25 Random Untrue Things About Me, Me, ME!!!

There's a meme going around via email and Facebook that asks you to list 25 random things about yourself so that your friends may learn things like that you love yellow M&M's best or that you were beaten severely as a child and still wet the bed. I don't know why I'm so resistant to doing this...Maybe because it seems so self-indulgent somehow. Not that I ever really participate in any of the Facebook friend applications like virtually throwing mac and cheese at your friends or buying someone a pretend drink--I don't get it.

Anyway, last night, I was having a little trouble falling asleep b/c at midnight, one of my neighbors decided to shovel his sidewalk for 25 minutes and a bunch of other people were frolicking in the streets and laughing and making snow men, so I started making up my list of "25 Random Untrue Things About Me That You Never Knew."

1. I have a baboon heart.

2. When I was a baby, we lived on a sheep farm and my mother fed me only on sheep's milk until I was three and a half.

3. My first word was "baaaa."

4. In high school, I was part of a religious pantomime group called Silent for Jesus. We performed the crucifixion scene in white face paint at local nursery schools using only our facial expressions and body language.

5. I am afraid of bunnies because I fell into the Lincoln Park Zoo's bunny pit during a second grade field trip.

6. My parents divorced when I was two, remarried when I was four, divorced again when I was in third grade, married one another's siblings when I turned 14, got divorced from them two years later, ran into each other again at a church potluck the following spring, re-re-married, formed a band, and I haven't heard from them since.

7. I have lived (however briefly) in every single state in America, and two provinces in Canada.

8. In 2004, I self-published a collection of philosophical limericks and haikus about being an only child called, Me, Am I Myself, and I.

9. I am color blind, but only to chartreuse.

10. My darkest fear is that I'm too shallow to have any real fears and this will make people think I'm less pretty than I really am.

11. Speaking of being self-absorbed, in a fit of vanity at age 15, I had the dentist remove all of my bottom teeth and replace them with my top teeth and vice versa.

12. I still mourn my pet goldfish, (missing and presumed dead) every single solitary day of my life that's not on the Gregorian calendar.

13. I find the films of Danny Devito to be highly over-rated.

14. My political views were shaped at an early age by the film Dressed to Kill starring Angie Dickinson. I have been against beige overcoats since, marched in 4 protests, and been arrested twice (on unrelated charges).

15. I have never had a broken bone, a nosebleed, menstrual cramps, a headache, cancer, hyper vigilance, vertigo, Lupus, a mosquito bite, cat scratch fever, the travel bug, sniffles, tumors, indigestion, crippling self doubt, a limp, or any allergies to anything. I do suffer from amnesia or that's at least what is says on this index card in my pocket.

16. My greatest joy in life comes from spending time with my two beautiful, precocious, and imaginary children, though I should confess I can't wait until they go to college so I can take up needlework again.

17. When I read a book, I first read it upside down and only skim the even numbered pages. The second time, I read it back to front, and then third time, I use it as a door stop.

18. I have won many prizes in my life (too many to list here), just a few of which include: my 3rd grade spelling bee, Best in Show, 154 games of Parcheesi, 2 Girl Scout badges (for: "Puppets, Dolls, and Plays," and "Rocks Rock"), the Red Badge of Courage, 4th place in the Gunny Sack race (totally rigged), a pack of cigarettes, the love of a good man, Preakness...but never my mother's love.

19. I was home-schooled as a kid but we lived inside of an elementary school so the two kind of negated one another. I consider myself my own best teacher, except when it comes to Latin and personal boundaries.

20. I do not believe in God, though I do pray to a large, invisible vibrating egg that circles just outside of our universe, sending down special messages that tell us what to do in any given situation, if we would only listen: i.e. WWTLVED?

21. I'm a descendant of a half-Irish Jewish man whose mother was one-third Mongolian and part Scottish and his father (my paternal grandfather) was part French/part Unitarian. My mother's mother's mother's mother's grandmother comes from fully German/Romanian/Czechoslovakian royalty which makes me 1/16 a duchess of a Slavic town somewhere.

22. I have not ever been in a rocket ship.

23. Favorite food: maple syrup. Least favorite food: maple juice (go figure).

24. I don't like: catching on fire, being hit in the face with objects, nearly drowning in small puddles, camping in freezing cold weather without an insulated tent, or animals gnawing on me.

25. I cry often, but only while looking in the mirror to see how green it makes my eyes look (very!)