Five Questions

Spinning off my sassy friend's recent blog, I have asked her to submit to me five "interview" questions to fuel my narcissistic love of talking about myself. :-D To prevent total and complete self-involvement, of course, there is a stipulation that I must then agree to interview someone else (who must then post their response on their own blog, and agree to interview another someone else and on and on).

Here are the official rules:

1. I pick the questions and you answer them.


2. You will update your blog by answering the questions.


3. You will include an explanation and offer to interview someone else in the same post. You cannot interview me again.


4. When others comment asking to be interviewed you will send them five questions.

So. My five questions.

1. Please post one of your favorite poems that YOU'VE written. It can be recent or old. Tell us the background.

Well, it won't be recent because I haven't written anything in years. I seem to cycle through my creative outlets -- focusing heavily on writing for a few years, then photography for a while, then I pretend to be a graphic designer or some eclectic music and mix tape prodigy.... LOL. My writing is in its fallow period right now, and that's okay. I haven't lost my ear for a well turned phrase or my love of language, so I'm sure that at some point I'll pick up a pen and try again.

In the meantime, here's the last poem I wrote. I wrote it after I found out that a friend of mine from high school, whom I'd lost touch with, ran off to Vegas to marry some guy who then isolated her in a small town in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to beat her. She left him after a year, thank goodness. I felt awful that I hadn't been in her life to help her through it. I knew / know nothing of spousal abuse, but I had been through some dark times, myself, so I felt like I could at least try to put myself in her place.

(Note: I made slight revisions to this poem later, but all I can find is the original. Sorry.)

Untitled, for M
You brought me here.
The lure of love and first sex,
a home of my own under the wide sky,
and you -- the lure of a life finally begun.

That first night the wind's fierce keen woke me
from a fitful sleep and dreams
of an empty road.
you rolled a towel up longways,
placed it beneath the door
to hold its screams at bay and block the cold.
But February nights are insistent
and long after the breath beside me grew rhythmic
and heavy and slow
I lay awake listening to the wild thing
at the window and just beyond the door.

It was not fear of you, at first,
that brought me to my knees, doubled over,
gasping for air or tears.
The wind blew for weeks and I was alone in the house.
The cold crept in through secret spaces,
a small chip in the glass hastily repaired with tape,
dark corners of the basement,
its stone floor. I was alone.
Ice painted brutal patterns in slivers on the pane.
Our bed grew cold. The sheets were stiff,
a blanket of thick, numbing frost.

When Spring came
shoots grew out of the hard earth,
they lifted their arms to me
like children crying to be held.
Everything wanted tending.
I walked softly, barefoot, afraid
to wake the life-buds too soon

and one day I watched from the backyard window
as brown fields sank beneath the weight of late snow.

You brought me here
but I belong where towns begin.

In dreams the seamless yellow prairie dissolves
into pure highway, straight and grey for miles.
I pass billboards and ragged buildings.
Refinery smokestacks color the sunset fire and blood.
The horizon looms, half lit,
and this is brutality I understand.
The valley explodes as the sky goes black
        the lights are shards of glass:
        cracked mirrors, broken windows, beat-out headlights
reflecting bright stars.

***

Sure, it's kind of morbid -- and no big surprise to anybody who knew my 20-year-old self that I would equate both small towns and winter weather with abuse (while simultaneously romanticizing the violence of urban life, lol). But still, I like it. I'm proud of it. I worked a lot of assonance in there without even meaning to.

Hard to believe I haven't written a poem in ~12 years, though. Geez.


2. What is the wackiest thing you did as a younger and probably stupider version of yourself?

Um.... I'm not sure I've ever really been the "wacky" type. I'm generally easy going, but still more serious and deliberate than wackily spontaneous. I suppose if we focus on your other adjective -- stupid -- I could come up with something, lol.

Let's see. There's the time I failed 10th grade Biology (not because I didn't understand the material, but because I got bored of doing and turning in assignments) and forged my report card -- a very careful copy & paste job perpetrated at the copy shop where a friend worked -- so my parents wouldn't find out. Of course, that was the first term of my sophomore year, so I had to keep forging the report card throughout the rest of 10th grade so they wouldn't see the F on the cumulative report.

