1. I bruise like a peach and burn like a lobster.
2. I love the sun. But the sun doesn’t love me. So I also love SPF 70.
3. I love hole in the walls and dive bars. Anyplace where the people are nice, the drinks are cold, and the Sox are on.
4. I appreciate dry, dirty, sarcastic, politically incorrect humor.
5. On the flip side of that, I’m a pretty sunny, happy person. I’ll go ahead and smack myself in the mouth for you.
6. I guess my biggest pet peeve is people who are whiny little bitches about everything, because shut up.
7. On my first report card, my teacher fucking sold me out previewed my lifelong hatred of math when she wrote, “Red will occasionally use her fingers to count.” Then what are they there for, woman?
8. On the other hand, I’ve always loved to write. I used to wake up early and write long, meandering stories about My Little Ponies and Care Bears and Tom Sawyer.
9. Here’s an excerpt. You might recognize it from all the months it spent on the New York Times Bestseller List: “Firefly spread her wings and flew into the sky. Come back! shouted Burning Beauty. It’s dangeres! cried Applejack. Where are you going? screamed Twilight. To get help! answered Firefly. Oh no! cried Moondancer. Meanwhile at the castle…”
10. I love salt. And any kind of sauce. And SALT.
11. People ask me how I can work with little kids all day, isn’t it exhausting? For me it would be exhausting to not.
12. I found my way into my job in a roundabout, serendipitous way. I always feel lucky and appreciative about that.
13. Granted, I killed myself to get there. I spent grad school working during the day and going to classes at night. I’m very glad I did it, but very glad it’s over.
14. I love nice people, but not when they end up being super boring.
15. I love funny people, but not when they turn out to be assholes.
16. I love the website 1000awesomethings.com. I think looking for and expecting to find things that are awesome shifts your whole frame of reference.
17. Sometimes I find it easier to connect with guys because they tend to be simpler, but god, I love my girl friends. I’ve learned to be pretty picky about the women I get close to. Men can be stupid, but women can really be evil shrews. I’ve learned this as much from other people as from being something of a reformed evil shrew myself.
18. Having said all that, I’m very lucky to have awesome friends.
19. I’m one of those obnoxious New Englanders who can argue the virtues of all four seasons. I don’t even mind when it gets dark early in the winter. I think it’s cozy.
20. Movies I know by heart: Dazed and Confused, Heathers, Clerks, The Princess Bride, Clueless, Back to the Future, Napoleon Dynamite, Reality Bites, Singles, Labyrinth, It’s A Wonderful Life (thanks dad), The Breakfast Club, Wedding Crashers, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up, Superbad, The 40 Year Old Virgin, and Talladega Nights. Oh yeahhhh.
21. I’m addicted to mints and gum.
22. And lip balm, specifically Blistex Lip Tone. Anytime I see it at CVS I buy 97,824. If they ever stop making it I’m screwed.
23. Apparently I’m an ENFP. It sounds about right, not that I’m sure what to do with so much hypothetical information about myself.
24. I’m pretty friendly and can usually find a way to chat it up with just about anyone, if I need to. This makes me a good wedding date, but also means that I sometimes get stuck playing the always tricky How Do I Get Away From This Asshat? game.
25. I can handle any guy in any bar. I’ve heard it all before.
26. I like to read books about random crap, like Some Obscure Event that happened in 1907 or sleep disorders. Or as my friend Jenn says, “books that NO ONE else would ever read.”
27. I have that, and a million other things, in common with my dad.
28. My mom and dad met at work. Their first date was at the S&S in Cambridge. They’ll be married for 35 years in October.
29. They wanted to have more kids, but ended up with just me. I wish that I had siblings, but what can you do?
30. Instead I have an adopted older sister. She means the world to me. So do her kids.
31. I love baseball. I love the Red Sox. I love everything about Fenway.
32. I’d sooner wear a Yankees hat than a pink hat.
33. I have the tiniest Boston accent.
34. I aspire to be a badass chick who orders something brown at a bar, but I’m a wino. My drink at home is white fridge wine rounded out with grape sparkling water. Stay klassy.
