25 Things.

John tagged me to do this one on Facebook, but I can only do Facebook on my phone, so I deemed it too annoying to work on except to do it here. There's your explanation.

1. I am afraid of the dark. I have always been afraid of the dark. I frequently think I see things or hear things when the lights are out. If Jason isn't in bed yet, I don't turn the light out.

2. I am terrified of ending up alone. I imagine that one day Jason will leave me, and all my friends will be gone by then because I'm so annoying/unfunny/needy/crazy/bitchy/Mexicanfoody/drinky.

3. I eat a lot of Mexican food. What's startling is that I crave Mexican food for pretty much every meal. I dream about cheese dip and a nice taco salad with jalapenos. Jason likes Mexican food okay, but he also has a sensitive stomach so Mexican can mean some interesting bathroom experiences for him for a couple of days afterwards. Still, he'll eat Mexican food with me almost any time I ask. Now we have a child that when I pick him up from daycare will BEG AND PLEAD, "Can't we PLEEEEEEEEEASE go to the messican restaurant?" The staff at the local place knows his name. They also know my voice when I call to order take-out.

4. I have too many clothes. Seriously, I have jeans that I'm too big for AND jeans that I'm too small for. I keep both just in case I gain OR lose weight. Doc Martens that I bought nine years ago? Got 'em. 30 pairs of flip flops, tons of flats, boots that my dad bought me when I was 21: yes, yes, yes. A few things that didn't even quite fit right when I bought them but were on such a good sale and were a style that I really liked but I've still never worn them because THEY NEVER QUITE FIT RIGHT: yes. New stuff on the way: fuck me, yes.

5. I really, really don't like some of the most popular funny movies in recent history, such as Space Balls, Home Alone, Caddyshack, and all those Naked Gun movies. I'm just not usually a big fan of slapstick, goofy stuff. I say this, and yet I LOVE 40 Year Old Virgin, Bring It On, and Wedding Crashers. I don't know.

6. At work, out of about ten bathroom stalls, there is one particular stall that I always choose to go to for number two. It is not the very first one or the very last one.

7. I think perhaps I am a mediocre mom. I don't like germs, I don't like going to the park, I don't like arguing with a midget, I don't like getting kicked in the boob. I hope that what I lack in squee-ness I make up for in super-coolness and intense, loving hugs. There's one thing: I will always let Reed sit in my lap, and I am always up for a snuggle.

8. I am totally obsessed with small electronic items. When Palm first popped up I wanted one, like REALLY wanted one, thought about it all the time. Then it was the Razr, then an iPhone, then a Blackberry. Laptops, stuff for the camera, iPods, these are a few of my favorite things.

9. My most feared illness is anything that makes my stomach feel bad or, PLEASE GOD NO, makes me throw up. I don't like getting any kind of illness (of course), but I can stand a cold, can tolerate diarrhea, can muddle through aches and pains. But if my stomach feels bad or if I'm throwing up, I am a mess, a big baby, a whiny pool of KILL ME NOW that stays in bed and lies very still and covers her eyes with a cool rag and wants complete silence.

10. I really, really like sleeping, resting, and hanging around in bed. There are days in which, if I had a nanny for Reed and no job to go to, I could stay in bed all day long. What time I go to bed at night makes no difference; I can go to sleep at 9pm and still want to stay in bed until 12 or 1 the next afternoon.

11. I really love my friends. The love that I feel for my friends is exactly the same love that I feel for my family. I once had a boyfriend who got mad at me because I spent so much time with my friends, and I explained to him that the intensity and commitment that he felt about going to band practice (several times a week) was the same intensity and commitment I felt about spending time with my best friends. He claimed he understood, but I'm pretty sure that that situation played a large part in our relationship's undoing.

12. I love reading blogs. I read Dooce and Sarah and Antonia on a regular basis. I also read my friend Lindsey's pop culture blog, and my friend Paul just started a really interesting one, and my cousin and my mom. There's my friend Birdie, and then I just discovered this girl yesterday and I discovered this girl last week. I like blogs, and I like reading blogs, and I like writing blogs.

13. Just about the only thing that I know of that I don't like to eat is olives. I'm not a big fan of sushi, but I can eat it. I probably don't like anchovies- I've never tried them. For the most part I like everything else IN THE WORLD there is to eat. I know you guys can come up with some weird stuff that I've never had- pickled pigs' feet and chitterlings and whatnot. But for the most part, I like pretty much anything. For example, I like fried chicken livers. Yep, I said it. When I was a kid I ate an entire jar of sliced dill pickles, which I promptly threw up. I also have always loved A-1 sauce. LOVE IT. When I was young I would pour myself some A-1and THEN try and find something to dip into it.