The next year I had to fail my driver's ed test on purpose so my parents wouldn't submit the fake report card to the insurance company for the Good Student Discount they thought I deserved (lying to your parents is one thing, but I didn't want to get sent to the pokey for committing insurance fraud). I did everything wrong; I left no room for success. The freaked out driver's ed instructor told me that I needed a lot more practice before trying again, but that maybe I shouldn't practice on actual streets. Or anywhere near actual people.

I thought by 12th grade that I'd finally put the whole mess behind me. Until a few months before graduation when I got called into the counselor's office: Apparently, although I had made up the science credit the year before, the F left me missing an elective. I would not graduate unless I signed up for night school. (Would have been nice if someone had told me sooner!) So I paid $60 to take American History for a couple hours every Thursday night for six weeks. My classmates -- a few pregnant girls, some leather-clad potty mouthed bad boys, and a former drop-out or two who had decided to get a GED after all -- and I spent most of that time watching movies like Patton. Because obviously that's the best way to learn American History. I still hadn't told my parents; for all they knew, I was hanging out with my friends or studying at the library or working as a stock girl at the grocery store every Thursday night.

I think I was in my early 20s and a college graduate by the time I finally confessed to my parents. They didn't believe me. I had always been so conscientious, so studious, so responsible! (Well, except for all those classes I ditched -- but I had never made a secret of that, and had maintained legitimately good grades in challenging classes so no big whoop.) I think I had to dig up one of the forged report cards and point out the imperfections before they were convinced.

The thing is, I didn't lie and jump through all those crazy hoops merely to avoid punishment for (or more likely, their disappointment in) my academic failure. I did it out of concern for my mom and dad: I didn't want them to worry that my sudden lack of interest in 10th grade Biology indicated a drug habit or some other calamity. I didn't want them to stress about my repeating the class or almost not graduating (goodness knows, I stressed enough about it for everyone!). Why add to their load of burdens? I knew I could take care of it, and I did.

But I learned my lesson: One lie begets another. And another. And $60 and another. It's not worth it. It would have been faaaar better to complete the stupid assignments, or, barring that, at least confess my failure from the beginning. Oh well. At least now I have this funny story to tell my own children to illustrate the point that honesty is the easiest policy. :-P


3. List 5 things that surprise you about being a mom.

Having grown up among the oldest in a family of eight children, I felt pretty well prepared for the job of motherhood. I knew how to change a diaper; not to feed an infant ice cream if I didn't want her up all night, screaming from a tummy ache; how to "reason" (ha!) with a toddler; the importance of consistency in discipline. That's not to say I've ever been a perfect mom (again with the ha!), or have never had to call up my own mother for advice, but I do think I had an advantage over those women whose first time holding a baby was in meeting their own at the hospital.

Still. I guess some things have managed to surprise me.

The first, of course, was the discovery of projectile poop. I knew that when changing boy diapers, one ought to keep things covered to avoid being shot in the face. But I had a daughter -- no worries! Until one late night diaper change when Uno hadn't quite finished her business ... and her business went flying right past my head, getting my hand and a bit of my hair on its way to landing on the wall. I screamed. My face, according to DH, showed a hilarious mix of confusion and disgust. That first projectile poop incident remains to this day one of his favorite stories.

I'm surprised by my deteriorating patience since I've become a mom. I used to epitomize patience and long-suffering -- I might have seethed quietly to myself when really overwhelmed, but on the outside, I remained cool and calm. Not so much anymore. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation. Maybe it's the stress of so little alone time. Maybe it's the constant exposure to irrational (however adorable) preschoolers with little to no adult time for balance that transformed me into the Unreasonable No Patience Lady. All of those explanations make sense, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's just that I thought having kids was supposed to make you more patient, not less. Just another of those guilt-inducing motherhood myths, I guess.

