1. I love blue raspberry anything but won’t eat it because it turns my tongue blue and I think I’m too old to have a blue tongue
2. At work, I generally wait until the very last minute to go to the bathroom and then have to do the pee-pee dance all the way down my aisle to the ladies’ room
3. I a degree in visual communication from the Art Institute that only presented job opportunities to lay out newspaper ads.
4. I wanted to be a tattoo artist but was never confident in my ability to ink something on someone that would last forever.
5. I have a fascination with cemeteries and old grave stones.
6.I really have to go pee RIGHT NOW but am holding it in and wiggling in my seat until I finish this sentence.
7. The only illegal thing I ever did was co-hort with two other people and cash a stolen check. Not that it’s an excuse but it was done because the rent needed to be paid and even though it was winter, the utilities had already been turned off. On top of that, my oldest Shepard had just given birth to 6 puppies. Almost 20 years later, it still sits on my conscience. I was questioned, but not charged. The Mindless Minion held that over my head until the day we divorced. And even after, actually.
8. I never “stole” anyone’s boyfriend.
9. They guy I went to my prom with was so obviously gay but i was so obviously in love with him that I refused to see it. I didn’t want to go to my prom but my friends.. and the gay dude.. forced me into it and all my purple taffeta drama. The prom was canceled the first time because of 36″ of snow :: God was definately giving me a hint! :: and when it was rescheduled, my “date” had had a hemorrhoid operation the week before. I had to drive us to the prom where I promptly hit a a concrete median causing the tire to go flat. Oh.. and the spare was flat too. We wound up walking to the prom where my date promptly passed out in the lobby from pain and the good nuns from my all-girl catholic high school gave him a room to rest. They barricaded that door with barbed wire, claymore explosives and a bouncing betty two because obviously they wouldn’t admit to themselves that he was gay either! He made an appearance for the official picture and then we took a cab home ending my prom night at roughly 9:45p
10. I was in love with Peter DeLuise :: 21 jump Street :: and still feel a flutter when I find episodes of the show on the internet.
11. I had a pen pal when I was a teenager that lived in Piedmont, California named Francie Sullivan. She was a year older then me, I think, but was just. so. freakin. cool. She used to vacation in Hawaii and her mother had ANOTHER STORY built onto their house. I don’t remember why we lost touch but we did. If you read this, Francie.. contact me.
12. I love raw dough and as a child, ingested about 4 loaves of easter bread my mother had on the stove to raise. It rose alright. In my stomache. I had to be rushed to the ER because I couldn’t breath and when they pumped my stomache and started extracting long taffy-like sections of dough, my mother almost killed me. Apparently, that happening is beyond an oddity but it happened to me. I wish I could get the medical records just to prove to the people who just nod their head like “yeeeaaaa… riiiigggghhhtt”
13. I once suffered “hysterical blindess” .. it was during a particularly bad agrument with my ex and I remember screaming at the top of my lungs and then I just couldn’t see anymore. My sight returned about 2 hours later during the wait in the ER but it was a scaring experience.
14. Years ago when my family and my uncles extended family used to rent a house down the shore, my cousin and I wrote our names behind the mirror in the bedroom. Wonder if it’s still there.
15. I was the only one of my cousins that wasn’t pregnant when I got married. Come to think of it both my mother’s children married because they wanted to.. not had to.
16. Both sides of my family are from the same little town in the same region of Italy.. so I am truly 100% FBI ;)
17. I wanted to be a photographer but couldn’t afford school.. instead I went to the Art Institute on a scholarship but at the time, they didn’t have a photography program. I also have my license is cosmotology but hated it.
18. I fell into my current career as an IT Business Anlayst by accident. I started working at a national .. probably world .. health insurance company because my student loads were due. I worked my way up the ladder and then switched over to the hospital side. Since revenue is not necessarily the most important thing an IT department has on their list in a hospital, I got tired of waiting for the stuff I needed to learned to do them myself. The first health system I worked for created a position for me and then I was head hunted by another health system that doubled my yearly salary.
19. Nothing on my dinner plate can touch each other unless they were meant to be mixed together :: ie: corn and mashed potatoes ::. The thought of eating something that has even the residual amount of another food on it makes me lost my appetite.
