Obligatory 100 things

I first posted on my original blog a year ago yesterday. I passed 100 posts there a while back, and I thought about doing the honorary "100 random facts about me" post at that time, but I never got around to it. I thought it might be interesting to begin this blog with that list. It is total stream of consciousness, in no order whatsoever, and might frighten some potential readers away. (If you missed my reasons for starting a second blog, you can read about that here.) I realize it's a little plain-looking around here, but I just moved in and haven't gotten around to decorating yet. I'm working on it.

1. I frequently Google friends I’ve lost touch with.
2. I am amazed at how many of my former friends can’t be found on the internet.
3. I lived in the same zip code until I went to college, and then I moved eleven times in five years.
4. I was incredibly boy crazy from a very early age.
5. I read once that your earliest memory of romantic interaction sets the tone for all future romantic interactions.
6. At six, I kissed the boy across the street when he came over to play with my brother.
7. He ran away and wouldn’t come back to our house for a long time.
8. Number five proved to be pretty much right on target.
9. I was a huge fan of Charlie's Angels when I was about ten years old.
10. I got in trouble for running around the neighborhood wearing my mom’s black half slip as a strapless dress while playing Charlie’s Angels.
11. I was Sabrina, the smart one.
12. I wrote a letter to our local TV station protesting the cancellation of Charlie’s Angels.
13. I received a reply telling me I should write the network.
14. I still have the letter in a scrapbook.
15. That scrapbook also contains the proof photo of Charles Perry that I stole from his desk when I was in sixth grade.
16. I was so crazy about him that I kept detailed notes about the clothes he wore every day for a month.
17. I clearly remember a number of those items of clothing.
18. But I don’t remember our teacher’s name.
19. Also in sixth grade, my friends and I wrote and acted out many theatrical productions based on our hatred of a popular mean girl in our class.
20. In seventh grade she got toxic shock syndrome and nearly died, and I felt guilty about those plays.
21. That same year Chris Poindexter caught me slipping one of many secret admirer notes into his locker.
22. I lied and said I was doing it for a friend.
23. In high school, I was one of the brainy kids.
24. Who also loved to party.
25. I’ve never done drugs.
26. But I drank right much beer in my misspent youth.
27. When I was sixteen my mother caught me buying beer at the convenience store across from where she met her carpool.
28. Clearly, I was not aware of where her carpool met.
29. My first job, at sixteen, was at a record store.
30. I worked there for four years.
31. It is still the coolest job I ever had.
32. One day when I was driving to work with the windows down, I hit a swarm of bees.
33. I was stung on the face multiple times.
34. The worst part was all the dead bees in the back of my car.
35. My second job was at a Marriott Hotel.
36. I worked there for six years.
37. I worked my way from Room Service to Front Desk Clerk to Supervisor to Management Trainee.
38. My career stalled and I found out my boss’ boss thought I didn’t fit the Marriott image because of my disability.
39. I should have sued.
40. I am not a litigious person.
41. I spent two years in Orlando working at another hotel.
42. I had to fire a girl because her shoes smelled so awful.
43. I came close to marrying someone I met in Orlando.
44. He cheated on me with my roommate.
45. I was much angrier with her than with him.
46. I frequently thank God for unanswered prayers.
47. I left college two classes short of my degree.
48. I went back and finished shortly after Ron and I got married.
49. My classmates made me wonder if I was that clueless when I was nineteen.
50. My classes were much easier without the partying I did the first time around.
51. I thoroughly enjoyed the partying, though.
52. I once went on the road with David Lee Roth (Van Halen) and his band.
53. It was just for one day.
54. They had seen a window display my friend George and I did at the store and asked us to decorate the “meet and greet” room at the next city where they were playing.
55. The hotel bar wouldn’t let me in because I was nineteen.
56. Until guitarist Steve Vai said, “She’s with us.”
57. I used to be cool.
58. I am so not cool anymore.
59. I’m mostly OK with that.
60. Ron and I met online back in 1992.
61. It was before the internet.
62. I wasn’t looking to meet anyone.
63. He was.
64. We didn’t exchange photos before we met.
65. He is seventeen years older than I am.
66. I didn’t find that out until we had decided to meet in person.
67. I had never been attracted to older men, so I thought about backing out of the meeting.
68. But I was already in love with him.
69. For our first date, we met at a restaurant halfway between our houses, a two-and-a-half hour drive for both of us.
70. For our second date, we spent a week in Guadeloupe.
71. We got married less than ten months later.
72. We’re still married, 15 years later.
73. In many ways we are total opposites.
74. But we complement each other well.
75. I am a serious night owl, and I come by it honestly.
76. I can call my parents or my brothers after midnight and know they’ll be up.
77. I had a happy childhood.
78. I was a bit of a drama queen.
79. Payback is hell: Both of my children are very dramatic.
80. My father can fix anything, and I thought all dads were that way.
81. My children’s dad is not that way.
82. I am proud to be a southern woman.
83. I recently learned that I’ve always spelled “y’all” incorrectly.
84. I do eat grits.
85. I need to lose 30 pounds.
86. Thinking about dieting sends me into a panicky eating frenzy.
87. I have had Cat Scratch Fever.
88. I have ridden in a hot air balloon. (Thanks, MB.)
89. I had multiple cats all my life.
90. Until I married Ron, who is allergic.
91. I have thanked him many times for saving me from a “crazy cat lady” life.
92. I love my dog.
93. I miss having a cat.
94. I am not the kind of mother I thought I’d be.
95. My children love me anyway.
96. My children are not the kind of children I thought I’d have.
97. I love them desperately.
98. Nothing about my life is the way I imagined it would be.
99. It is better than I ever imagined in so many ways.
100. I am so very blessed.