100 Things That May or May Not Help You Understand This Weblog

Ah, the 100 Things About Me Post. Another completely unoriginal idea, but I've been searching for a way to sum up me and what this blog is all about and "This is a blog about nothing" seemed too much like a Seinfeld ripoff.

  1. My name is not Alice, but I think of myself as her.

  2. It goes back to when I moved to DC and I felt like I'd stepped through the looking glass into another world.

  3. I am fascinated with the Lewis Carroll books.

  4. I think he is one of the first great children's authors.

  5. I try very hard not to believe the rumors that he was a pedophile.

  6. But mostly I like the music from the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland.

  7. I started this blog because my friend Monica started one and it seemed like a good way to get some journal writing done.

  8. In second grade, I started playing the violin because my friend, Cheryl, wanted to play the violin and begged me to do it with her.

  9. I am such a sheep.

  10. Cheryl quit the violin after four months and I went to college on a music scholarship.

  11. So there.

  12. I am both a WAHM and a WOHM, depending on the day of the week.

  13. I was a big fan of WHAM! in high school, but that has nothing to do with my work schedule.

  14. To most, it appears I have one child, but I really have three. One who lives with me, one stepchild who lives with his mother and one who is no longer living.

  15. I manage to complicate even the simplest of questions.

  16. I talk about my stepson seldom in this blog because I want to respect his privacy.

  17. He is a wonderful kid.

  18. In the ten years we've been married, my husband has had almost as many jobs as I have had my whole life.

  19. We met on July 4th when I was basically on a date with another guy.

  20. The other guy was a jerk.

  21. I didn't get married until I was almost 30.

  22. People at church were worried that I was going to "waste away without a husband".

  23. They said this to my face.

  24. I call my husband The KingofHearts in this blog because that is one of the only truly male characters in Alice in Wonderland.

  25. He is bothered by this, as he feels the King of Hearts was an emasculated weakling.

  26. I prefer to think that in my version of Wonderland, the King grows a pair and runs off with Alice.

  27. He should be glad he didn't end up as The Mad Hatter.

  28. He tells people that KoH, my abbreviation for the KingofHearts, is the symbol for potassium hydroxide because he thinks that "sounds better".

  29. He is a Big Geek sometimes.

  30. I am a Big Geek of a different kind.

  31. In college when my friends and I would hang out in the local bar, it was not uncommon to find us doing the melodic dictation for the band that was playing or quizzing each other by saying: "do 120 beats per minute"

  32. It's a conducting thing.

  33. My daughter is The Dormouse because that's the smallest character in Alice in Wonderland.

  34. She is not, and has never been, as "quiet as a dormouse".

  35. When I was a kid, my IQ was tested and I was placed in a "gifted and talented" program.

  36. I almost failed the fourth grade because of all the instruction I missed when I was pulled out of my regular class to go to the "gifted and talented" program.

  37. My 4th grade teacher was not a fan of anything that took kids out of his class.

  38. I do not now, nor have I ever felt, "gifted and talented".

  39. But I did get to go on some cool field trips.

  40. I do not know what my IQ is; I do not want to know.

  41. My parents' divorce was final less than a week before my wedding.

  42. I joke with my mother that I come from a "broken home".

  43. I watch a lotta television.

  44. Mostly gory procedural crime dramas like CSI or medical shows like ER.

  45. The gorier the better.

  46. In another life I could have been a forensic investigator, a criminal profiler or a physician.

  47. I even took a class on crime scene investigation.

  48. My husband and I have been known to argue in front of company about the formula to determine how long a body has been dead.

  49. We are not good dinner company.

  50. Unless you want to know the formula for differential temperature equalization.

  51. Then you should invite us over.

  52. I grew up in the desert.

  53. When I look out the window and see that it is sunny outside, I assume it must be warm.

  54. Even in January.

  55. Conversely, I was born near the Canadian border in the middle of one of the worst snowstorms in years.

  56. I do not believe one inch of snow should bring the District to a standstill.

  57. But I'll happily stay home when we have "snow days".

  58. I am a trained Music Therapist.

  59. But I do not work clinically these days.

  60. My first major in college was Psychology.

  61. I wanted to major in Photography, but didn't because it was too expensive.

  62. In my Psych 101 class, we trained the professor to lecture from only the left side of the room by getting the entire class to yawn and stop paying attention to him when he stood on the right side of the room.

  63. We told ourselves it was a "Pavlovian Experiment" and not just a "Mean Thing To Do".

  64. I do not believe he ever noticed.

  65. I minored in music performance back then.

  66. During my sophomore year in college, my mentor in music from the time I was in elementary school was imprisoned for molesting some of his students.

  67. I was totally crushed and never really trusted a teacher again.

  68. I am probably lucky that I was never really in a situation where I was ever alone with him.

  69. When I was a child, I wanted to be a veterinarian.

  70. I have had an endless stream of pets in my life: mice, fish, birds, cats, dogs, snakes, salamanders, hamsters, rats, guinea pigs...

  71. Once, when my neighbor's pet goat got out of their yard, I was able to coax it back in when no one else could.

  72. They told me I had a "way with animals".

  73. I was very impressed by this and was convinced I was the American James Herriott.

  74. This is the same neighbor who paraded around the state with a deformed cat that hopped around like a rabbit.

  75. He called it the "cabbit" and told people that it was the product of mating a cat to a rabbit.

  76. He was convinced he was going to make a million dollars charging admission to see the "cabbit".

  77. He did not end up on the Fortune 500 List, that much I know.

  78. My best friend who lived next door to me when I was a kid had a pet hen named "Cluck".

  79. I now believe there were a lot of "farm animals cannot be kept in urban areas" ordinances broken in my neighborhood.

  80. My husband claims I am "somewhat anti-social".

  81. I prefer to think that I'm "just not user friendly".

  82. I like people fine when I don't have to deal with their stupidity.

  83. This is seldom.

  84. I lived in South America for two years while I served a mission for my church.

  85. I learned to speak two languages there.

  86. A big part of what I did was give immunizations, and teach people about health and wellness, how to be self-sufficient or how to play the piano.

  87. It was a lot like the Peace Corps, except with proselyting.

  88. My Spanish mostly comes in handy now when I want to yell at men on the street who don't think I know what they are saying about me.

  89. When I was in South America, I learned to love Avocado Milk Shakes.

  90. They're better than they sound.

  91. I am addicted to Diet Coke.

  92. I have few other vices, so I let this one slide.

  93. I also like ice cream.

  94. But every time I eat any combination of sugar and milk, I cough uncontrollably.

  95. And yet, I continue to eat it.

  96. This is a source of confusion to my husband.

  97. I talk a lot about my daughter in this blog.

  98. Mostly it's because I want to remember my experiences and the funny things she says and I know I will forget to write them down anywhere else. I hope one day I'll be able to give this stuff to her.

  99. More than that, I hope that she'll care to read any of it.
  100. I hate how numbered lists come out on my template too close to the left edge, but I am too lazy to fix it. I figure I've got better things to spend my time on... like the CSI that's on tape from last night.