14. My parents divorced when I was 14 and I was SO RELIEVED because they fought all the time and it was awful and tense and I knew things would get better once they didn't try to be married people any more. Then after my dad moved out, we suddenly spent more time together. He took me out to eat almost every weekend. We still weren't best friends, but it was certainly more time than we ever spent together before. Then my mom and dad remarried each other when I was about 21, and I got really excited because I thought we would be like a regular family, that we'd all be able to spend time with each other and eat dinner together and that kind of thing. Alas, it didn't happen; they were unhappy and re divorced about a year later. Now I never see my dad. He doesn't call and invite me to do anything and I don't call and invite him to do anything.

15. My sister India is really my half-sister; we have different fathers. But when I was born and all through growing up she lived with us and we always just thought of each other as sisters, still do. We just can't seem to see eye-to-eye on things, so we don't get along very well now. But we were pretty close up until about 14 or 15 years ago.

16. My mom is one of my best friends. She irritates the living shit out of me sometimes, but I figure that's probably payback for how much I irritated her when I was growing up. One time I stood next to her and said, "Can I? Can I? Can I?" over and over until she stood up and thrashed me with a newspaper. I think she's entitled to irritate me a little bit. In spite of our mutual irritation we still are best friends, I think. When I am mad or sad or happy, she's one of the first people I call to tell about it.

17. Jason is impossibly cool and so nice and is the best man I've ever known. That's why I'm so sure he'll leave me eventually: there is no possible way that I am cool enough to hold onto this guy. I am dorky and crazy and crotchety and irritable and obsessive about cleanliness. Jason, on the other hand, is laid back and well-meaning and smart and knows tons about music and movies and history and deserving of a nice lady. Unfortunately I'm not sure that I'm a nice lady. I'm nicer than his ex is though, so I guess he's moving closer to the mark. I hope maybe something has happened to his brain that causes him to think that I'm that right one for him, because I don't ever want to be without him.

18. I cannot stand when people mispronounce words. "Nucular" is the worst one, which started when Josh pointed out that Steve said it the wrong way, and then we got a president who said it the wrong way and it's all I could hear, every time he spoke. IT IS NOT "NUCULAR", IT IS "NUCLEAR". It is not "real-IH-tor", it is "real-tor"- no "ih", it is a 2-syllable word, not 3. I could go on for days. When people say "pitcher" for "picture", I throw up in my mouth a little bit.

19. I am terrible at talking to people. With my friends or family I'm usually fine, but at work or in restaurants or stores or on the phone I am TERRIBLE. I lose my train of thought, I get sweaty and nervous, I misunderstand the other person, I can't think of what to say, I make stuff up to try and get out of the situation faster, and I almost always come away from it loathing myself and feeling like I'm going to puke.

20. I believe very deeply in God and Jesus, but I don't go to church hardly ever and I don't quote the Bible. I feel strongly that Jesus loves us and he WANTS to love us and that people make mistakes and that if everyone who said "fuck" or smoked a cigarette went to hell, then hell must be like the Galleria at Christmas (crowded as fuck). I think that Jesus just wants us to try to be good people and that the effort alone means something and God is by definition smarter than us and He doesn't expect us to be as smart as he is, because that wouldn't really be fair, would it? To me the whole point is that Jesus loves me and will forgive me and just wants good things for me and wants me to strive towards those good things to make them happen for myself because you can't just dick around and wait for somebody else to make good things happen for you, and that folks should spread joy around as much as they can because not everyone can find joy by themselves.

21. I love to laugh and I love to make people laugh and I love to laugh with other people, at myself and/or all by myself. That's why I love to read Dooce and Sarah and McSweeney's: their stuff makes me laugh out loud. If this doesn't make you laugh, you are a robot (Chris, you don't count).

22. Reed likes the Vandals, the B-52s, Empire Records, the Office, and Mexican food. My work here is done.

23. 25 things is a fucking lot of things. It took me two days to write this.

24. I have never been good at standing up for myself, at letting people know when they're hurting my feelings or making me mad or sad or taking advantage of me. It is something that I'm working on this year and I am already managing to open my mouth more frequently.

25. Jason started uttering the phrase "That's what she said" several months ago at the appropriate (inappropriate) moments ("I can't fit this into the box." "That's what she said."). As a result, I now say it in my head any time anybody says anything remotely deserving of "That's what she said." My boss said, "No, I don't like nuts in my stuff" last week. FOR FUCK'SAKES. That's what she said.