20. I eat thing seperately and in the order of least liked to most liked. For example, if there is Chicken, Mashed Potatos and Brussel Sprouts on my plate :: not touching, of course :: then I’ll eat all of the chicken first.. then the sprouts.. then the mashed. I annoy alot of people who eat with me and wind up making 70 million trips to a buffet line. I do the same thing with Skittles and Starbursts and the like. All one color first!
21. I was conceived as one of a set of twins. The other baby died at around 5 months and 43 years ago, the only option was to carry both to term and induce labor. I can’t imagine how my mother must have felt having to do this.. knowing that regardless of how happy she was to give birth.. she would be also have to mourn a loss. I was born two weeks early, on June 26th .. a date actually predicted by one of my mom’s neighbor’s friends who was semi-psychic :: or so she claimed :: One night she was visiting and she told my mother that they would be having my father’s birthday cake in the hospital. Low and behold, they did. I was born on my dad’s birthday.
22. I have a HUGE heart and compassion for animals :: especially dogs and horses :: and even the thought of something bad brings me to tears. Even cartoons or animatron movies have an affect one me. Years ago, I went to see the movie The Bear. It was a matinee filled with Sunday dads and their kids. Not five minutes into the movie.. where the momma bear dies leaving the cub alone.. I lost it and had to leave the theater. I’m actually tearing up right now thinking about it. Everyone in my house knows that when the ASPCA commercial comes on playing Sara McLaughlin’s “Angel” to turn it off or change the channel because I WILL become a puddle of heaping sobs.
23. One thing on my “Bucket List” is to spend time at the Best Friend’s Animal Refuge in Utah.
24. German Shepards are my favorite breed but all my dogs have been strays that found me.
25. My grandfather’s cousin is/was a famous bronze artist in Italy and Venezuela. There is even a street named after him.
26. I sway from left to right when I stand. It’s genetic.. my whole family does it. If you’re around us and you are prone to sea sickness… you may want to NOT be around us!
27. The Mindless Minion and I hold a US Patent for a devise that allows you to escape if you were locked in a trunk of a car. This was in the 90’s when trunk deaths were becoming the norm. All the car manufacturers passed on it until one summer when 9 kids died in the trunks of GM vehicles. GM then came out with a device that they literally stole from us but because they found a loop hole in a two letter word written into the patent document, it was perfectly legal. We didn’t have any money to fight it but would have lost anyway. So whenever you rent a car, check the trunk latch. If there’s an internal trunk release on it, think of me because I hold that patent.
28. We got alot of press locally for the invention.. primarily because of the circumstances involving one victim that put the idea into the Mindless Minions head. But we were also on Dateline NBC. We filmed at my uncle’s house and it was an experience that I will never forget. I used to have all the behind the scene stuff on tape but the idiot destroyed it in a fit of anger.
29. I dont’ have earlobes. My ears go right into my head so I don’t have that little flappy thing at the bottom. Therefore.. as much as I love them.. I can’t wear hoop earrings. Instead of hanging straight, they kind of angle out and I look like one of those chimp toys that you wind up and it bangs the symbols together.
30. I get my love of reading from my dad who always sat on the lounge chair with a book in his lap. In fact, I used to get more excited about the Reader’s Digest Condensed books then he did and was reading Smithsonian magazine when I was 9.
31. I was always artistic.. always had a pencil in my hand.. or marker.. or crayons. The spray paint didn’t come until later on!! I can also write with both hands
32.I’m a very non-judgemental person :: usually :: and have a high degree of tolerance :: most times ::
33.No matter how much anti-frizz product I use in my hair, it always frizzes when it rains
34. I’m not that much of a girly girl that I can’t find a ton of things better to do then to sit in a salon to get my hair done so once I get the urge to cut my hair, I have to get it done THEN. One time, I had an appointment and was there earlier enough but was told that the stylist was running behind schedule because of a perm. I thought that when the perm was finished I woudl be nexted but there was still ANOTHER woman in front of me. I had no desire to wait that long but couldn’t stand my hair any more so I went home.. got the dog clippers and shaved my almost mid-back length hair all off. It was very liberating, I’ll tell you what!1 The funnies was when my mom first saw it. I used to take her food shopping every Thursday night and when I pulled up to her house she told me that I looked like a lesbian. I laughed but when we got to the market, I make sure that I locked my arm in hers and said loudly, “.. so honey, what do you want me to make you for dinner?”. She was mortified. Hysterical.
35. I have been wearing Converse All-Stars :: Chucks :: since way before they became fashionable. I also buy them in the men’s department because they were 20.00 cheaper then in the Ladies’ department.
