1. In pre-school I ate paste because it smelled minty. I ended up being sent home from school with a sore throat.
2. I am an introvert par excellence.
3. My sister, at the ripe old age of 8, proclaimed me in one of her "angry letters" to be "Miss Sarcastic of the Year." Where's my sash?
4. I spent a year - 8th grade - looking like a lumberjack. A male lumberjack, that is.
5. I went to college as an English major and graduated as a Spanish major.
6. My first boyfriend was Chris Pressler in the third AND fourth grades. It was an elementary school love match like no other. I got him a race car calendar for Christmas. Vroooom.
7. The words panty, wound and fester make me cringe.
8. I was good at sports growing up... except basketball, at which I was quite terrible. There are plenty of basketball anecdotes which I will not go into. We'll leave it at that I got more than a couple of confused looks from referees.
9. I'll never be too old to sip from juiceboxes... even though I have to drink 2 at a time to quench my AM OJ-craving.
10. I think that the French language sounds like spoken vomit... but I am thinking about learning it anyway.
11. My mom is a surprisingly talented beer pong player... even when she insists on playing with flavored wine coolers. Moms are cute like that.
12. Stephanie Casey and I used to have sleepovers to write - and illustrate - marvelous stories together.
13. I have a lot of strange and borderline OCD habits that nobody has known about until riiiiight now. Examples:
A) If I accidentally kick my left ankle with my right foot while walking, I repeat it the other way around to even things out... even though it hurts.
B) When in the car, I lightly squeeze a muscle or tap a toe inside my shoe everytime a light pole is passed. I have done this for as long as I can remember.
C) I constantly imagine ridiculous scenarios... such as if I were threatened with death unless I could remember how to play a certain piano song from memory, would I be able to?
14. I think too much and talk too little.
15. I grew up wanting to be a pilot. I took flying lessons and loved it... yet eventually turned down the acceptance into flight school.
16. I once pulled my brother's arm out of its socket because he wouldn't help clean up the Hungry Hippos game. Poor li'l tyke.
17. My parents named me Elizabeth even though they 100% planned on calling me Betsey. Why not just name me Betsey? Family mystery!
18. Driving a standard car is way more fun than driving an automatic. I don't think I'll ever be able to go back.
19. I sometimes worry about the fact that I don't worry about my lack of professional ambition.
20 I am deathly afraid of knives, paper cuts in the eye, doctors, being judged, driving off a bridge into water while sitting in the back seat of a two-door car, and birds (the ones that walk, not so much the little hopping ones). Luckily I have, since my childhood, overcome my fears of actually looking like a girl.
21. My favorite childhood activity was playing football with the neighborhood boys. I would pounce on Mike Walker's back trying to tackle him.
22. My dad knows me too well. I am essentially the younger, female, and non-Republican version of him :o)
23. As a child, my little sister used to eat dog food. For some reason I think I also recall her munching on newspaper once or twice. Good times at the Mattern household.
24. I am allergic to cats. It took going to Florida and staying with a friend's aunt to figure it out... she had 8 furry felines. I considered going to the hospital to see if I was dying from pneumonia.
25. I worry too much and take things too personally.
26. At Cliff Orvedal's Halloween party, I accidentally swallowed 2 feet of fake hair when a clump of my witch wig stuck to my cupcake frosting in the very last pre-bite moment. Mrs. Orvedal had to yank it out. I have had an aversion towards spaghetti noodles ever since.
27. My favorite movie of all time is and always will be the Little Mermaid. I can't help it... it's beyond my control. We got no troubles, life is the bubbles!
28. I was the ONLY student in my high school Culinary Arts class who did not receive an A+. I attribute this to one or both of the following reasons: A) possibly because I added 3 tablespoons of pepper instead of 3 teaspoons to my final project, resulting in a rather piquant New England clam chowder, or B) possibly because the teacher was my basketball coach. See #8.
29. I now get carsick due to my lack of car travel in Spain. On the way to JFK airport after Christmas my dad had to pull over so I could switch into the front seat.
30. My sister and I hated each other until I was 18 and she was 15, and my brother and I engaged in physical fights until I was in college.
31. I don't particularly like boats. I was on one when it caught fire.
32. I really want to go skydiving.
33. I despise the following instant messenger tendencies
- IM lingo (LOL, LMAO, TTYL, etc., etc.).
- when people put the humping hearts, i.e. <333,>
- when, again in their profiles, people randomly AND OBSESSIVELY change their fonts FOR NO APPARENT r.E.a.S.o.N.
34. I have never sucked an entire lollipop. I bite them as soon as my teeth will let me.
35. I am physically incapable of burping. Mark always said that he was going to feed me Alca-Seltzer pills to see if I'd explode. Apparently that's what happens to seagulls.
36. My first memory is going with my dad to buy a swingset. I was two and remember thinking it was the longest ride ever. I later found out it was a whopping 45 minutes, if that.
37. My favorite number to write is 4, and my favorite letter to write is a lowercase cursive z. I do a mental fist pump each time I get to the z while signing my name.
38. I can't watch surfing because those waves scare the begeezus out of me.
39. Scary movies really
do give me nightmares.
40. I can entertain myself for a remarkably long time with a wad of bubble-wrap. My mom gets mad at me for popping all the bubble-wrap that protects our Christmas ornaments.
41. I love aquariums and zoos. There's just something about poo-flinging monkeys and dolphins jumping through hula-hoops that I can't get enough of.
42. I believe both in ghosts and in extraterrestrial life. E.T. WHADDUPPP
43. I am cluttered and mildly scatterbrained by nature. When things are organized I can't ever find anything I'm looking for.
44. I like art.
45. I abhor deep political or philosophical discussions, as the people who want to have them are generally pretentious and love to hear themselves talk.
46. My college roommate and I once went on the South Beach Diet. After a week and a half we threw the idea out and celebrated with a Costco-sized bag of Doritos. It was glorious.
47. I love Muppets marathons, especially the Swedish Chef skits. Bork! Bork! Bork!
48. I'm strangely glad my parents got divorced. I can't imagine my life without the additional family members that came out of it. Plus, two Thanksgiving food comas and two Christmases! I kid, I kid..
49. I dislike uncomfortable shoes, popped collars, small talk, bad grammar, decisions, and loud/open-mouthed chewers
50. I like banana bread, dirty jokes, socks, seeing new places, writing, celebrity gossip, going out for breakfast, cheesy pick-up lines, being immature, and opening brand-new tennis ball cannisters.
