Okay, I'll play this game. Here are 25 Things that you may or may not know about me:
1. My pillow is named Lumpy. There are four other pillows on my bed. None of them have names.
2. For my middle school graduation the guys wore suits and the girls wore white dresses and all the graduates had to recite a poem. Not together, I mean, individually. You had to write a graduation poem, wait for your turn, and then go up to the podium and read it. I'm sorry, EVERYONE WHO ATTENDED THAT CEREMONY. That's an unreasonable amount of terrible symbolism to have to sit through. I don't remember (or, more accurately, I have blocked out) my poem. I only remember this one guy's that started with "June fifth, it's a beautiful day." It was a freezing cold and foggy day but now every time June fifth rolls around I STILL think "June fifth, it's a beautiful day." And now maybe you will, too.
3. I hate the texture of terra cotta.
4. In first grade I would sometimes get in trouble for playing with my toys inside my desk instead of concentrating on our lessons. There was a boy who sat next to me. I don't remember his name, but I distinctly remember the know-it-all quality of his voice when he would say "Teacher! Julia's playing with her Sharing toys!"
5. I will be forever grateful to my field hockey coach for her zero-tolerance policy on wimpy handshakes. "If I teach you nothing else this summer, every one of you will have a NICE FIRM HANDSHAKE by the end of it." And, BY GOD, we did.
6. My favorite pen is the Pilot EasyTouch fine point.
7. I never knew either of my grandfathers. They both died long before I was born.
8. In sixth grade I switched to a school that had uniforms. You had to wear your uniform except on "free dress days" or special occasion days like Halloween. I remember that Halloween I decided to be a tourist. I went all out-- goofy high up shorts, Hawaiian shirt, binoculars, big camera, travel books, fanny pack. When I tried it on at home I thought it was hilarious. Once I got to school, I realized all the other kids had worn 'cooler' costumes (I don't remember how costumes were deemed cool or not cool, only that mine fell decidedly into the not cool category). I spent the day shedding pieces of the costume. That's pretty much a metaphor for my entire experience at that school.
9. I never order chicken at a nice restaurant. I learned that from my mama.
10. I used to get grossed out by blood. Just thinking about blood going making its regular ho hum journey though the heart, lungs, and body made me start to get queasy. I got over it when I took my EMT class at age 24.
11. In my high school psychology class we had to do that thing where you carry around an egg for a week and pretend it is your baby. I named mine Conrad. It was a girl.
12. Senior year in college my two friends and I lived together in an apartment building with a strict 'no pets' policy. We had two kittens and a lizard.
13. I think Hugh Jackman is hot, but only as Wolverine.
14. I think Eddie Izzard is hot, but only in full makeup.
15. Some dumb things I remember doing as a kid: cutting my thumb because I was SHAVING a bar of soap, jumping off the stair ledge and doing a front flip onto the couch, climbing around on the bookshelves, and asking my mom was it okay with her if I stuck this piece of jagged metal into the electric socket?
16. Speaking of which, I got shocked by an electric socket on my El Salvador trip when I was trying to plug in my dad's laptop (so he could study up on the complicated surgeries he was performing). After I got shocked we still needed to charge our various electronics so we decided to try the other socket in our room. We got into an argument about who would test the next socket. His point: he was the DAD and I was the daughter so it was his job to do things like test electric sockets. My point: I was a nurse and he was the SURGEON-- his hands were far more valuable than mine on this trip. And then I shoved him aside and tested the socket. It didn't shock me.
17. I have a crease line on my nose, commonly known as the allergic salute. KC has one, too. So does my littlest niece.
18. One of the first tattoo ideas I had was a pair of wings on my back. I thought that was a super cool idea but I decided not to do it because (1) I found out it is totally cliche, and (2) it would have bothered me if the wings weren't big enough to support my body weight.
19. I had a radio show in high school. I played a lot of disco.
20. One day in second grade I brought to school this really cool set of erasable crayons that my grandma had given me. I noticed that the eraser had gone missing after recess and I had a feeling that this one mean girl had taken it. I waited until the next recess and I checked inside her desk. THE ERASER WAS THERE. So I took it back and put it in my desk. And then I chickened out and put it back in her desk so she wouldn't notice that it was missing and think I had taken it.
21. I like having long hair, but I hate having hair touch my face, or the back of my neck, or my arms, or my back. Especially when I'm sleeping. When I lie down, I sweep all my hair straight up atop my head so none of it can touch me.
22. I've always loved being read to. Still do, in fact.
23. My favorite year of college was sophomore year.
24. I have rather large and too many teeth for my mouth. My front teeth are big and my adult canine teeth grew in at the top of my gumline, like fangs. It took two sets of braces, 9 tooth extractions (some of baby teeth), a jaw widener contraption that someone had to crank every night, retainers, and lots of hours spent lying on the couch with an ice pack on my face to get this fabulous smile.
25. I'm named after my mom, sorta.