I was very surprised to discover that Greg, the original yellow Wiggle (he's recently been replaced due to health issues), is kind of hot. Or maybe that's just the sleep deprivation talking again, lol.

Oooh, here's a good one: I surprised myself by nursing Dos for slightly more than two and a half years! I barely tried with Uno. It hurt (like a motha'!); I felt self-conscious; and I had a ton of sample formula cans from my doctor, the hospital, and the formula companies themselves, so I had an easy out. One of the biggest reasons I didn't nurse Uno, though, was that it seemed a little skeevy, lol.

Strained finances and a better education about breastfeeding convinced me to try harder with Dos, and I overcame the pain (it only lasts a month or so, as long as you don't get mastitis) to make it to my first milestone: Teeth. I figured I'd nurse her that long and then we'd reevaluate. She only bit me once or twice -- and I'm pretty sure those were accidents -- so we continued.

I decided I'd nurse her for a year and then we'd reevaluate. A year came and went; breastfeeding no longer seemed at all skeevy to me (though I think it did, increasingly, to DH's family and others who saw me breastfeed a child who could walk and talk) so I decided we'd keep doing it until she self weaned. I figured that would be around 18 months old or so.

The second year came and went, and Dos showed no signs of wanting off the boob. The shine had started wearing off for me by then, though, so I made the decision that when Dos transitioned from the crib to a big girl bed, we would be done with nursing. Approximately seven months after that, she moved to a bed. She asked for "Mommy Milk" a time or two, but generally seemed unconcerned by the change in the nighttime routine. It makes me wonder if we could have weaned sooner, though I have no regrets about the ultimate length of our nursing relationship.

I used to think pregnant bellies were disgusting. I got over that. I used to think breastfeeding was creepy. I got over that. I used to think extended breastfeeding (past, say, 9-12 months old) was gross and would scar the child for life. ("If the kid can ask for it, she's too old to nurse!" Well what do you think a baby's doing when it cries? Asking, that's what.) I'm happy and, yes, surprised to say that I overcame all my old neurotic prejudices to do something good (and cheap!) for my child.

All right, I think I've listed four things so far so I have one left. Hmmmm.

It surprised me to discover that I'm not meant to be the mom of a large brood like the one I grew up in. I always wanted to have kids (just not to haaaaaave kids, lol -- I didn't want to birth no babies!) and I thought that if I could adopt them all or, miracle of miracles, overcome my morbid fear of doctors, pregnancy, and childbirth, I would have a ton. But you know what? I'm not going to. The two I have, though amazing and hilarious, often overwhelm me and we're about to add a third, our last. I love large families and I loved growing up in one, but I am not my mother and this is my limit. This revelation came as a surprise, yet it seems perfectly natural for us. So go figure. It is what it is.


4. What is your favorite place that you have ever been to and why?

Holy cow, that's a hard question! I've been a lot of places and found things to love about nearly all of them (though I'm still bitter about Strasbourg; sorry seester). I don't know that I could legitimately pick a favorite.

Maybe I'll tell you about my favorite place that I haven't been to.

When I was a kid I watched an episode of The Twilight Zone called A Stop At Willoughby, wherein a New York advertising executive with a truly horrible life dreams every night on his train commute home of a quiet, peaceful 1890s town where the pace of life is slow and everyone knows and loves everyone else. At the end of the episode, he decides to get off at the idyllic Willoughby stop (which, in reality, of course, means he jumps from a speeding train to his death; Willoughby exists only in his imagination ... and in the Twilight Zone, cue music). From the moment I saw it, that has been my favorite TZ episode of all time -- and no wonder; its beautiful but morbid romanticism set a sort of template in my mind of the type of stories and images I'm still drawn to, today.

The fictional hamlet of the Twilight Zone isn't my favorite place, though. I've got my own Willoughby. As I mentioned before, I used to ride an Amtrak train home from college during breaks. Because I took the same train in the same season at the same time of day each time, we always came upon my favorite spot just as the sun was setting: A quiet river, shaded by old growth trees on the far bank, lay to the left of the tracks; to the right rose a steep hill covered in narrow streets and 19th century houses and store fronts painted to reflect their history and colored by that particular golden light of evening.

