Tentative Equinox

In honour of my 100th post, here are 100 things about me. Some of it will be redundant if you’ve followed the first 99 posts, but I guess you will just have to live with that since coming up with 100 interesting and semi-interesting things about me is…well, really hard. And to satisfy my brother’s meme wherein I was supposed to list 6 quirky things about me, I’ve included those in this list (I know it’s cheating, but really, how much can you bear learning about me?) I shall bold what I feel to be the quirky things. Feel free to dispute my quirky choices in the comments and try not to be too annoyed with all the links as I was just trying to be helpful.

1. I am a Pisces born on the ides of March.
2. I married an Aquarian born on Valentine’s Day.
3. I met my husband at a pool.
   

   Pool at Simon Fraser University

   He came in to ask if Water Polo would be there that night. It wasn’t.

4. Shortly after we started dating, I watched him cross a road and knew I would marry him.  
5. We had our first kiss here:
   

   Lost Lagoon Bridge in Stanley Park

    and he proposed to me 5 years later on that same spot.

6. I love water. I would be a mermaid if I could.
7. I was a prime number when I had all three of my children: 29, 31, and 37.
8. I have 4 brothers and 3 sisters. All from the same parents who have been married since 1965.
9. I have played a sprite, an airy spirit, a wizard, a devil, a magical snake, a giant, and a fairy queen. No mermaids though.
10. Although, I did play a woman who drowned herself and left only the message “I am feeding the fish.”
11. I’ve played quite few crazies too.
12. I have run the Sun Run twice. Well, walked and jogged it really.
13. I don’t like the words moist, blog, pus, or zit.
14. I do like the words melancholy, vox, flummoxed, luminous, sylvan, and obstreperous.
15. If I were a Pooh character, I would be Piglet. 
    

    Pooh and Piglet

     

16. If I were a Muppet, I would be Beaker. 
    

    Beaker

     

17. If I were a Disney princess, I would be Ariel. 
    

    Ariel

     

18. If I were a Peanuts character, I would be Lucy. 
    

    Lucy

     

19. In my next life I’m hoping to be tall.
20. In Myers Briggs personality profile, I am in INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving). Yep, I’m all down one side of the table.
21. My husband and I dated for six years before we got married.
22. We got married on the anniversary of our first date — October 16 (also the birthday of my paternal grandfather).
23. According to Chinese astrology, I am a Sheep, and my element is Fire. I think it’s interesting that these things seem to contradict each other, as I also feel I am a creature of contradictions (remember the symbol of Pisces is two fish swimming in opposite directions). Plus what’s with the combination of being both a Water and Fire?
24. I have a Kevin Bacon score of 3.
25. In my personal life, I am good at making a plan and terrible at following it.
26. The only thing I am consistent at is inconsistency. (Again, only in my personal life. I am a great employee.)
27. I can read a book in a day. A day and a half if it’s a long book. I do this more often than I should.
28. I probably spend more money on books than clothes.
29. I have worked in the offices of a food processing plant, a wood preservation company (preserving through creosote, not forest protection), a helicopter maintenance facility, a computer-based-training organization, and a continuing education academy for dentists.
30. I am the oldest child of two parents who are also oldest children. I married an oldest child.
31. Everyone in my family has a birthday buddy–someone who was born within 5 days of the other: Sis2 and Mom: Jan 24 and 26. Me and Sis1: March 15 and 17. Sis3 and Bro1: April 3 and 4. Bro4 and Dad: July 4 and 7. Bro2 and Bro3: October 25 and 29.
32. Jane Eyre is my favourite book of all time. I only read it at the behest of my very literary paternal grandfather. I now own that copy from his library plus two other editions.
33. I am afraid of horses.
34. My three closest friends would likely not be close friends with each other.
35. My first album purchase was Heart of Glass by Blondie.
36. My three best book finds on the Chapters discount shelves were: Tex and Molly in the Afterlife, Colors Insulting to Nature, and The Time Traveller’s Wife. These are books I bought because they were cheap and looked interesting, but knew nothing about them before I bought them.
37. My best feature is my hair. Does hair qualify as a feature?
38. I love watching modern dance, but I hate watching ballroom dancing.
39. I can juggle.
40. I went to Catholic School from grade 3 to grade 12.
41. I am allergic to codeine. When I have codeine my face swells up like a puffer fish, and I look like I could have a bit part in the third installment of Babe.
42. I have a diploma in Human Resources Management
43. I must have one of the longest degree names in the history of degree names, here it is: I earned a Bachelor of Arts with a Double Major in English and the Fine Performing Arts (Concentration, Acting).
44. I have put my hands in the Trevi Fountain. 
    

    Trevi Fountain

     

45. I have put my whole body in the reflecting pool in the quadrangle of Simon Fraser University. 
    

    Reflecting Pool at SFU Burnaby campus

     

46. I have eaten haggis (although it was more of a McHaggis, since it was deep-fried)
47. These self-help books actually changed the way I look at life: Women Who Run with the Wolves, The Art of Possibility and How to Be Free
48. If I could choose to live somewhere other than Vancouver, it would probably be Edinburgh.
49. I have had a tonsillectomy, two c-sections, and a kidney-stone blasting.
50. I LOATHE the expression “My bad.”  Every time I hear it I have to restrain the urge to SMACK the utterer upside the head.
51. My kids have had swimming lessons at the same pool at which I taught swimming lessons, which is the same pool where I learned to swim.
52. I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. But have lived in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia most of my life.
53. I watched a lightning storm outside the Radcliffe Camera with Tentative Equinox South 
    

