100 Things Meme

[Note, this is actually my 331st post, but I forgot to post it!]

I've seen this one around all over the blogosphere but haven't done it, preferring instead to save it for a momentous occasion. As this is my 300th post, I guess now is as good a time as any:

100 Things About Me

1. I have never done any illicit drugs. I've never even seen any, aside from on TV and the drug awareness assembly we had in elementary school.
2. I'm kind of proud of that.
3. One time, my uncle accused me of doing drugs. I laughed, and apparently he took that as a sign that I was. We didn't talk for years because of that.
4. I have a love-hate relationship with my uncle. I can think of a lot of bad things to say about him, but not very many good ones. One good thing, he was my mother's brother. Another, he's my cousins' father.
5. I'm very close to my sister.
6. I'm 17 months younger than her.
7. I've never even met my half-sister and don't even know how old she is (maybe around 40 now) or if she's alive or dead.
8. I want to set out to meet her, but I pretty much have to wait until my father is dead, or he'd be very upset.
9. I kind of don't care if he gets upset, because he is an asshole, but I have always been his good little girl, and it's hard for me to be something else with him.
10. My mother died when I was 7. She was 33.
11. I will be 32 in September, and my daughter will be 7.
12. The idea of turning 33 next year freaks me the hell out.
13. It freaked me out when my husband turned 33, and now that my sister is 33, I'm even more freaked. I've always had this larger-than-life fear of the number 33.
14. I like round numbers.
15. My favorite number is 64, which is the square of 8, which is twice the square of 2. I find that very interesting.
16. I am a nerd.
17. I still remember when my childhood friend Erin informed me I was a nerd. I was very surprised and taken aback at the time.
18. Now I embrace my nerdiness. It's cool.
19. I'd rather be a nerd than a... well, I can't think of anything nice to call those people who used to mock me for being a nerd. Let's just say, I'd probably prefer my life over theirs right now, by far.
20. I used to be infatuated with calculus.
21. Now I can't even remember how to do differentials. That saddens me deeply.
22. I used to do calculus for people to prove I wasn't drunk. No one believed me. They were right not to.
23. It's 2:40 AM and I hear one of the children upstairs going potty.
24. They'll be going right back to sleep, I hope. I wish I were.
25. I have always been a night person, since the day I was born.
26. I've been accused of not being an insomniac, just being lazy and sleeping all day, by another person about whom I can no longer say nice things.
27. I would give anything in the world to be able to just go to sleep at a reasonable hour, instead of staring at the walls all night and being exhausted all day. I've tried everything. It just doesn't work.
28. Maybe you could say I'm nocturnal, since I really can sleep all day. But it's not being lazy, it's being wiped out from so many all-nighters. Anyway.
29. I met my husband online.
30. Two months later, we got married.
31. Just over eight months after that (nearly a month early), we had our first baby!
32. Within a year, I was pregnant again.
33. This time, we were having twins.
34. We lived in Guam at the time. I thought of that hospital as "the dungeon," it was so old and scary-looking.
35. We lived through the worst supertyphoon on record in Guam. Then they made us come back to the States, because of the twins.
36. I went into labor 10 weeks early.
37. A week later, my twins were born. They had developed a rare, rapidly-developing during L&D form of twin-to-twin-transfusion syndrome.
38. After three days, Robby died. Jack was teeny-tiny but otherwise healthy. He just had to learn to suck, and grow, and then he was released.
39. I went into a deep depression and attempted suicide several times that year.
40. Thank God, with counseling and drugs and support and prayer, I have come back from the brink.
41. I'm happier now than I have ever been since my mom died.
42. I'm also fatter now than I have ever been, which makes me very depressed and insecure and self-conscious.
43. It's kind of a paradox, isn't it? But I have always been a confusing person.
44. I'm intelligent (see nerd part above), but I'm also very airheaded.
45. My friends nicknamed me "Bubbles" in high school, because I was so airheaded and giggly.
46. In third grade, I was voted "Class Giggler." It is still my proudest achievement.
47. I used to have two step-sisters, but my dad divorced their mom after 10 or 12 years of horrible, damaging marriage.
48. My oldest step-sister nicknamed me "Munch," after my chipmunk cheeks.
49. I still have those cheeks.
50. I even have them when I am not nearly this fat.
51. I hate my cheeks.
52. I hate my profile.