It was like magic. Like Brigadoon, mythical and impossibly lovely, or like Willoughby.

I have no idea what it's called, or even where it is; the train slowed through the town, but didn't stop. Looking at the route of the Capitol Limited, I can guess that it lies somewhere in Northwestern Maryland, a tiny corner of West Virginia, or maybe even Southern Pennsylvania. I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever know.

I would love to visit and see if the place lives up to my idealized recollection. I won't jump from any trains to do it, but if I can find the little town I'll go.


5. If money were no object what would you love to do with your spare time?

When I contemplate this question, I throw in the added presumption that time is no object -- that I have endless amounts of spare time to spend those endless amounts of money to pursue a hobby or passion. Because time is money, right? Ergo proctor hoc.... (I don't have the slightest idea what that actually means. It's just fun to say.)

Obviously I would love to travel. I tried compiling a list of places I'd visit, but I couldn't whittle it down to reasonable size because, in addition to all the places I've never seen but would love to (Morocco; India; China; just for starters), there are so many places I want to go back to with DH and my girls (Portugal; Paris; Belo Horizonte, Salvador, and Manaus in Brasil; Catherland in Nebraska; the Oregon coast; NYC; again, just to name a few). I want to go EVERYWHERE, and I want the people I love to love it as much as I do. I'm hoping my girls got a significant chunk of my gypsy genes; they seem like good travelers so far.

But I'd also love to pursue an education in my self-taught hobbies: Photography and design. I love them both, but I feel inadequate. I know just enough to be dangerous, lol, but not enough to have any sort of confidence in my abilities. I've only ever had one Photography class (I got a B) and, though I took painting classes a time or two in my youth, I've never studied design as such. I do think I have a reasonably good eye for both but without knowledge and technical skills I'm stuck at the same level where I've always been.

Once I had that education, I would use my endless supply of money to set up a fabulous studio. I would have lots of cameras of many different formats. I would have lenses galore. Backdrops and lighting sets and soft boxes and reflectors that look slightly more professional than the pizza pans I currently cover with tin foil before photographing my girls. I would have the fastest computers with huge amounts of memory. I would always have the latest editions of Photoshop and Illustrator, and I'd get one of those tablet thingies.

And then there are the days, of course, when all I want out of life is some time to myself, no money required. Except, I guess, the money required to pay for a sitter when DH is working late or on call. And gas money so I can drive aimlessly while listening to a good mix CD. Hmmmmm.


Well, thus concludes our interview for today. Thank you, my friend, for supplying the questions, and thanks to the rest of you for reading the whole thing (if you did manage to slog through it all). If anyone would like to be interviewed by me, post your request in the comments! I don't know if it's against the rules or not, but I'm thinking I'll limit myself to one person. It takes me a long time to think of things, lol, and my brain is already seriously overtaxed. ;-)


~RCH~

Jeans

Sadly, I am not in the market for any "good butt jeans" right now, and won't be at least until next fall. And probably a while after that. *Sigh!* But when I am, I'm going to remember to first check Zafu.com.

Answer a few simple questions about fit, enter in some basic height and weight stats, and voila! Poof! No more depressing trips to the dressing room only to find that each of the 10 pairs you grabbed fits poorly. Instead, Zafu gives you a customized list of jeans, in an array of brands and price ranges, that will fit you and your unique body issues.

Obviously, this is a completely uninformed plug for the web site since I only just found it and I can't test it out until after Joe Bob Ponybelle arrives. But it sounds like a great service. (Anything to avoid those dressing room disasters!) If any of you decide to try it, let me know how it works out!


~RCH~

Preganancy

So I'm great with child. Or good, at least, and getting greater with every passing day. Although I'm not quite into maternity clothes yet, I can tell I'm getting rounder because I've started absentmindedly putting my hand on top of my "belly shelf" and just resting it there. DH finds that (and the absentminded rubbing of the belly, which will come when I start to feel movement) incredibly annoying.

