Friday, February 06, 2009

A New List

I figured it was time for an update.

1) If there is such a thing as a soulmate, I have found mine. This has been foremost in my consciousness for so long now, I wonder if anything will ever subsume it. (I know, I know, childbirth will.)

2) Growing up I loved summer. As an adult, I love winter, I can't get enough snow, it makes me feel safe.

3) I have struggled with depression since adolescence.

4) That seems like no big admission, since every other person I know is on Paxil or Zoloft.

5) I have never been prescribed anti-depressants or anti-anxieties, because all my doctors felt my depression was due to a crappy life, not a chemical imbalance.

6) My life, since 1995, has been full of ups and downs, and overall, bloody fantastic.

7) I am more addicted to coffee than I should be. It's my last vice.

8) I smoked for 5 years.

9) Quitting was easy, but when I'm around other smokers, DAMN do I want one.

10) I have, when I choose to use it, amazing self-control. This isn't always a good thing.

11) Except for my emotions. I cry easily, and when I'm pissed, I pollute the whole room.

12) I have been told on several occasions that I had "extra-sensory" abilities as a child, but they faded over the years since I never nurtured them.

13) I feel that way about a lot of things - relationships, my waistline, my musicianship, that plant sitting in the hallway...

14) I had a miserable childhood, and wouldn't do it over again for anything.

15) My oldest friend is Brent Huber. I hear from him once every few years, and it always grounds me.

16) My two best friends from High School are Kristin Leffler Druwe and Lisa Day Kanellos. They are my two best friends to this very day. I thank G-d for them every single day.

17) After almost 20 years I am still David A's hag, and proud of it. Talk about keepin' it real.

18) My Mom and I have a great relationship now but MAN WAS IT WORK.

19) My Dad is my hero. He is a neuropsychologist and works with seniors who have Alzheimer's and other degenerative syndromes.

20) My mother and I cling to each other since my maternal grandmother's death in 2005. Our world has a huge hole in it, since she is gone.

21) My paternal grandmother passed less than a year after that. I am one of a few black sheeps in that family, and I don't expect to ever hear from my cousins again.

22) No one will ever love me the way my grandparents did. I'm ok with that. I just miss them dreadfully.

23) I have over 200 family members in New Jersey and Connecticut, who I never hear from, unless someone needs a wedding present or baby shower gift. I only miss a few of them.

24) I wonder if I will ever live up to my potential, if it's too late for that, if I will ever be the person my parents and grandparents believed I could be.

25) There are days when my friends and husband make me feel that it's ok to be just me, just as I am right now.

26) I've had writers block for three years. I always think doing something like this might help things get flowing. It usually doesn't work, but I do it anyway.

27) I have two novels in me. I think about them often, but when I sit at the computer, my hands don't move.

28) I cook when I'm too discombobulated to do anything else.

29) I stick to Weight Watchers and Cooking Light for recipes, or I'd be a fucking blimp by now.

30) My husband likes my cooking, and when he takes seconds of whatever bizarre recipe I've attempted, it thrills me from my top to my toes.

31) I have a fetish for Irish Musicians.

32) My husband is a Jewish Internal Auditor.

33) I have been a practicing Pagan for12 years.

34) I've been studying Judaism for about 8 years. It blends beautifully with my Pagan practice. I'll convert eventually. I do things at my own pace.

35) My husband and I want children, but we're patient, even though we're in our late 30's.

36) We have a "Wait and see" attitude toward a lot of things in life.

37) I do not appreciate unsolicited advice. If I want your opinion you may rest assured that I will ask for it.

38) I read a great deal, and not just fiction.

39) I also talk to a lot of people about a lot of things.

40) I'm very selective when it comes to seeking advice and opinions on things. A lot of people love me very much and mean well, but don't know what they're talking about.

41) It's shocking to me, how much people THINK they know.

42) I learn new things every day, and it's one of the best things about life.

43) Today I watched a biography of Bobby Darin, and learned how close he had been to Bobby Kennedy, and how he went through a folk-singer phase after Bobby's death.

44) The look on someone's face when they realize that there's more to something than they realized, when they thought they were experts on the subject... it's priceless. Movies have been made about such revelations.

45) I went through amazingly crappy public schools, and my parents are still apologizing to me for that.

46) I went to an average college, and learned how to cherry-pick teachers and classes and projects in order to get the most out of my education.

47) Applying that to jobs and career, I don't get to actually pick cherries very often, but at least I can discriminate, if you get my meaning.

