other hand, are transparent, comprehensible little beasties.  (Often moreso than adult humans to me.)
  6. I've been stalking my [discontinued] china pattern on ebay for a couple of years now. I've completed an 8-piece place setting, am working on 8-piece sets of the various bowls, and hope to get the major serving pieces as well.  I celebrate every time I nab a piece below retail.  Anyone got any spare cereal bowls from Lenox's Urban Twilight line?
  7. Because of a slight toe deformity, my feet are different sizes and I leave a four-toed left footprint.
  8. I have trouble physically pronouncing the word 'tangentially.'
  9. I'm very much solar- and heat-powered. I like warm weather. I'm trying to teach myself to adapt to the cooler temps that Jeff prefers in the house. It means my blanket collection sees constant use.
  10. I love photographing people, but landscapes elude me.
  11. I do not like red roses. I'd rather have lilies.
  12. I skipped third grade, and would have skipped fourth if my math skills had been strong enough to go straight from addition/subtraction to full mastery of long division over the course of a summer.  ('Talisman arpeggio,' 2001.)
  13. I was prouder of my B+ in statistics than any A I got in college.  I deliberately chose to take statistics under the more difficult of the two professors teaching it, because I would have always discounted my grade if I'd taken the easier professor. I was surprised at the end of the term to realize he was rooting for me. It was the first time I realized professors had a soft spot for students who didn't know everything but were willing to work that much harder because of it. It was the greatest formative experience of my collegiate career.
  14. Our Valentine's Day tradition of going to Hooters?  My idea. ('Are you a nun?' 2004)
  15. I had my tubes tied in my late twenties.  In retrospect I'm surprised I waited as long as I did. ('This someday surgery' and 'chocolate and codeine,' both 2005.)
  16. I find it easier to make friends with men than women.
  17. I don't think of myself as a chilehead, but my friends seem to disagree with me, and Jeff has this story about me and a bowl of vindaloo...
  18. I knew Jeff and I were truly married when we combined our CD collections.
  19. Penguins are almost unbearably cute.  I can barely stand to hear the word without giggling.
  20. My everyday-use fountain pen (did I mention I'm a fountain pen addict?) was Joyce's student pen while she was an exchange student in France.  I make growly noises when anyone asks to borrow it.  (Side note: I prefer blue ink for everyday writing.) ('Pens: genus and species,' 2007.)
  21. I survived a house fire. I still get nervous around flames, and have never cooked on a grill.
  22. Things get renamed around me.  The GPS we used in San Francisco was Betsy.  Our GPS is Mandy, our stereo is the Mistress ... our cats are Fang, random strangers are Bob (especially women) and all of the stuffed penguins in the house have names that start with P.  (Peter, Phoebe, and Persephone.)
  23. I have been in love with the Pacific Northwest since my early twenties. I haven't been back in a year, and I miss it.
  24. I took up quilting just to prove to myself I could do it.  I'm now auditioning other artistic obsessions.
  25. I loathe pickles. I loathe the smell of pickles.  I loathe the smell of the cucumbers that spawned them.  If the world crumbles, I am willing to bet that a pickle or a cucumber started it.  Don't say I didn't try to warn you.

 

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Comments

I don't have any spare pieces of Urban Twilight, but I know about this company and it does! :-)

http://www.replacements.com/webquote/L__URT.htm

 

Oh yes - my hope is always to get a better deal than what they have.  The bowls and 'extra' pieces are just painfully expensive there.

#13 - I learned the same thing in college. Got straight A's in high school. Took Chem1 my freshman year (liberal arts college, we were required to have at least one science credit with a lab). The prof knew I was a music major. Up to the first test I was okay (review of high school). After that, I floundered badly. Failed my first test ever. He went out of his way to work with me, set up study sessions, let me retake tests, everything just so I could get a C. I learned quickly which profs cared about this students and which were just teaching.

[...] friends have been spreading this “25 Random Things About Me” meme across the Internet, so I [...]

I am intensely competitive, and as a result I generally choose not to compete against friends so as not to be The Asshole Friend.

How in the world do you do that? I don't plan on being competitive - it just kicks in without my expecting it, and then I have to actively try to disengage. It would be nice to figure out how to not even get competitive to start with.