Eh. Let him get pg and see what weird habits he develops.

My big ultrasound is in less than a month! I actually had one at my first OB visit (10w2d) because she couldn't find the heartbeat on the ... heartbeat finder thingy. I've had a different OB with each kid, thanks to our moving to different states, and this doctor is the first I've been to who had an ultrasound machine in her office; every other time they've farmed me out to off-site specialty imaging clinics and only at or after 20 weeks. The early ultrasound was amazing! I had been a little detached from this pregnancy, especially given what happened over Thanksgiving, but to see that little sea monkey actually in there, and waving its little arms at me! There are no words for that.

I wonder what this one will be. I don't trust my intuition at all; it hasn't served me well before. And beyond that, I don't really have any intuitive feelings about this baby. Who knows! I hope the kid will cooperate.

I asked the girls last week what they thought the baby would be, and what they thought we should name him or her.

"I want a boy," Dos said, "and I think he's name should be Butterfly."

"I think she's a girl," Uno said, "and we will call her Lilly. ...Or Ponybelle."

Right now we're sticking with Joe Bob, our default name for all unknown fetuses, but I really, really like the sound of Ponybelle. Maybe we can use both: Joe Bob Ponybelle LastName.

As we get closer to the big ultrasound, of course, I'm growing increasingly paranoid about what might be wrong with the child. DH thinks I need to get over it and have a little faith. But you know what? People with faith sometimes have babies with serious problems. The rain falls on the righteous just as on the wicked (or the other way around, but it comes to the same thing). We've been so blessed so far, with two perfectly healthy and bright and adorable children; is it unreasonable to think there might be another shoe about to drop? (Was the miscarriage the other shoe?)

On the other hand, my paranoia has not led me to be any better about my daily shots. I'm supposed to give myself a prophylactic dose of heparin every night to ward off blood clots that I'm genetically prone to (though I've never had one). But I hate the shots. They're inconvenient, and a pain in the leg (ha, ha). I don't do them during the day because I don't want the girls to see ... and then by the time night rolls around and they're safely and FINALLY tucked in their beds for good, I'm often too tired to bother. I shot myself -- or had someone else shoot me, when I was still scared of the needles -- religiously with my first pregnancy (and that was twice a day!); I was a little more casual, but still consistent with my second; this time I just can't muster the energy to care.

The most likely bad outcome of me not shooting up often enough is a blood clot for me -- a DVT or (heaven forbid) a pulmonary embolism or something. But there's a possibility that the baby's own tissue, or the amniotic sac or whatever, could clot and cause serious problems for little Ponybelle. Then again, everything might turn out absolutely fine even if I stopped the heparin completely; after all, it's just a preventative dose and there's nothing in my own medical history (um, aside from that little genetic mutation) to indicate I'd have problems. My sister's history, heck yeah, but not mine.

Yet.

I really should shoot up more often.

*Sigh.*

I don't get nauseated (yes, I know how lucky that makes me!) but since the beginning of this pregnancy I've had a serious aversion to my formerly beloved Diet Dr. Pepper (strangely the full caloried stuff doesn't seem to bother me). Lately, though, I'm feeling food averse to everything! It's very sad. I feel gross if I don't eat, because then my insides start to digest themselves. But if I do eat, I get terrible heartburn and feel gross anyway. And nothing sounds appetizing. So why bother? Oh yeah, because I have to feed Joe Bob Ponybelle, lol. I keep forgetting.

It makes cooking dinner for my family terribly unappealing, though. DH and the girls have been eating a lot of jelly sandwiches, hot dogs, and cold cereal lately. Stuff I don't have to think about.

Speaking of, I guess I ought to start thinking about what to make tonight. How about frozen pizza? The girls will like that. And I could probably force myself to eat a piece or two.

Aaaaah, the joys of bringing life into the world....


~RCH~

Quote book quote

Uno and I were looking through my Parenting magazine together when I stopped to read a bit of one of the articles.

"Mom," she said, "turn the page."

"Hold on," I said, "I'm reading this."

Pause.

"So read it then," she said.

