the self-indulgent 100

Gentle reader,
As much as doing so made my skin crawl, I have put together a list of 100 things about me. For you. It's a tradition, albeit an ancient one in blog time, which I hope explains away the most vainglorious post my brain can imagine. Without further ado, a glimpse into my darkest corners. For all to read on the internet. Great.

1. Except for baby animals, there are few foods I won’t eat.
2. I last ate veal in 1995. I thought it was chicken. It was delicious.
3. I pretend that I’m an organized person, but in truth I always feel scattered. I think I fool some people on this count, while others will be not surprised in the least to hear this. Does everyone feel this way?
4. Amelie is one of a short list of movies of which I could never tire.
5. In general, I don’t like to watch movies (or read books) over and over again. I’d rather try something new.
6. If I don’t like a book, I won’t finish it. I labored through all but the last 40 pages of Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune, and I’m not even curious about the ending.
7. A warm dog curled in my lap is the best therapy.
8. I take my coffee with cream and sugar.
9. But I’d probably rather drink tea.
10. I don’t understand people who don’t love food.
11. I always wanted to take piano lessons but never got around to it.
12. Haven’t gotten around to it yet, I should say.
13. The most challenging course I took in college was Oceanography. My mind is not cut out for science, yet it was one of my most memorable courses.
14. The smell of garlic and ginger sautéing in butter is one of the finest I know.
15. Smell, in general, is the most sensitive of senses for me. Before I buy a new piece of clothing, for example, I sniff it. I want to know if it smells like a factory or someone’s hands or plastic wrapping or a musty basement.
16. When I was a baby, a sheepskin lined the bottom of my crib. I carted Meep around with me for the next few years, burying my nose in its fur. My parents took it away from me one night, but I quickly found a stuffed animal to take its place. By coincidence, the sole surviving scrap of Meep is sitting on the desk next to me at this very moment.
17. I hate talking on the phone. It is a challenge for me to stay in touch with people who don’t use e-mail.
18. Over the years, I’ve wrecked a few significant friendships due to personal flaws other than my phone-talking skills. I miss those friends and their presence in my life.
19. I’d rather live in an apartment that is sunny than spacious.
20. The first things I noticed when I met Burton was his big blue eyes.
21. I fell for him hard on our second date, when he cooked me dinner.
22. He still cooks for me. And I am still falling for him.
23. There are few foods I don’t like. But if I were to make a list, it would include tongue, headcheese, and the sorts of pates that taste like dirt.
24. In high school, I played soccer, softball, and ran track—and I was no better than mediocre at any of them.
25. Oysters on the half shell? Absolutely. Clams? No thanks.
26. I prefer to take the stairs over the escalator, and I’d always rather walk than drive.
27. When it rains and earthworms wash up on the sidewalks, it is impossible for me not to toss at least a few of the healthy looking ones back onto the soil. I remember a children’s book in which a character chucked one of many beached starfish back into the ocean. “You’re not making a difference,” another character chided, “look at how many are out here.” The starfish-tosser pointed to the one settling back into the water and responded, “But I did make a difference to that one.” Earthworms drowning on the sidewalk always bring that to my mind, though I wish I could remember what book it was.
28. My compassion for bugs does NOT extent to those many-legged creatures that find their way up my bathroom drain.
29. The national anthem makes me cry. Always.
30. So do marching bands.
31. I am a softie.
32. I heart cheese. Of all kinds.
33. New England, for me, is almost perfect: It has ocean and islands and chowder and autumn and smart people and old houses and a wicked pissah accent. But I’d give my left eyebrow to drop it 100 miles closer to my family.
34. I type fast and with accuracy. I learned in summer school, with Mr. Krieger.
35. I am not a list maker. When I do make lists, I forget to look back at them to check my progress. Instead, I make a new list. Which I never look at again.
36. When people ask me if I loved college, I always think of the death of my roommate a week before the start of our junior year. In truth, I spent much of college wallowing. But that’s not the answer people are looking for when they ask, so I usually say it was a great time.
37. I still think about her often.
38. The semester after she died, I helped organize a memorial service on campus. I found a florist about 20 miles away to supply us with flowers for the service. With the buckets of flowers crammed into every available space in the car and while driving on unfamiliar roads, I slammed on the brakes for a red light, which caused many, many gallons of water to be liberated from their containers and flushed through the car. If you’ve ever ridden the Log Flume, you know the kind of wave I’m describing. Alone in the car, soaked, I laughed until I almost peed myself.
39. I can be quite morose.
40. Six Feet Under and Arrested Development are (were) the best shows on television.
41. I have major crushes on Jason Bateman and Peter Krause.
42. American’s Funniest Home Videos always makes me laugh. I’m not proud of it, but cats falling off ledges and people crashing on sleds make for good watching.
43. When we were kids, my sister and I practiced movie-star-style kissing with our best buddies across the street. I thought it was slimy and did not like it. At all.
