10 Things About Me

I really enjoy when the blogs I follow post a 10 Things About Me list. It's usually a list of quirky, funny or random things.

1. I love bananas, but there is precisely one day where the stage of ripeness is acceptable to me. One speck of brown and that banana is dead to me. I will carry that gross freckled banana around in my lunch bag for days until I give up and throw it out. I like them to be solidly yellow with maybe even a hint of green. I like them even better if they're cold (and I don't mind if they get a bit brown from the fridge). But mealy, warm and over-ripe? BLEH! I'm trying to at least be good and freeze the ripe ones for other uses. Unfortunately, even those have a short shelf life since our freezer is only committed to keeping ice frozen. I now have a system of buying a bananas in varying stages of ripeness because I hate wasting food.



2. I grab things with my toes. Not like, creepy picking stuff up grabbing, but unintentional. Mostly just to inadvertently torture my husband. Watching tv and my toes are cold? They curl under the back side of his knee. Ooops! Sleeping? Oh man. Apparently after I fall asleep I like to grab the back of his leg with my toes. I have NO IDEA why I do this. If I'm having a particularly good night I get his achilles tendon between my big and "pointer" toe. This usually results in his lurching awake and slapping my leg away. One of his nicknames for me is Creepy-Toes.



3. It seems that my resting/neutral/thinking face make me appear angry/upset. The husband also calls me Madface.

No! I'm just thinking! No! I'm fine! No! I'm just THINKING, not about anything bad. THIS IS JUST WHAT MY FACE LOOKS LIKE! Illustrated perfectly here from krisatomic:

[source]

4. He also refers to me as Anger Girl. Not because I'm actually angry, but I accidentally break a lot of stuff around our apartment and it's usually because I'm too rough with it. The Husband is convinced that I'm really mad on the inside and take it out on our fixtures. Really, I'm probably just in a hurry. Okay, and probably slightly annoyed about something. We have seven horizontal blinds in our apartment. We have replaced nine. In 8 years. Yeah...

(since I started working on this post, a 9th blind has met it's maker)

I've pulled the towel bar apart at least a half dozen times, pulled the bathrobe hanger of the wall with the screws attached and mangled the hot water knob in the shower. Today I for-real trip-to-Home-Depot broke the hot water knob. So now he's also installing hooks for the towels and bathrobes with some super Jillian-proof reinforcement.

I am also on my third iPhone bumper case in less than 3 years (and #4 will be due soon), my second paper shredder and can easily trouble-shoot our garbage disposal. Luckily I drive a Subaru and those are pretty hard to kill (and here I go jinxing myself...it has been making a few weird noises). Although I did pull the lumbar support handle off of the side of the seat...

5. I am kiiiiind of afraid of fresh water. I did my first triathlon in Boston off of Carson Beach. It was a half mile open water swim in the ocean and almost everyone said I was nuts. Some suggested I find one that was a quarter mile to do first. Most said I needed to do a tri with a lake or even pool swim first. No, no, no. First, those pool swim tris look like a GIANT Charlie Foxtrot. Forget it. And fresh water? EWWW! It gives me the heebie jeebies. Sorry landlocked states who will insist if I swam in their "super clean" lake I'd change my mind. No. I won't. I don't care how clean it is. It smells weird, it doesn't have salt and there is the possibility of leeches. Better than sharks? I don't care. Maybe there's a very small chance I'll encounter a shark and it could kill me, but if I find a leech on me I will DEFINITELY go into cardiac arrest. To be completely honest there's also this weird irrational fear. I trust the ocean, but I've seen wayyy too many scary lady-of-the-lake (oooh now she knows I'm talking about her and she's going to get me! AHHH!) movies as a kid. There are no monsters in the ocean, unless you count Sharktopus. Lakes? BRIMMING with monsters who are juuuust waiting for you to swim out far enough so they can grab your feet and pull you under.

I really wish I hadn't thought to bring this up after agreeing to do my first Olympic distance tri (0.9 mile swim) in a lake....



6. I LOVE. Love, love, love the movie The Guardian.

Even more so if I catch it on tv, although I did a permanent borrow of my parents' copy so I can watch it whenever. Rescue swimmers are so awesome. I was joking about the movie with my swim instructor and she laughs and said she just got her certification to train those swimmers. So, yeah. Now I think she's even cooler than before! It's even been the source of a running joke between my husband and I. At one point we were talking about some famous swimmer (I forget who...not Phelps) and I was like, "wait...the one with the number 2 tattoo on his shoulder blade...and....uh....", which got the response of, "Noooo....that was Ashton Kutcher in The Guardian...maybe you should take a break from that movie." HA. Never.



7. I don't mind doing laundry. I actually kind of like the wash, dry, fold part, but oh lordy, I cannot put it away as soon as it's done for the life of me. I will step over the bin of clean clothes for a week until it makes me crazy. I think it's because I always feel a strong need to organize/purge my closet whenever I'm putting them away. It turns into an all day project if I'm not careful. I'm not proud to say that there have been times where I've almost completely emptied the bin by wearing the clothes. Hey, makes for a quick sorting at that point.



8.  I played clarinet from 5th grade through my entire undergrad, which was in music education. It was pretty much all I did. I was in various bands and ensembles, big and small, with my school and a local conservatory and I always took lessons. I didn't do any sports. Music took up all my time. I played in my own commencement band the day I graduated and at the end, I cleaned up my clarinet, closed the case and never opened it again. I think that part is what would surprise people who know me.

Graduation was the last time I played. I didn't plan it that way, but weeks, days and years just went by without me playing. I knew, in the last year of school that it wasn't for me. I love music, but I didn't want to teach it and looking back, I think I was burnt out on playing. I needed a break. I don't regret it at all. It taught me a lot and made me have to be fairly responsible as a teenager. I am also sure I wasn't at all read for my current career back then. I'd say I miss it, but as hard as I try to remember, I can't conjure up how I felt then. People were shocked that I walked away from it, but it was the first time I stopped worrying about what other people thought I should do. You know what? Everyone was supportive. My career and hobbies are a complete 180 from what I had been doing, but I finally feel like "me."



9. The husband says I'm "not nice in the car." Haha. Apparently I'm much better (thanks to an uneventful 900 mile round trip to PA), but previously I was kind of a pain. We'd get as far out of Boston as Saugus and I'd already be singing along to the most annoying song on the radio. I'd need to pee at least 3 times on a four hour trip (I need to stay hydrated!) and I'd probably get hungry twice (small meals people!). There's a good chance that I'd buy candy at some point and have a sugar high (SIIIINGIIIIIIING!!!!!) and a sugar crash (whyyyyy wont you taaaaaalk to meeeee?). The temperature I would feel comfortable with would usually be the opposite of what The Husband wanted. This is mostly due to me wearing whatever I felt like in the car, not usually in consideration of the season. I need to be comfortable on long trips!

(I joke about this now because I try not to do these things anymore. Otherwise, we-are-never-going-anywhere-in-the-car-again-ever.)



10. I frequently hear a song and exclaim, "this song is great! Who is this?! I have to find out who it is and buy the album NOW!". Then I go to great lengths to figure out who it is, to almost always discover I already own the album. The song is usually not the single that's out but one I've listened to a bunch of times already. Case in point?

This Microsoft commercial:

Uh yeah....it's Macklemore. You know, the Thriftshop song? (I'll let you google it) The song in the commercial is off the same album. DUH. It was actually one of the main reasons I didn't just buy Thriftshop.

Here is a great live version:

Hope you enjoyed this (or at least laughed a bit). I swear, I'm not as grouchy as the husband pretends!