48) When I went to massage school, whoo I was a cherry-pickin' FIEND. It was needles in a haystack, and the secret to my success. I graduated with honors and a fantastic group of brilliant friends.

49) Being a Massage Therapist is the second-most fulfilling thing I have ever done. Maybe it's my calling?

50) I don't like to talk too much about singing. I just like to do it.

51) I haven't had a formal singing lesson in five years, and that needs to change.

52) I've been told I should have been a teacher, but I'm afraid I'd slap my students too many times.

53) I don't like people much.

54) I've met so many wonderful, amazing people, that I feel like a hypocrite saying #53.

55) I've never considered myself much of a fighter, but I can be.

56) I used to go dancing every weekend at this round of New York bars, before the cabaret laws were enforced.

57) Like the kids in West Side Story, I dance to get rid of something.

58) I haven't gone dancing in about a year. That needs to change.

59) It's amazing the things I don't do because I don't want to spend money on them. Even if it's less than $20. When did I get so damn stingy? I think it's my pathetic excuse for not taking risks.

60) I love to ice skate, and there is a rink 5 minutes from here, and I never go because I don't want to pay for skate rental, and I can't justify buying skates since I never go skating.

61) #60 is the type of rationalist crap that I hate hearing from other people. I think it's time to go fucking skating. Like tonight. I'll post about it on fucking Monday.

62) In general I don't internet on weekends.

63) I make a lot of nouns into verbs, and get a lot of amusement that way.

64) I minored in English in college, and took special classes on usage of this language.

65) I can say something 5 or 6 different ways using different words, rather than staring into someone's eyes and repeating what I just said at increased volume.

66) I think if everyone could do this, the world would be a much more pleasant and efficient place.

67) I can parrot back foreign languages and sound like a native speaker, even if I have no idea what I'm saying.

68) The only foreign language I would attempt to actually communicate in is Spanish, and even then I'm very shy.

69) I was fluent in spanish when I was in Junior high, and had a story I wrote published in a spanish-language children's magazine.

70) Something else that faded from my life because I didn't nurture it.

71) I have always dreamed of visiting Ireland, but somehow I've lived 37 years without getting there.

72) Everyone who's been there tells me I will be miserable there, because of the cold, damp weather.

73) Last I heard, it doesn't rain in pubs.

74) I'd be fine with spending the whole trip listening to live music in clubs and bars.

75) I don't like to talk about music and what it means to me, it sometimes makes me feel physically ill.

76) I've done amazing things in my life and had incredible adventures, but I stopped singing a few years ago, and often feel that I'm a complete failure and offense to G-d because I don't use my gift.

77) Other times I say, hey, I'll get back to that eventually.

78) The only person I can really talk to about singing without screaming and yelling at them is G-d.

79) I am a grateful person, and a bitter person as well.

80) I am a blessed person, and also often feel cursed.

81) When I moved to New York, I got a lot of attention for being a good actress.

82) I can blend into any group of people and pass as one of them, if I'm wearing the right clothes.

83) When I was onstage, my costuming could make or break my characterizations.

84) I tried to learn to sew, but I don't have the patience to get my fingers and hands used to a sewing machine.

85) I didn't stick with piano lessons for the same reason.

86) Or Viola.

87) Or guitar.

88) One person once said to my mother "Why put her in piano lessons with a voice like that?"

89) Great singers are a dime a dozen. They are everywhere in this country. Go to your local Wal-Mart or costco or church, or stop random people on the street, and ask them to sing. You'll be shocked at how many of them are really, really good.

90) During my yuppie years, Wal-Mart was my client, at the corporate level. It made me insomniac, and I became very spiritual.

91) During that time, I cried on the phone to my father about the human capacity for evil, how people rationalize crimes against humanity, driven primarily by greed and fear.

92) I pray that my father lives long enough to inspire my children the way he inspires me.

93) I can shoot a pistol, and I don't suck at it.

94) I was in an abusive relationship for three years between the ages of 17 and 20.

95) It's a good thing I hadn't learned to shoot yet.

96) In 1997 I was assaulted in broad daylight in hell's kitchen, at 10:30am, and I fought off my attacker.

97) I didn't tell anyone for 6 years.

98) It didn't take me long to feel so confident moving around Manhattan, I walked home alone at 2am in a dress and felt completely in control.

99) I believe that some things are random occurrences, and I learned how to keep them from controlling me.

100) I believe other things, less common, and far less frequent things, are divine intervention, and to be remembered, learned from, acted upon, and shared.

101 BONUS!) My favorite grammatical error is the Unclear Antecedent.

UPDATE: I went Ice Skating immediately after writing this. Carpe Diem!