"I am. I'm reading it to myself, in my head."

She leaned up close to me and put her head on mine. I figured she was just being cuddly while she waited for me to turn the page. But nope.

"Mom," she said, lifting her head up again. "I don't hear anything in there. I think you're doing it wrong."


~RCH~

Easter "postcards," from our home to yours

The girls dyed eggs on Saturday:











On Sunday, they wore their new matching dresses:











Happy Easter! We miss you! Wish you were here!


~RCH~

The talk that wasn't.

Darn those parents who give Primary talks for their kids.

Uno gave her first talk in church on only her second week in Primary. She didn't know how it worked; she just knew she wanted to talk in the microphone. And she did it wonderfully! Full of confidence and aplomb! But now she's a little older (well, by a month or two), a little wiser to the ways of the Primary world. She's been corrupted by the practices of her peers and it just kills me.

She gave her second talk last Sunday. Sort of. Before her turn, a parent came up to help her daughter give a scripture. A member of the Primary presidency helped a boy say the prayer. Another parent whispered her daughter's talk in her ear. And then came Uno.

She stepped up to the microphone, beautifully colored pictures in hand to illustrate her stories and remind her of what to say. DH and I sat in the back with Dos (whom Uno had invited from the nursery just for this special occasion), big expectant grins on our faces. She began:

"Jesus met a woman...."

And then she froze. Nobody was whispering in her ear; how could she possibly go on? She turned around to see if the Primary ladies could help her. "Sorry, I don't know the story!" the president said. DH and I exchanged panicked looks from the back.

It is our family policy that children learn and give their own talks. They will not be whispered to, and when they're older they will not read their talks from a piece of paper. The whole point is to gain confidence with public speaking, and to be adorable. It is not adorable to hear a grownup give a child's talk. We won't do that in our family. Sorry.

Still, the panic.

"Mom? Dad?" asked the Primary ladies, obviously expecting us to intervene.

"You can do it!" I stage whispered to Uno with a thumbs up sign. "Just look at the pictures and remember the stories we talked about!"

She stood there, saying nothing.

DH and I exchanged looks again, and he rose from his seat to go stand behind her at the podium. But he didn't whisper the talk to her. Instead, he whispered prompts: "Who do you see in that picture? Do you remember why the woman is sad? What did Jesus say?"

Uno buried her head in her chest and said nothing. The two of them stood at the podium for what seemed like an eternity, DH prompting but not telling her what to say, Uno refusing to say anything at all.

Finally the Primary president gently shooed them away from the podium and announced that Uno could give the talk later if she felt like it (she never did).

I didn't know how to handle the next part: consoling my embarrassed child. She's not shy; she knew the material (she'd recited it perfectly that morning before church!); her failure was not due to forces beyond her control. I wouldn't have been so disappointed if I knew she had tried her best, even with the same result, but she didn't try her best -- she dug in her stubborn heels about wanting to be like everyone else and have her mom or dad do the talk. But what do you say to a four year old?

Mostly I just hugged her, and let her come with me to Relief Society until she felt better. I told her I was disappointed that I didn't get to hear her give her talk from the microphone, and I reminded her about last time when she did so well that I couldn't stop smiling all day. We didn't have ice cream after church, which would have been the Great Job! treat.

*Sigh.*

I don't know what will happen next time. I wonder if she'll volunteer again. I wonder if she's learned her lesson about doing it herself, or if she's only been traumatized at the perceived lack of support from her mean old parents. Should we have handled the situation differently?

It was really disappointing to me because I know her performance is not at all representative of her. Uno is smart; she's articulate; she's brave and outgoing. She can do this. I just wish she had.