53. I have a flat back-of-the-head (occiput) and no chin, thanks to my dad. Think of the dad in King of the Hill. Like his. That's not a very flattering head shape at all.
54. I love seeing no-chin people who are skinny. For some reason, this makes my day.
55. I hate seeing fat people with skinny legs or skinny fingers. This seems so unfair to me. I am an all-over kind of fatty.
56. My sister is thin, like my dad, but she has blond hair and blue eyes like my mom. We are sisters but look nothing alike: I have my dad's head and mom's body, and she has mom's head and dad's body. I got the short end of that stick.
57. Or did I? She is the pretty one, but I am the smart one. Therefore, we both know ways to hurt each other, and we have.
58. One time I hurt her very badly, and I will never forget the look on her face when I said what I did.
59. I try to be very respectful and careful about that sort of thing from now on, especially with her.
60. I wish she was that careful about me and my issues!
61. She still talks to the stepmother who abused me horridly, and that hurts me like hell.
62. She still talks to the stepsisters, too. I don't care about that as much.
63. I still talk to my oldest friend in the world, almost from birth. Hi, Ursula!
64. I have lived in many different places, and I still have friends that I write to and email with in all of them except Guam.
65. I would probably still call and talk to my OB from Guam if it wasn't for what happened to Robby.
66. Sometimes I like to tell people about my son, and sometimes I just wish I didn't have to.
67. We got so used to the idea of having three little babies, we couldn't get accustomed to just having two.
68. I had a hard time bonding with Jack because of that. He didn't feel like mine.
69. I always wonder if he is going to remember that.
70. I pumped and fought to be able to breastfeed him through three months of nipple confusion before we were successful to one year, so I hope he remembers that, then, too, dammit! I tried my best.
71. After a year, we started trying to have a third baby, and I couldn't get pregnant while I was still nursing.
72. Sophia was born 25 months after Jack.
73. He still has a hard time growing, so they are the same size and both have blond, straight hair (Chloë's is brown and curly). People ask me all the time if Sophia and Jack are twins.
74. I find that pretty effing ironic.
75. And not in a funny way, but in a painful way.
76. Sometimes I just want to scream at them.
77. Sometimes I even want to smack them, when they insist on it. Like I'm not sure??
78. I have a degree in marine science and biology.
79. I have a minor in chemistry. I also wanted to minor in Spanish and mathematics, but they wouldn't let me overload like that.
80. I went to graduate school to get my Ph.D. in shark behavior.
81. I quit that program after a year and a half, when I realized I just didn't have the passion to read and write scientific papers for the rest of my life.
82. I'd rather be in the field, doing the legwork, getting my hands dirty.
83. That doesn't pay very well.
84. I started my Master's in Science Education, but then I met my husband and we eloped and had a kid.
85. Now I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, and it scares me that Sophie is two years away from kindergarten.
86. Part of me wants to go to law school and study family law, and eventually end up as a family court judge, helping people the way I wished someone would help me in the bad years.
87. Part of me just wants to make cool things and sell them for a living.
88. Part of me wishes I could just be a beach bum for the rest of my life, flitting about doing nothing much.
89. I don't care much for material things, although it seems like it lately. I'm trying to pare down.
90. I would be happy with my kids and my husband and our pets in a shack on the beach.
91. Strawberries are my favorite fruit.
92. I always through artichokes were disgusting, until my husband made me eat one after Chloë was born. Now they're one of my favorite veggies, along with broccoli and corn.
93. I hate raw tomatoes. And mushrooms of any kind. And I will scream bloody murder if any part of me comes into contact with mustard.
94. I have some sensory issues and can't stand when someone rubs or scratches me or themselves through fabric.  I have a firm rule:  WE DON'T RUB FABRIC!!
95. I also can't stand the sound of sanding or filing. It makes me scream and want to cry. I don't even like typing about it.
96. Someone's nail catching on a pillowcase or sheet practically sends me to the insane asylum.
97. I talk a lot and wish I could say more than 100 things. Hehe.
98. I had a hysterectomy in April.
99. I still have the big, bad Baby Fever.
100. I'm thinking of fostering babies when Sophia is about Chloë's age, if we're in a position to do so.

Whew! That's it! I have a feeling I could do it two or three times more without repeating. I am a babbly girl!

Fin.