36. I once had a job writing erotic scripts for a 900 number for 75.00 a script. That included actually recording it. The who was doing it owned a jewerly store and had this recording set up in his basement. I think I wrote about 5 scripts and as I was reading them, he started getting a hard on so my ex kaboshed that career opportunity!
37. I have no issues with people meeting on the internet. To me, it’s like meeting someone in a store or in a park or something. There’s always the potential of meeting a wacko regardless of where you find them.. but there’s also the opportunity of finding something real.
38.I have this morbid fascination with picking stuff on my body.. pimples, scabs, blackheads.. gross, I know but what can I say?
39. My left boob is a cup size bigger then my right boob. I used to be really, really embarrassed by came to terms with it. Whenever I would start dating someone and there was a potential that there might eventually be some intimacy, I used to tell them that I got one regular and one super-sized and if they couldn’t deal then see ya. No one ever had a problem with it.
40. I’ll wear the same color toe nail polish the whole summer because I just can’t be bothered with the whole taking off the old and putting on the new.. however… I am a fanatic about having great looking feet in the summer.
41. I once started to get involved with a guy who was a big wig at a local nationally-known natural history museum until it became known that he had a smoking fetish :: he would get aroused watching people smoke :: and would get off on stories where the “mother” would be alittle more then suggestive with her “son”. Yep. That didn’t last long.
42. I’m pretty openned minded :: some would say freaky :: regarding sex but some things I can’t get past. One of my very first boyfriends was in a band and had his own place so I was there.. a lot! It was my birthday and I went over for dinner and he had this present for me. I openned it up and could see right away that it was lingerie. Black lace and deep blue satin corset, crotchless panties and fish net thigh highs. I took the corset out of the box to hold it up and it was about 3 sizes too big. I must have made a face because he asked me if I liked it. I told him I did.. but it was too big for me. He gave me this sly smile and said it wasn’t for ME it was for HIM. I was still young and naive that and didn’t get what he was saying so he flat out told me that it was for him to wear the next time we had sex. It dawned on me then that the drawer full of lingerie that I found looking for a tee-shirt was NOT the left overs from groupies past but HIS. I put everything back in the box and said SEE YA. He used to howl like Wolfman Jack when he came too so yknow.. that was too much disturbia for me!
43. I’ve convinced myself that having to euthanize an animal is in reality, giving them the gift of sleep. The best gift you can give in return for years of loyalty. One of the saddest days of my life was when my old neighbor saw a man tie a German Shepard to a tree in the park next to my house and then drive off. My neighbor.. another animal lover.. went over and saw that this dog was only about a year old male. Since I already had three dogs (two shepards, one shep mixed) she figured I wouldn’t mind one more. And really, I didn’t. But it turned out that this dog who probably had never had the love I poured on it in the first three hours.. became very protective of me .. even towards my ex and my other dogs to the extent that I had to keep him on a leash so that he wouldn’t attack my girls :: the three dogs I already had :: The plan was to have him fixed in hopes that his testosterone would be curved but I knew that he was way too aggressive and spastic. I also knew that eventually, I would not be able to keep him annd that meant either finding a new home or a shelter. The cycle was going to keep happening for this poor animal and I didn’t have it in my heart to knowing chance that he’d get a good, patient home when in reality, I knew that those chances were slim. So I went to my vet’s office :: my god, you should see the tears coming down my face right now :: and told him to put him to sleep. At first my vet didn’t want to do it but after I explained the situation , he understood where I was coming from and new as well as I did what was in store for this poor dog. So I sat down next to him… laid him in my lap and gave him all the love I could until he closed his eyes for the last time. Because that’s what he deserved.. at the end, he needed to be loved the way he should have been all along.
44. My favorite all time show is HIGHLANDER. Not the movies with Christopher Lambert but the tv show with Andrian Paul as Duncan McLeod. I had every season on tape.. and all the swag. I even used to write scripts for the show in my spare time. Long hand on legal pads. I think they might still be at my moms.