~RCH~

101 things

1. I am, apparently, a copycat.
   
2. I used to be a pretty consistent blogger, but not so much since we moved.
   
3. I used to live in the high plains of West Texas.
   
4. Before that I lived in the rolling hills of the Midwest.
   
5. Before that I lived in the shadow of the everlasting hills.
   
6. Before that I lived in the Carolina piedmont.
   
7. Before that it was those everlasting hills again.
   
8. I currently live in the mountain West.
   
9. I'm not sure if these mountains are everlasting, though.
   
10. I'm obviously trying to pad this list so as not to get too personal, lol.
    
11. Which is kind of not the point of a list like this.
    
12. Oh well.
    
13. I do not have triskaidekaphobia.
    
14. I do have other phobias, however:
    
15. Spiders, bugs, and pretty much anything that crawls (excluding babies, of course).
    
16. Unenclosed heights freak me out.
    
17. I have an aversion to telephones.
    
18. Aversions are not the same as phobias (I am not afraid of the telephone), but I believe they are in the same class in the DSM-IV.
    
19. So pretty much I'm crazy.
    
20. How's that for self disclosure?
    
21. Our old house in TX had an open floor plan, so I could work on the computer and watch the girls play at the same time.
    
22. Our new house has "an office," which means the computer is in the ghetto.
    
23. I mean, the basement.
    
24. Which is why I'm not on as much as I used to be, and why I blog less.
    
25. Plus I'm tired.
    
26. And lazy.
    
27. I can't wait for Spring.
    
28. Apparently I'm a Democrat (probably for my support of public arts programs), but I think Libertarians are way cooler.
    
29. I used to be 29 once.
    
30. I got old somehow. I teach Sunday School to a bunch of kids who were not even born the year I graduated from high school.
    
31. They may have been a glimmer in someone's eye that year, but that's about it.
    
32. I have grey hairs and wrinkles and bags under my eyes.
    
33. Of course that last part is purely genetic bad luck, and not necessarily a function of age, but still.
    
34. Hey, at least DH is older. His recent birthday has pushed him that much closer to 40.
    
35. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
    
36. I don't think he cares, though.
    
37. He's 36 to my soon-to-be 32. Cradle robber.
    
38. DH runs marathons, but his knees are bad and I worry they will fall off.
    
39. I occasionally think about maybe getting Dance Dance Revolution so that I will exercise.
    
40. But then after thinking about it, I call it good and relax again.
    
41. It's kind of like The Music Man: Supplement actual practice (or in my case fitness) with the imaginary kind! Wheee!
    
42. My children, on the other hand, are very high energy.
    
43. I have two lovely daughters, Uno and Dos.
    
44. Joe Bob v3.2 is on the way, and I think it's been long enough now that I can say so without fear of taking it back.
    
45. Yes, that was the official general announcement. Just to make sure you were paying attention.
    
46. Dude, I'm not even half way done with this list yet!
    
47. Seriously, 101 things? Isn't that asking a bit much?
    
48. All right, here's one: I love trains.
    
49. The summer I turned 16, I rode around Europe on trains: Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Austria.
    
50. We derailed in Spain: I think the train hit a cow. Nobody was hurt. (Except probably the cow.)
    
51. For years after I got back, I wrote poems about trains.
    
52. I used to take the train home from college: Up to DC, over to Chicago, across and down to the shadow of the everlasting hills on the California Zephyr.
    
53. On one of those trips I met a boy -- a college student from South Carolina -- named Sudip Mandakhashar. I could have the last name wrong. We both had a long layover in Chicago, so he hung out with me and paid my way up to the top of the Sears Tower (a $6 admission, I think, which was a lot for this struggling student).
    
54. I never gave him my address, but he later tracked me down (I must have named my school) and sent me a letter with an enclosed drawing of a glamorous blonde. I think it was supposed to be me, lol. Looked nothing like me, but I was flattered anyway.
    
55. I'm pretty sure that's the only time I've been hit on. (I had to do the hitting when it came to DH.)
    
56. My roommate teased me for MONTHS after that letter came. Years, actually. She'd probably tease me right now if she thought about it.
    
57. It occurs to me now that maybe it wasn't so smart to hang out with a stranger in a strange city (although he turned out to be quite sweet).
    
58. I've done other not-so-smart things, of course: At ~14 I once accepted a ride from a stranger in lieu of waiting for a city bus that was 40+ minutes late.
    
