Divisions and Precisions

Joining the club...

This turned into a weird free association thing.

1. I was born about a month premature. I weighed 4 pounds. I've made up for it since.

2. My mom only gained three pounds when she was pregnant.

3. The umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, but apparently not enough to do damage.

4. My dad was 49 years old when I was born. When I was a kid, folks always thought he was my grandfather.

5. I had no hair until I was about three or four. My mom used to tape a barette to my head so folks would know I was a little girl.

6. Of course, then she turned right around when I was five and gave me such a short haircut that people always thought I was a boy.

7. One of my earliest memories is going to Boblo Island, a local amusement park. You got there by taking a huge boat across the Detroit River. I remember being terrified that the boat would sink and we'd drown, until my dad bought me a toy umbrella. That apparently made things all better, by the logic that umbrellas keep you dry.

8. The mailman once delivered me to my mother. He found me hanging off our backyard fence by my diaper. Apparently I'd tried to climb the fence and gotten stuck.

9. Our church preacher used to live across the street from us, and in fact, babysat me for a time. Consequently, I would often sit up and church and yell, "Hi Doug!" at the preacher during his sermon.

10. I had my tonsils out when I was four. This is also when I started to get chubby. I've often jokingly maintained that they told me I could eat all the ice cream I wanted, and I never stopped.

11. Weight has been a huge issue all of my life. The first time I went on Weight Watchers, I was eight years old. I spent most of my childhood on various diets, and eventually got the message that I wasn't good enough (because I couldn't succeed at losing weight), and that my body was something to be hated and feared.

12. I developed a perfectionist streak around this time as well.

13. One of my teachers once wrote on my report card, "Lisa is very sociable." I spent a lot of time trying to convince my mom that this was a good thing, and not just that I talked too much.

14. I learned to read when I was four, but nobody knows how I learned. I remember being in the car with my mom and grandma and pointing out to them that the store across the street was open 24 hours. When they asked how I knew that, I pointed at the sign. It was the first they knew that I could read.

15. I used to read our set of World Book Encyclopedias for fun.

16. I read Hamlet for the first time in fifth grade, and didn't understand much of it.

17. By seventh grade, I was doing much better.

18. I won a school spelling bee in middle school.

19. I had my first kiss when I was two weeks shy of 13. He was 18. That scares me now.

20. I lost my virginity at 19, on my wedding night.

21. I got married way too young.

22. I have every single episode of "The Monkees" on videotape. At least I used to. The tapes are pretty old.

23. I can still quote from them.

24. My dad died when I was 17.

25. I left for college three weeks after his funeral, under protest.

26. I spent several years involved in local community theatre, but only got cast in a school play once.

27. I had a pie thrown into my face in a play once.

28. I played Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I had three lines. I didn't die. It was the single worst play adaptation ever.

29. The best role I ever had was Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance. The best acting I ever did was as the lead in a short play called "The Death of Bessie Smith" by Edward Albee. I have both on tape.

30. Instead of going on dates (since we were poor college students), my ex-husband and I used to go to the practice rooms in the music department and sing together. Which eventually led to making out.

31. I've sung at several weddings.

32. I sang at my father's funeral.

33. I was interviewed on CNN once.

34. According to Mer and Julie, I snore really really loud. This is a fairly new development.

35. I'm a big slob.

36. I have the messiest car on the face of the planet. I am not exaggerating.

37. I talk obnoxiously to my cats.

38. I'm a procrastinator.

39. I've been to New York City twice, and Los Angeles three times. Despite living an hour from Canada, however, I've only been there three times.

40. I've never been off the continent.

41. All of my furniture, with the exception of one desk and my bookcases, was inherited from dead relatives.

42. I have the refrigerator contents of a bachelor.

43. I have no fashion sense.

44. I have huge, flat, wide feet. Size 10-11.

45. I've discovered the joy of playing with my hair color. Next time I'm tempted to go for a somewhat kooky color, like burgundy.

46. My right eyebrow is forked. I fell against a coffee table when I was young and my eyebrow doesn't grow where the scar is.

47. I graduated high school 20th out of a class of 375.

48. I turned around and almost bottomed out in college.

49. I've written one and a half novels, so far.

50. I daydream about writing full time.

51. I have frightening toenails.

52. I'm a feminist with occasional Marxist leanings.

53. As much as I'd love to get a Ph.D. and become a professor, I hate the notion of having to move all over the country to find a job.

