36 Things I Hate About You

I just realized that today will be my 100^th post. I’ve noticed that many bloggers celebrate their 100^th post by posting 100 fun facts about themselves. I’m not sure that I can actually come up with that many facts that I’m willing to reveal in a public forum, but I’m sure I can come up with a few.

1. I don’t have a driver’s license. It was not taken away; I have never had one. I don’t know how to drive. Yes, I know this is weird.
2. I am the consummate city girl (see no. 1), but I spent many summers of my childhood deep in the Irish countryside, in a place so remote, it wasn’t even considered a village.
3. I have become totally obsessed with Rent since the movie came out. I saw it twice (tried to make it a third time, but it’s not playing nearby anymore), I bought the soundtrack, and I plan to buy the DVD. And yes, I’m a little embarrassed since liking Rent doesn’t exactly enhance my fading punk rock credibility.
4. I love old school show tunes (e.g., Camelot, The King and I, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, etc.).
5. I have been told by several people that I am a gay man trapped in a woman’s body. There may be some truth to this.
6. My taste in music is mostly indie rock, britpop, lots of 80s stuff, and punk. I also enjoy Baroque music and old school country (Cash, Williams Sr., Cline).
7. I can’t stand modern country music.
8. I really really dig Neil Finn and Paul Weller in all their incarnations.
9. My first concert was Duran Duran. It was pretty much the pinnacle of my existence at that point. My best friend wasn’t allowed to go the show because her mother was convinced that girls get gang raped at rock concerts. I really can’t imagine that the Duran Duran show was a hotbed of gang rape.
10. I still have a soft spot for Duran Duran.
11. I used to act.
12. My taste in books tends toward literary fiction and the classics. There are a few exceptions:
13. I love mysteries, particularly British ones. I heart Agatha Christie.
14. I have been known to enjoy the occasional chick lit book.
15. I read a lot of nonfiction.
16. My favorite book is Independent People by Halldor Laxness, the Icelandic Nobel Laureate. It’s about an Icelandic sheep farmer. Seriously, it’s amazing.
17. I like to reread Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion when I’m feeling down.
18. I don’t have cable. This is partly because I don’t watch that much TV, but also, I am afraid that if I get cable, my inner couch potato will come out and I’ll never read another book.
19. I religiously watch the Simpsons in reruns, although I try to force myself to turn it off it’s one of the lousy newer episodes.
20. Lord Kissington and I often quote the Simpsons back and forth to each other. If it were a competition, he would win because he can remember every quote exactly, and I usually only remember the gist of things rather than the exact words.
21. I love the movie Zoolander, and I’ve seen it about 8 times and counting.
22. I am always trying to convert people to my love of Zoolander, but most people I know don’t like it. I have one friend who is still annoyed that I made her watch it three years ago.
23. I am an only child, but I grew up with two people who are basically my brother and sister.
24. My parents are divorced.
25. My parents are super artsy and they were always the weird parents (at least to me) when I was growing up. They were totally embarrassing at the time, but looking back, it was much better to have cool, interesting parents than the dull, conformist parents that surrounded me.
26. I had my first kiss at 11, from my best friend’s creepy older brother, who was 13. It was totally gross.
27. I really love soap operas. This totally embarrasses me, because it doesn’t exactly go along with the whole highbrow intellectual thing I try to project. But I tape Guiding Light every day.
28. While I’m watching Guiding Light, I like to read the latest US Weekly. There, I’ve just killed that intellectual image, right?
29. I have had a thing for Hugh Laurie since the early 90s when he was in Jeeves and Wooster and Blackadder. I am very happy for his American TV success in House, but now that everyone loves him, I feel like I have to keep telling people that I have loved him for years, because I am no longer unique.
30. I have a horror of being mainstream (see no. 29).
31. I really love Swiss Miss vanilla pudding cups. It’s got to be Swiss Miss and it’s got to be vanilla.
32. I went to Iceland on my own in 1998, because I had always wanted to go there and I couldn’t get anyone (including my boyfriend at the time) to go with me. I was kind of terrified to travel there alone, but it ended up being an amazing time.
33. My favorite college professor died last year, and I am really sad that I never got around to writing him the letter I planned to write him forever, to tell him how much he inspired me.
34. My mother tells people that I met my fiancé when we were in a Ulysses (James Joyce) reading group.
35. Actually, I met Lord Kissington at a bar several times before we were in the book group. My mother knows this, but prefers the other story.
36. I probably would never have read Ulysses if it hadn’t been for the professor in no. 33, so I owe him a lot, since it was during the book group that I really got to know Lord Kissington. (That James Joyce can really bring people together.)

That’s probably enough embarrassing things about me for now.