45. I was not asked to be in my brother’s wedding.. the reason why he didn’t talk in two years. And if my nephew hadn’t been born, we probably still wouldn’t be talking. I had just assumed that since I was his only sibling, I would be included. I don’t think that was an unreasonable thought. But apparently, he had other ideas and I didn’t find out I WASNT in the wedding until my sister-in-law was telling my mother that everyone already got their dresses and shoes. I looked at my mom.. my mom looked at me and I knew then that my mom had known all along. It hurt me worse because he was the best man when I got married. Granted, it was only at city hall but so what. So, I decided I wasn’t going to go to the wedding which happened to be 3 hours away in my SIL’s hometown. My dad was dying at the time so even though I told him why I wouldn’t go to his wedding, to everyone on the outside it appeared as though I was missing it to tend to my dad. I remember telling him that he’d never get one up on me and that there had proved it. We’re okay now. I’ve come to terms with the whole thing but still wiz it at him every now and again when I need to.
46. No one believes that I’m 43 years old. The general consenses is that I look around 35. You can blame that on good genes. My grandmother is 95 and my mother is 74.. neither of them have wrinkles and both look great for their ages.. so unless I die early like everyone on my DAD’S side.. I should be looking pretty damn good in my later years.
47. I always said that I was a city girl with a country soul. I love country music, riding horse, mucking out stalls, riding on the gator and having the horses take hay from your hands. Working on a farm is laborous work but I much prefer it to sitting in a cube. You know what you have to do and you do it. There’s no mental gymnastics involved. My ex and I were friends with a family who own an 80 acre horse farm upstate. I nicknamed it the Prozac Ranch because everybody there either was on it or needed it but they were inherently good people and I have alot of stories and alot of laughter from the time spent up there. One day, I’ll tell you all about the time their daughter :: who fell off a horse at a young age, apparently hit her head and from that point on claimed that she was the incarnation of an indian princess with spiritual powers. No lie :: convinced me to go a “nature” walk with a group of lesbians. Funny stuff. Unfortunately, I lost the friendship in the divorce. It bothered me immensely that for all the trouble that my ex gave them over the years.. and he did.. believe me he did.. that they would tell me that I wasn’t welcomed there any longer. The short version is that one day I brought Chief there.. up until then, I believed that they didn’t want anything to do with my ex because the last time he was there he caused such a scene and the state police had to be called .. all because they wouldn’t do what he wanted.. which was to not hire black people to work at the ranch. Because of that.. I felt a measure of safety going there with Chief. They were an important part of my life and I wanted to introduce everyone. The ranch would be a great place to bring the boys and let them be boys, yknow? But apparently, the son called my ex after we had left and told him that I was up there with my boyfriend. The son is, in all truthfullness, borerline retarded and takes prozac and a few other things so I know that he didn’t do it maliciously. He just saw it as an opportunity to call my ex .. since he was close to him and looked up to him in a mildly retarded prozac taking way. All hell broke loose then and I was told that I wasn’t welcomed there anymore and that I owed them 100.00 because me and Chief went riding for an hour. It’s a shame but it is what it is.
48. I can speak italian.. but can’t speak it when someone else wants me to. I freeze up because I can’t roll my R’s and it comes out sounding like I have a thick southern accent! Plus, the Italian I learned growing up is the bastardized version. It’s Italian with alot of broken English mixed it in so basically.. the only people who can understand us is each other!! LOL
49. My preferred wardrobe is jeans, tee’s, one of Chief’s flannel shirts, my converse all stars and a baseball hat. But.. when I have to do the girly thing? Watch out! My have an obscene addiction to all shoes high and strappy and years ago when I had nobody else to worry about but me, there was a month where I got three pays so one of them went towards a gorgeos pair of 800.00 Manolo Blahnik stiletto heels. I went to Nordstrom’s but they didn’t have my size so the kind lady called the California store and had them shipped to me. Not for anything but money doesn’t impress me much. I know that it won’t make you happy and that was one of the biggest arguments with my ex. He though that winning the “BIG” lottery would cure all his ails. He didn’t want to hear that if he wasn’t a happy person to begin with.. money wasn’t going to do the trick for you. But whatever. Anyway, even though I’M not impressed with money, apparently the people are Nordstrom’s are because they were much much more then accommodating! When I received the shoes, they came in their box in the their own flannel bag and when I tell you that I put those shoes on my mantle and would have put velvet ropes around them, I would have. But as I said, that was then. Now, I think they’re in a trash bag with alot of other shoes that I brought over from my mom’s house when I moved in with Chief.
50. This was probably the hardest.. longest thing I ever did. Probably because I’m very.. um.. wordy? Or possibly, because I’m Italian it takes me longer to type because while one hand is using the keyboard the other hand is motioning!!!
LIVING ME 101 