122 things about me
(more than you ever really wanted to know)
1. I was born to teenage parents.
2. I am none the worse because if it.
3. My parents were awesome (and still are).
4. My first home was a trailer.
5. I have a younger sister.
6. Sometimes we get along, sometimes we don’t.
7. We had our last physical fight when I was 23 and she was 20.
8. My parents were appalled, but I think I won.
9. When I was young, I lived in a small college town.
10. My maternal grandparents were farmers and in the summer I sold corn on the side of the road.
11. When I was 10, we moved to a small city in the foothills of Appalachia.
12. Both places were VERY white.
13. When I was in Jr. High, I started ‘messing around’ with a boy.
14. We were bored and there was nothing else to do.
15. When I was 15, my mom caught me ‘messing around” in the basement and put me on the pill.
16. I didn’t have sex until I was 17.
17. When I was 19, my boyfriend/bestfriend killed himself.
18. I still think about him.
19. It changed who I am, but I am a better person because of it.
20. I went to my first rave when I was 18.
21. I loved to dance and miss the music now that I am too old to stay out so late.
22. I was a raver for 4 or 5 years.
23. I used to have pants so big, the cuff fit around my (not so small) hips.
24. Ravers get a bad rap, I made some of my best friends at raves.
25. I spent my undergraduate years at one of the country’s largest universities.
26. I was a women’s studies major.
27. I had a full ride scholarship.
28. I used my scholarship money to travel, instead of on school supplies.
29. I used to work at a Hamburger restaurant.
30. I was a hostess, then a waitress.
31. That is where I met the man I love.
32. He was a very bad waiter.
33. But he was cute and smart.
34. We dated for about 2 weeks before he moved to China for a year.
35. I visited him there briefly. It was quite dirty, but fascinating.
36. Most Chinese people have never seen a tongue ring.
37. Some have never seen a white girl.
38. One kid screamed in terror when he saw me.
39. I missed my boy a lot when he was in China, but long distance love letters and tapes are the best.
40. My heart still flutters when I think of opening one of those Airmail envelopes.
41. After China, said boy went to Law School in California.
42. I was still at my Midwestern university.
43. He hated law school and should have been a professor instead.
44. It was too late though. He owed $100,000 in law school loans.
45. After graduation, I thought I wanted to be a professor.
46. Then I found out that they had to write a LOT.
47. I don’t like to write papers or do research.
48. I decided against professordom.
49. My boyfriend went to Cambodia for a summer internship and I went with him.
50. Cambodia in 1998 was not a very safe country.
51. I met a Cambodian p*rostitute and we became friends.
52. Surprisingly, we had a lot in common.
53. One night on our way home from a bar, she was kidnapped by the police.
54. We argued with men holding machine guns, trying to get her back.
55. We were unsuccessful and she was g*ang-r*aped.
56. I wonder what she is doing now, and if she is ok.
57. After that, I moved to San Francisco and temped for a year.
58. I was quite poor.
59. I have learned that when money is tight, I cut back on buying food.
60. This does not really help me lose weight though.
61. I try not to diet, but sometimes I forget.
62. My first real job was at Planned Parenthood.
63. I loved the mission and some of the people there.
64. I worked in fundraising and I didn’t love it.
65. Stereotypically, rich people are snotty and self-centered.
66. The ones I met did very little to dissuade me of these stereotypes.
67. It is easy to feel poor in San Francisco.
68. Even when my boyfriend was a high-priced corporate lawyer, we never really got ahead.
69. Our rent was over $2000 / month and it wasn’t a bad deal.
70. I made a lot of great friends at Planned Parenthood.
71. I like Nonprofit work.
72. Nonprofits do seem to employ more than their fair share of crazy people though.
73. I got my Master’s in Nonprofit Administration in San Francisco.
74. I learned a lot.
75. It didn’t occur to me until later that going $30,000 in debt to get a degree in nonprofit administration was not a good financial move.
76. Nonprofits don’t pay very well.
77. I proposed to my boyfriend on the beach in Hawaii.
78. Then I threw up.
79. I was so nervous that I had gorged on free luau mai-tais.
80. I had never had a mai-tai before (or since).
81. When I was in my mid 20s, I had the baby lust.
82. My uterus ached for a baby, but my head (just barely) kept me out of trouble.
83. Until I accidentally got pregnant.
84. If you work at Planned Parenthood and get pregnant on accident, a lot of people will make fun of you.
85. Pregnancy hormones have a bad impact on my sense of humor, so I didn’t think it was very funny.
86. Being pregnant when your boyfriend is working 80 hours a week is not fun.
87. Don’t believe people when they tell you that you will forget all about the pain of childbirth when you see the baby.
88. It hurt a LOT, and I have not forgotten it.
89. My daughter will owe me for that for a LONG LONG time.
90. If I have any more children, they will most likely be adopted.
91. We are just beginning the process to adopt from China.
92. My husband is Chinese American (Did I mention that already?)
93. My bio daughter is hapa (Asian/white mixed race) and my adopted child will be Chinese.
94. I am a white mama doing my best to learn how to be a good parent to children of color.
95. I hope I figure it out because being a decent mama is my most important job right now.
96. And did I mention my inlaws are a little crazy?
97. We got married and moved back to the midwest in the summer of 2003.
98. We bought a house and drive a station wagon. What the hell happened to us?
99. We like it in the suburbs, but we’re a little embarrassed to admit it.
100. A lot of the people in my real life don’t know about this blog.
Updated April 24,2007
101. Now a lot more people in my real life know about this blog…
102. Including members of my husband’s family, which makes it slightly more complicated to discuss my inlaws here.
103. We adopted our younger daughter from China in 2007.
104. She is every bit as amazing as our older daughter, but her arrival was not quite as physically painful (but OMG, it was emotionally hard on us all, especially her).
105. I am hoping we are done adding children to our family, largely because I can’t keep up with the laundry.
106. Maybe when the children are old enough to do their own laundry my feelings will change.
107. If we don’t have more children, I have no idea what the Next Big Thing will be.
108. I don’t really like working, so I doubt it will be a job. (Note to yourself from the future: It was not a job. You tried a job for 3 days and quit. Do NOT get another job. You really don’t like working!)
109. Are we riding off into the sunset?
110. Nah, I will probably stick around here a while longer.
Updated March 2011
111. Holy crap. I can’t believe I am still here writing this thing.
112. I try to quit, but it keeps sucking me back in.
113. For a while, the Next Big Thing was planning for a LONG trip to Asia. 2 months long, to be exact.
114. Despite their best efforts, the girls did not kill each other OR their loving parents with bickering and complaining on the trip.
115. They gave their very best effort though. Lordy, can my girls ever complain.
116. In case you are wondering, the sleeper train in China is a bad idea with small children. Even the soft sleeper.
117. We met our daughter’s birth family on that trip after searching for them for years.
118. Our daughters life, her birth family’s lives and our lives are changed forever.
119. That is a good thing, I hope.
120. So now I am trying to figure out if there is another Big Thing in the future.
121. I don’t feel like a need a Big Thing so much any more, so maybe not.
122. All my Little Things, they might just be enough.