35. I hate passive-aggressiveness. I’d rather you punch me in the face than talk about me behind my back.
36. I won’t hit you back. But mostly because I’ve never thrown a punch and I’m not awesome at comebacks. But I WILL call you a day later and tell you that the jerk store called and they’re running out of you. So be ready.
37. I love spas and products and fancy lotion in heavy glass jars. I’m very girly about products.
38. I have a recurring dream about missing the school bus.
39. I used to teach ESL to adults at night. It was fun. I have so much respect for people who endeavor to learn English as adults.
40. On the other hand, a big pet peeve of mine is people who live here and have children and don’t learn English.
41. I get cranky when I’m really hungry or really tired or when my house is a mess.
42. I hate the show Everybody Loves Raymond. I don’t like the generic humor, and I also don’t like when marriage gets portrayed as one long, boring, impatient eyeroll. It’s shows like that that keep single people promiscuous.
43. I used to test the hearing of newborn babies at a hospital in Boston using auditory brainstem response equipment once a week. It was so neat, and the babies were so wiggly and new.
44. I love bad soft rock from the 80s. Love. It. Hello? Is it me you’re looking for?
45. I dropped out of Girl Scouts because I hated them, all of them, and their stupid badges.
46. Fine, I may have been asked to leave. Fuck ‘em!
47. Sometimes I think I want to get my doctorate, but then I’m like, I wonder what’s happening on Gray’s Anatomy this week.
48. I don’t like the letter shows (CSI, SVU).
49. I don’t like violent or scary TV shows or movies in general. Scary movies seem like a good idea at the time, during the day, and then all I can think of when I’m trying to fall asleep is Linda Blair upside down on the staricase. Oh my god. Why did I just type that?
50. I harbor a shameless love for chick flicks and Sex and the City, but they’re such shit. I mean they’re just SHIT. Intellectually I know this, but rin reality I wanna make out with them in the bathroom at the bar.
51. I don’t really like anything floral: patterns, perfumes. But I love actual flowers. I especially love yellow tulips.
52. I’m such an albino. It sucks a little, but what can you do? I’m so pale that random people comment on it, which is rude. I don’t comment on your muffin top or male pattern baldness.
53. I’ve been to Bermuda, Bahamas (come on pretty mama), St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and Mexico, but not Europe yet. How lame am I? But on the flip side, how much of a thorough spring breaker?
54. I appreciate privacy but hate secrets. I try to be pretty transparent and am a little unnerved when people that I’m close to keep their walls up.
55. I love kitschy places and think they’re totally fun. Niagara Falls is priceless. And Epcot Center…welcome to Germany, it’s Oktoberfest! Hey, it’s Canada, look at this maple leaf. Cultural stereotypes and non-ironic ignorance are basically hilarious.
56. I can appreciate good looking actors and actresses, but I don’t really get crushes on them. My one big crush is Jason Varitek. And firemen, but mostly in theory, and mostly from a distance. It’s the whole uniform, truck, and hero thing.
57. I love amusement parks, street fairs, flea markets, and used bookstores.
58. My favorite used bookstore is called Isaiah Thomas. It’s in a huge pink Victorian house in Cotuit, on the Cape. It’s an amazing place. It’s also the place where I happened to find the book that led to be quitting my job and switching careers.
59. I have a chicken pock scar behind my ear.
60. I love spicy food.
61. I could imagine getting into gardening when I retire.
62. I have so many interests and potential interests that I really can’t imagine being bored.
63. My favorite movie is Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
64. I’d love a print of the moment where George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn are shot from below in New York City, the one where she’s in pigtails. I’ve never been able to find it.
65. I’m a little Holly Golightly and a little Bridget Jones.
66. Who the hell likens themselves to Audrey Hepburn? I’m Bridget all the way.
67. I’ve donated to Locks of Love twice. It’s a great organization.
68. I love soup.
69. I spent all my summers growing up going to the Balsams, a resort in New Hampshire, and continue to go with my family. It’s so close to my heart. It was also apparently Stephen King’s inspiration for The Shining. I try not to think about that.
