July time-sucker: 100 Things

OK, people. I decided to just say, fuck it...I have gotten nothing done over the last week, and I am giving myself over to the inner slacker today. Later in the week, I will use this forum to set some deadlines for myself, that being such a good way of keeping me in line. In the meantime, I decided to while away some precious time doing the 100 Things meme I have seen at others' places.

1. I’m an only child.
2. My identity was profoundly shaped by moving with my mother to a different city from my father, when I was eight, two years after they’d split up.
3. That identity is shy. Skeert.
4. While that really made me who I am, it was reshaped in my late twenties: less shy and skeert.
5. That reshaping was accomplished by teaching, and also by living in France.
6. I went to French public school, although I am anglophone.
7. I dreamed since I was ten of living in France, and used to save up money to buy coffee table books of photos of Paris.
8. When I moved there, it was a disaster.
9. I have an extraordinarily grief-filled journal from that time.
10. I came out when I was eighteen
11. Being the overly serious soul that I was, I decided that it was imperative that I go to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival that summer, as if it were some kind of religious requirement.
12. I went by myself.
13. Since I was still shy and skeert, this was painful.
14. I laugh my head off about that earnestness now.
15. My parents are old lefties.
16. They have no issues about my sexuality.
17. I get the distinct feeling my father is proud of me for being queer.
18. My father and GF are pretty much the same person.
19. They even have almost the same name.
20. Oh my god.
21. I’ve been with GF for four years.
22. We’re very, very different people.
23. We spent a year and a half in counseling together, learning to get over ourselves.
24. Now we have a strong relationship.
25. GF is a 9-5er, but a whip-smart film theorist at heart.
26. Our dog, Mr. K, is a rescue boxer.
27. Before him, we had another boxer, Miss Chef, who was killed when GF and I were on vacation two years ago.
28. Miss Chef was staying with GF’s mother, ran across the highway from her rural home, and was hit by a car.
29. It was a bad scene.
30. I never thought I’d have dogs.
31. I had them when I was little, but always had more cats and thought of myself as a cat person.
32. Now I’m a cat and dog person.
33. We can’t have cats because GF is allergic.
34. I want a bunny, too, but Mr. K would kill it.
35. No bunny for me.
36. I’ve been a vegetarian for sixteen years.
37. I’m the kind of vegetarian who loves faux meat. Bring it on!
38. I’m also not squeamish about people eating meat around me.
39. The only foods I really don’t like are horseradish, coconut, and marshmallows (is that a food, anyway?).
40. I am also not always onboard with creamy things, like custard.
41. I eat an enormous amount of fruit – so much that GF teases me relentlessly about my scurvy-avoidance tactics.
42. I like alcohol a lot.
43. My mother is a recovered alcoholic.
44. (Now she seems to be addicted to AA.)
45. I don’t worry about myself drinking too much, though – just can’t see it happening.
46. My favourite drink is gin and tonic.
47. I like going to watch dance more than theatre.
48. In fact, I don’t get very excited about theatre.
49. Since I won’t be doing my hobby, The Activity, anymore in the fall, I may take modern dance instead.
50. If there’s no modern available, I’ll try ballet.
51. My musical tastes have narrowed over the last five years.
52. Now I listen mostly to countryish, bluegrassy kinds of things.
53. My father and I listen to the same kind of music, trading bootleg CD’s and stuff.
54. The only two cities that have made me all adrenaline-rushed and high for aesthetic reasons are Lyon and Chicago.
55. I don’t like London.
56. My best friend, with whom I’ve been friends for almost nineteen years, moved to London a year ago.
57. I miss him, crave him, deeply.
58. We’re planning to take a trip together for our twentieth anniversary next year.
59. GF and I had a carpenter ant infestation in our place last year.
60. Since I have seen several humungous ants in the last two days, I fear we have another one.
61. Great.
62. I am notoriously fearful of bugs.
63. The worst is dragonflies, of which I am full-on phobic. (Yes, I know they’re “good” bugs. I don’t know how anything that looks like that could be “good”, but whatever.)
64. But I took care of the mice, when GF was hysterical about them.
65. I came oh, so close to dropping out of my BA.
66. It was after my third year, when I was blown away by theory but took it all so seriously, I feared I’d have a heart attack.
67. Now I have a PhD.
68. I have decided not to apply for jobs in the U.S.
69. At heart, I truly like teaching and research equally well.
70. That is why the university I’m going to be working at next year is such a good fit for me; it does both well.
71. I swoon over vintage clothing.
72. My favourite clothing period is the 1910s.
73. I bought a 1910s-styled blouse last winter and I look ridiculous in it.
74. I have a whole bunch of really beautiful dresses from the 1950s and 60s.
75. People tell me my look is “classic”, which sounds a little boring, but it’ll do.
76. I don’t wear high heels, though I admire some of them.
77. I had myself properly fitted for bras a couple of years ago, because my bras just didn’t fit, and it was a revelation!
78. Now I have a bra habit.
79. My favourite colour is dark green, but I never wear it.
80. I hate housework.
81. The dog sheds white hair like nobody’s business, so the floors are perennially a disaster.
82. My plan for this summer was to do twenty minutes of cleaning a day – like, one little task at a time.
83. Like all of my areas of productivity, this has gone out the window in July.
84. I used to write a lot of stories in my free time, when I was a kid.
85. My mother saved my stories.
86. They are twisted – people being assaulted and murdered all over the place.
87. Now, I can’t handle even the slightest violence on film or TV.
88. I am also stupidly over-sensitive to suspense: heart attack time.
89. I believe in ghosts.
90. No, I don’t have an explanatory framework for ghosts.
91. I hired an “animal communicator” to talk with Mr. K about why he was peeing on the floor, to try to get him to stop.
92. It worked.
93. No, I can’t explain it.
94. GF is horrified that I tell that story so freely; she says it makes me look crazy.
95. I’ll take my chances.
96. I used to dream about time travel; I wanted – and still want – to land myself in medieval Europe.
97. I can’t stand science fiction, however.
98. Star Trek actually nauseates me.
99. TV-wise, I have an L Word addiction, although it is like watching a train wreck.
100. Three places I’d really like to travel to are Japan, Finland, and New Zealand.