    Radcliffe Camera

     

54. Three of my favourite television shows contain a direction in the title: Northern Exposure, Due South, and The West Wing. I wonder where is my East?
55. I have hoisted a beer in the Eagle and Child, which is the pub the Inklings used to meet.
56. I was born in the year of the Summer of Love (I guess I was the springtime lead in–sort of like a warm up act).
57. I can find a metaphor anywhere.
58. I actually heard someone say to a Gondolier in Venice, with a thick Texan accent (the tourist, not the gondolier) “Do you speak American?”
59. Despite the fact that it’s ridiculed on the website Stuff White People Like, (although I will note that the author of that website has now written a book) I have written two chapters of a novel. I may even finish it one day, if I can garner enough energy and focus.
60. My schoolgirl crushes included Shaun Cassidy, Apollo (from Battlestar Galactica) and Frank Hardy (in either book or television form). 
    

    Richard Hatch as Apollo on Battlestar Galactica

     

61. My schoolgirl crushes that went on to be adult woman crushes include Sting and Harrison Ford.
62. I have only been skiing once, and I’m scared to do it again.
63. I once worked in a place where the women and the men sat at separate tables. Intentionally. It was an unwritten rule, but you would be reminded if you broke it.
64. I make things too complicated.
65. I have flown on a trapeze in Sam Keen’s back 40. In addition to a trapeze, he also had turkeys. I found the turkeys to be scarier than the trapeze.
66. I don’t like umbrellas. I would rather walk in the rain. As a matter of fact, I like walking in the rain.
67. I have flown in a helicopter.
68. My most amazing theatre watching experience was seeing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream at the Royal National Theatre in London as directed by the Great Canadian Wunderkind, Robert LePage. The set was a giant mud-puddle and Puck was played by a French-Canadian contortionist. I had GREAT dreams that night. 
    

    The set of A Midsummer Night's dream by Michael Levine

     

69. I can drive a standard.
70. Although it’s heresy, I don’t like the novels written by John Steinbeck or Joseph Conrad.
71. Someone once lost their job because I could the job better than they could. I honestly had not intended that to happen, hadn’t even considered it a possibility.
72. I have sprayed liquid chlorine in my eyes. It was an accident okay? This was my first indication that I might be an ideas-gal.
73. My second-most amazing theatre watching experience was seeing a Scottish translation of Cyrano de Bergerac at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival by the Communicado Theatre Company. Translation done by Edwin Morgan. Directed by Gerry Mulgrew. Cyrano played by Tom Mannion. Instead of the traditional long nose, they modelled the nose after some kind of diseased nose found in a medical textbook. Yucky, but brilliant.
74. If I were one of Charlie’s Angels, I would be Sabrina Duncan (Kate Jackson). 
    

    Kate Jackson as Sabrina Duncan

     

75. If I were on the Scooby-Doo team, I would be Velma. 
    

    Velma

     

76. I earned an A+ in my acting class during our Shakespeare semester.
77. I have never been cast in a Shakespearean play outside of university.
78. I wear orthotics.
79. My favourite book as a child was Beyond the Paw Paw Trees.
80. I love my job, my 2 bosses, the company I work for, the product we make, and the location of my office. How great is that?
81. I was downsized once. I was offered the same job back four months later. I declined.
82. I’ve done a 7-day liquid fast.
83. I was a singing hostess at Romano’s Macaroni Grill.
84. I played a mascot for one week by the name of Cleaver the Beaver.
85. I worked the Army and Navy’s annual shoe sale for two weeks. Insanity. There was an actual countdown to opening over the intercom and the sale clerks flattened themselves against the walls to avoid being run over in the stampede.
86. I am pretty good at dream interpretation.
87. As I get older, I get worse hangovers from garlic than booze. That sucks. I’m not saying that I can drink unscathed, but I will suffer more from three cloves of garlic than three glasses of wine.
88. I actually enjoy office work. It satisfies the part of my brain that also likes doing a sheet of multiplication problems. There’s something about the problem-solving, symmetry, and blank filling-in that I enjoy.
89. I cannot get through a Henry James novel.
90. I have never done any drugs. The only cigarettes I smoked were for a role–Wang, the Waterseller, in the Good Woman of Szechwan.
91. I ate lunch in/on the Eiffel Tower 
    

    Eiffel Tower, Paris (photo courtesy of Freefoto.com)

     

92. I cannot eat blueberries. They make me gag. My sister is the same way. We believe that it is a gene that we both inherited.
93. I have learned not to believe “That will never happen to me or my family.”
94. My favourite roles have been Ariel from The Tempest, Mad Margaret from Ruddigore and the Fairy Queen from Iolanthe.
95. The worst job I ever had was a two-week stint in the data entry offices of a department store chain entering shipping manifests for 8 hours per day.
96. The last but most useful class I took at University was Rhetoric.
97. I love getting pedicures.
98. I’m trying to eliminate the word “like” from my vocabulary unless I’m like saying that I like appreciate something or it’s like similar to something you know like it.
99. I took an accounting class after working in offices for 8 years. Learning about credits and debits and balance sheets was like discovering the Rosetta Stone to me. Finally! It all makes sense!
100. I had no idea how much having kids changes you. Or how much you could love another person.

If you made it this far, I congratulate you. I almost didn’t get here myself and I have a somewhat vested interest. Can I ask, was there anything on the list that surprised you?