70. I turn pink easily. It’s probably rosacea or whatever. People comment on it all the time. My pinkness, and my paleness. I hear about it a lot.
71. I want to travel everywhere, but I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I’m a total Boston girl.
72. My dream trip is Italy.
73. I have a lot of fascination with books and documentaries about serial killers and sociopaths. The concept of people being fundamentally broken is really interesting.
74. I’d be a terrible serial killer. I’d probably leave my cell phone behind. And an apology note.
75. The best breakfast I ever had in a restaurant was a shiitake mushroom omelet from Hank’s Diner in Chadds Ford, PA.
76. The best dinner…hmm. Roasted butternut and cider soup with pumpkin seed oil and creme fraiche from Sonsie, black and white truffle mac and cheese from Chillingsworth, baked goat cheese and bread from Dali, and Umbagog mud pie from the Balsams. And Cakebread chardonnay.
77. I have an irrational fear of mice. It extends to hamsters, gerbils, sometimes even chipmunks.
78. When I was born, the doctor said, “Look at the shoulders on this kid, he’s gonna play football.” And then, “oh, it’s a girl!”
79. I broke my wrist playing dodgeball in sixth grade and my toe dancing around in my basement to She’s An Angel by They Might Be Giants in high school.
80. I’m a Libra. Whatever that means. I do like having an October birthday. It’s such an awesome month. And I LOVE Halloween.
81. I was never a bad kid, but always very mischievous and, you know, redheaded. I horrified my mother by demanding to date when I was 11. I’ll probably end up with a daughter exactly like me.
82. I’m not too big on TV. I like Sox games and reruns of The Office and Seinfeld. But I love epic shows like My So-Called Life, Dexter, Lost. They don’t come along very often.
83. Famous people I’ve met: Drew Carey, Ryan Reynolds, Thurman Thomas. It was all within a one week span in 1999. Apparently all the famous people hang out in Orlando.
84. I’d never make it on Survivor. I’d cry and beg for shampoo, rice, a helicopter, you name it.
85. My last name is super generic. It implies government mind control and baby powder.
86. I love purple: calla lilies, my bamboo flowers duvet, grape lollipops.
87. Though I’ve decided not to a couple times, I’m not opposed to getting married. In fact it’s definitely something I want. Maybe surprisingly, I’m a little bit traditional.
88. I love Anthony Bourdain, David Sedaris, and Sarah Silverman.
89. I love honey crisp apples. Their season is kinda blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, but so worth it.
90. I love restaurants with sidewalk chalkboard menus, outside seating, and white lights on trees.
91. My favorite ice cream is chocolate chip. Though on those really hot days, the kind where you go to a movie for the air-conditioning, rainbow sherbet is pretty awesome.
92. I love the Cape. I love watching the Sox at the Popponesset raw bar, the New Seabury beach, and going to the grocery store in flip flops and wet hair for peaches and cherries and corn on the cob.
93. I was really close to my grandfather. He passed away when I was nine. I have a little plaque in my bedroom that he always had in his office: “You can always tell a Swede but you can’t tell him much.” It took my grandmother years to find it and when she did she gave it to me for Christmas. It was the best gift ever.
94. My favorite books…Travels with Charley, The World According to Garp, She’s Come Undone, The Great Gatsby. I love to read.
95. I love extreme weather…snow, thunderstorms, heat. I love when there’s breaking news and they tell you not to go outside.
96. I love the sound of rain on the windows when I’m sleeping.
97. If I ever get a dog I’d like to name him Noodle.
98. I swam with a dolphin once in the Bahamas. The trainer said I aroused him and then called me a “dirty, dirty girl” in front of everyone in our dolphin class. For the record, Flipper was totally asking for it.
99. I had to go to the hospital once for x-rays when I was little. I was really scared, so first they x-rayed my Cabbage Patch kid.
100. I’m learning to play the piano. I’ve always wanted to, so the fact that I finally am is pretty dreamy.