54. Five years ago, I would've said that I'd never finish college.

55. I've moved back home to my mom three times since originally moving out: once when I was married, once after I left my ex, and once when I first started at Eastern.

56. I was depressed for five years before I was able to get successful treatment.

57. During the worst of my depression, I spent about 18 hours a day actively using the internet--this was pre-WWW days. I did absolutely nothing else.

58. I walked out on a therapist who insisted that I was fat because I was molested as a child.

59. I was spoiled as a child. The Christmas I got a television, I think I was about five years old. Somewhere in there I got my first typewriter.

60. I wrote my first story when I was eleven.

61. Watching my "nephew" Justin's birth was one of the most profound experiences of my life.

62. I used to want to be a stay at home mom.

63. I was heartbroken when I learned at age eight that I could never be a ballerina.

64. I used to think people would go to hell for having sex.

65. The first time I got drunk I was 23 years old.

66. My favorite show as a kid was "Fame". I used to fantasize about going to the New York School of the Performing Arts.

67. I used to sleepwalk.

68. I emceed the school talent show in high school.

69. I've never had a normal period in my life. No doctor has ever seemed terribly concerned about this.

70. I'm frightened by the idea that I might be infertile.

71. I once sang at Carnegie Hall in New York.

72. Has anyone actually read this far?

73. I'm turning into an obsessed fangirl late in life.

74. I often wonder if I'm not a touch immature for my age. I don't feel 30.

75. I think I'm addicted to movie theatre popcorn.

76. I despise reality TV.

77. I'm so lazy, I can't believe I got this far with this list.

78. I was only punished in school three times, and two of those times were in elementary school. I got a detention in middle school for not bringing a signed progress report back in. I just forgot.

79. I am often a very angry person. I repress a lot.

80. Fat jokes make me angry. Unless I make them about myself.

81. Despite the anger, I go to extreme lengths to avoid conflict.

82. When I found out that Dream Pod 9 wanted to publish my first book, I sat down and screamed.

83. I was in the single worst production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd that was ever mounted.

84. I had a poodle perm when I was in 7th grade.

85. I have always been a geek.

86. The best theatrical production I ever saw was when the Royal Shakespeare Company do a series of Shakespeare's histories in 2001 in Ann Arbor.

87. I had the chicken pox twice.

88. I have a heart murmur.

89. My first job was at Burger King when I was 15.

90. My first car was a 1985 Buick Skylark. I adored that car.

91. I taught preschool for three years.

92. I've been in an interracial relationship. My southern family was not amused.

93. I have no idea how normal dating works. I've never done it.

94. I have bad handwriting. One of my teachers once told my mom my brain moved too fast for my hand to keep up. My mom didn't buy it.

95. I am tickled to death to finally be a college senior.

96. Before I bought denim leggings this past fall, I hadn't worn jeans in over ten years.

97. I used to be agoraphobic. I only left the house at night.

98. The only movie I've ever walked out on was Ishtar.

99. I get choked up for the weirdest reasons. Kleenex commercials have made me cry.

100. I have two collections: unicorn figurines and stuffed seals.

Weird dream

I think I dreamt about my ex-husband all night. Or even weirder, I dreamt that I dreamt about my ex-husband.

In my dream, we ran into each other again, and started talking, and it seemed like we were on the verge of getting back together. We talked over a lot of the bad stuff that happened while we were married, and I realized how much I missed him. Then I woke up, and started thinking how weird it was that I dreamt about him. In fact, I came here and posted about it--and somewhere in there realized that I was STILL DREAMING.

It was all so vivid, it's stayed with me all day. I remember standing in the last apartment we lived in, and both of us apologizing for how awful the last year of our marriage was. It seemed like we were about to kiss, then I 'woke up'. Honestly thought I was awake, I was in my own bed, surrounded by the cats, and everything. I think when I was typing in my livejournal entry I started to realize that I was still dreaming. I don't think I've ever had a dream within a dream before. It was very weird.

I felt so close to him. It made me realize how distant I am to most people now. Even the people I'm close to, I keep out on some level. I don't know when it happened, and I don't know how to fix it. There's a lot of fear here. The internet has, in a lot of ways, given me a chance to open up without a lot of risk. Here, I can be close to people without really being close to them. I've said it before, elsewhere, with internet friends, I have absolute control over what they see of me. That's probably one reason why it's so appealing to me. I guess I'm covering old ground. I just keep forgetting this. The idea of having intimacy issues just doesn't fit in with my self-image of myself. I think of myself as being so open.

Grar. Socially inept. That's me.