44. As cliché as it sounds, I’d rather do what I love than make money.
45. I doubt I will ever make a lot of money.
46. I felt more pride in the piles of vegetables I helped produce this summer than the lion’s share of the work I’ve produced in my career so far.
47. My sister and I fought day and night when we were growing up. I always felt less cool, clever, and cruel than her.
48. Now we’re very close, even though I know my habits still annoy her and hers me.
49. I never knew my mother’s mother, but I have ideas about what her voice sounded like.
50. I’ve almost forgotten the sound of my other grandmother’s voice, but I can clearly picture her hands and remember her smell.
51. When I was in the third grade, I pooped in my pants and hid my crappy underwear behind the garbage can in the bathroom. For the longest time, my sister tried to leverage this fact against me in front of other people, but now that I’ve shared it with you, Internet, her weapon is disarmed! Everyone knows!
52. I can’t help but stare at people while riding the subway.
53. “I want my two dollars!”
54. I have little sympathy for people who use their/there incorrectly.
55. As much as I’ve tried to remember the rule, I bungle the distinction between lay/lie, so I try to avoid using those words altogether.
56. Sleep always comes easily for me.
57. When I was in high school, I wore a retainer at night. One morning, I woke up and couldn’t find it anywhere. I later found the retainer tucked in the cassette player, on the opposite side of my room.
58. I wonder what else I do in my sleep.
59. I love artistic handwriting.
60. My own penmanship is crap.
61. Why anyone would read all of this is beyond me.
62. I saw American Werewolf in London when I was much too young, and I was never the same afterwards. More jittery, mostly, and terrified of open fields at night.
63. For many years, I watched how people walked up stairs because I thought that if I hit the same stair with the same foot, I would turn out like that person. Conversely, if I used the opposite foot, I would turn out differently. It was time consuming and somewhat depressing to always think about whether or not I wanted to be like the person ahead of me on the stairs.
64. When a bartender asks me what I’d like to drink, my mind goes blank, even though I’m expecting the question. I usually just ask for what someone else has ordered.
65. Things I love: The Triplets of Belleville, drivers who stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk, fondling yarns in a knitting store, scallops wrapped in bacon, and seeing people smile to themselves.
66. Things I cannot love: Cell phones, mean kids, aggressive drivers, and the Republican party.
67. Things I cannot understand: Adults who don’t know how to swim, opposition to gay marriage, and people who don’t try new foods (see #9).
68. My relationship with my dad has long been complicated and difficult, but with every visit it gets better and better.
69. I love finding treasures in other peoples’ trash.
70. I wish I were better at getting rid of my own trash.
71. Based on the way I speak, people often ask if I’m from the Midwest.
72. My face often reminds people of other people they know.
73. Slipping between clean sheets on a Sunday night is heavenly.
74. The best part of any meal is dessert.
75. If I had to choose whether my superpower would be flight or invisibility, I would by flying my ass to Fiji faster than you can utter the phrase, “wind burn.”
76. Anyone who claims they don’t like tater-tots is lying.
77. My nicknames over the years have included Monchichi, Stinker, Pookie, Poof, Jenny-honey, Big J, and, meant unkindly, McFartland.
78. I am often late. In fact, another of my nicknames was LM Jen, for “last-minute.”
79. For third grade, I attended an elementary school in Canada, where we had outdoor track and field competitions when we weren’t under multiple feet of snow. I did the standing long jump, an event that involves standing in place, swinging your arms three times to build momentum, and praying for a brisk wind at the moment of take-off. I remember watching a competitor from another school whose arms were about half the usual length and thinking, “At least I’ve got this guy beat.”
80. I wish I could forgive myself for unkind things I said to people long ago.
81. I can’t stand Julia Roberts.
82. Scorpios scare me.
83. I get indignant about SUVs.
84. Am not good at remembering details.
85. I look much younger than I am and don’t mind this fact in the slightest.
86. I like my nose.
87. My mom is a wicked-good cook.
88. I feel incredibly vain, making this list.
89. Once, after riding the Round Up at the Our Lady of Peace fair, I barfed. My downfall was going on that nausea-inducing swing ride beforehand.
90. I was once fired from a job and, as humiliating as it was, I think everyone should experience that particular shame.
91. I had never worked as hard as I did for that piece-of-crap job.
92. I still regret losing the down vest that my mother made for me as a tot and which I left in a public restroom somewhere. I wonder if it’s on the bottom of a landfill now, or whether it’s keeping some other kid’s core temperature up?
93. I love getting new haircuts and rearranging the furniture—both give me a new outlook on life.
94. Although I am fairly crafty, I am not nearly as handy as my husband, for whom I am grateful every day.
95. Sometimes I worry that my hearing is going bad.
96. I have one surviving grandparent, with whom I am not at all close. He is a cranky old bugger.
97. Why would anyone want to attend a bullfight? I don’t get it.
98. Ice cream: Much of it, and often.
99. I love wrapping presents.
100. The fact that you are reading this embarrasses me to no end.

Now it's your turn.