59. I don't know if that's technically hitchhiking, as I didn't have my thumb out; he offered, so I said sure.
    
60. And I did ask him, "How do I know you're not a rapist or murderer?" before getting in his truck. He replied, "How do I know you're not?"
    
61. So I shrugged and got in. I was tired of waiting for that bus.
    
62. Now, of course, I am HORRIFIED by that lapse in judgment.
    
63. If my daughters ever try anything that stupid, they will be grounded for the rest of their lives.
    
64. Hum-dee-dum.... Let's see. What else?
    
65. I guess I take back #55. "Creepy Rob" very obviously sought after my affections when I was a Midwestern girl -- but I'm pretty sure that's only because I was the freshest meat and everyone else had already turned him down.
    
66. So I've been hit on twice. Once made me feel ridiculous and flattered all at the same time; once just made me feel creepy-crawly.
    
67. I've always been socially awkward around boys, lol.
    
68. Truth be told, I'm just socially awkward generally, but boys had always seemed like an entirely different species until I met DH.
    
69. He still made me very nervous, of course, because I liked him and hoped I wouldn't make him feel creepy-crawly.
    
70. I used to write out and practice conversation items before I saw him so I wouldn't get tongue-tied or stupid in his presence.
    
71. But I always felt like I understood where he was coming from, and that he understood me. He didn't seem ... foreign, like all the other boys did.
    
72. That's nice.
    
73. And I don't have to role play talking with him anymore, lol.
    
74. We will have been married 6 years this July.
    
75. We got married in the summer of 2001.
    
76. I wasn't personally affected by 9/11, but whenever I see a date that is earlier than that, I reflexively think, "Hey, they don't know yet what's going to happen...."
    
77. Every time. Especially when I see that a person died before 9/11/2001. I think, "They never knew what the world came to."
    
78. That's kind of morbid, isn't it?
    
79. And weird that it's such a dividing line for me.
    
80. I did work for an airline at the time....
    
81. I was a secretary at TWA. We knew we were about to be acquired by American Airlines, one of the airlines involved, but we didn't feel like part of the AA family yet.
    
82. Still. I'm sure working for an airline has nothing to do with the way it hit me. I'm guessing most every American felt the same way (except those personally touched by the tragedy, who must have felt 10x worse).
    
83. I've had lots of random jobs over the years.
    
84. I was a webmaster once. Pretty much my only qualification for the job was that I knew HTML, lol. Pretty pathetic. It was 1997.
    
85. That was the most stressful job I've ever had because I was painfully aware of my inadequacy, and I lived in fear that soon my bosses would discover it too.
    
86. I quit and moved away before that happened, though.
    
87. I was a wedding photographer exactly once. That proved too stressy, too. You've only got one chance to get their blissful happy day memories right -- no, better than right; perfect! -- and besides, weddings bring out the CRAZIES in certain family members.
    
88. I've tried micro stock photography and have made exactly $8.25 so far at Crestock. Yay me!
    
89. They don't pay out until you get to ~$100 though, lol.
    
90. I worked for patent attorneys once! I think that counts as my most interesting job. And I worked with really great people, too.
    
91. That makes a HUGE difference in job satisfaction, I've found.
    
92. That and actually being qualified for what you get paid good money to do. ;-)
    
93. Hey, I just checked the attorneys' web site and discovered my old boss made partner! Yay him!
    
94. Let's see.... Almost done with the list....
    
95. My oldest daughter is giving another talk in church this weekend.
    
96. She's going to discuss ways in which she can be like Jesus: She can be a good example, be nice to people, forgive and try to do better when she makes bad choices, and help people who are sick or hurt or sad.
    
97. "Or dead!" (See: Lazarus, etc.) I told her she couldn't really help out with that one.
    
98. I'm trying to draw pictures of each of those things so that she can then color them and use them as a visual aid (aide? I'm never sure).
    
99. I don't draw very well. Dangit.
    
100. Oooh! Triple digits! Just one more list item to go!
     
101. Your final RCH factoid: It took me eleven days to make this list, lol. But I did it just for you.

~RCH~