25 Things About Me.

This thing is making the rounds on Facebook. I don't really feel like posting a bunch of personal stuff about me on there. Facebook already has enough information about me (see #25). I'm putting it here for the 2 of you who care.

The (FB) Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged*. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. (To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish).

1) After I shower in the morning, I go back to bed to have my first cup of coffee and read. I get up about an hour earlier than I have to for this luxury. I've been doing this for about 17 years. When I lived at home, my Mom would bring that first cup to me in bed. I believe she is responsible for starting this habit.

2) My parents have been married for 44 years. I am very thankful and consider myself extremely lucky that they are the people who raised me.

3) We got our summer home in Lake Geneva when I was 8 years old. When I was 28, my parents retired, and sold it and my childhood home at the same time. I never realized how great it was to have a lake house to go to and how that experience influenced who I was until it was gone. I still miss it all the time.

4) The summer after my sophomore year in college, I spent about a month in Japan on an exchange program with 11 students and the college professor in charge of the Graphic Design program. I feel confident that to this day, I could plan a trip and navigate myself around Tokyo. I regret that at the time, I didn't eat sushi. Dang!

5) When I was Japan, I left a packed shopping bag full of all the gifts I'd bought for my friends and family on a subway bench by accident. The rate of crime there is so low, and the people so noble, that by the time I got back over an hour later, it, and everything in it (including an emerald ring) was still there.

6) The Royal Tenenbaums is my favorite movie, and I think Wes Anderson's attention to detail is extraordinary.

7) I need my thermostat and my stereo volume to be set at an odd number.

8) I love to fish. I can bait my own hook with live leeches, worms and minnows if necessary, and I know how to choose a lure depending on what I'm fishing for and where and how I'm fishing. I can also release my own fish, and skillfully maneuver an outboard motor.

9) Everything about being in and around a pool feels comfortable and relaxes me. The sites, the sounds, the smell. I have been a swim instructor, coach and lifeguard. When I was 16, I was the 12th fastest 50-freestyler in the state of Illinois, and for four years I was an All State water polo player, and finally, a member of the state championship team in 1990.

10) Just looking at a picture of Italy causes a physical reaction in me that I feel as a longing in my chest.

11) All of my boyfriends have been "working men". Landscaper, paver, roofer and painter in that order.

12) My brother and I fought like crazy, physically and verbally, until I went to college. He paid for a $100 underage drinking ticket I got when I was 18 without telling my parents, and we've been friends ever since. He's without a doubt one of my favorite people on earth, and the best brother and friend a girl could have.

13) I am always considering different place to live. Everywhere I go, I think about what it would be like to move there. My friends and "family" keep me rooted in Chicago, despite the unbearable winters that I HATE. I'd love to live on Dawson's Creek, and yes, I realize that this is fictional place.

14) I'm planning to throw a party this summer for all the kids I know. I just realized recently that this could mean hosting over 30 little people in my backyard, and secretly hope not all of them will be able to make it.

15) I share a birthday with Shiloh Jolie-Pitt.

16) I believe in reincarnation, synchronicities, alternative life forms and that when you are on the right path, the Universe works in your favor. Likewise that when you are on the wrong path, things just don't work out quite right. You just have to look for the signs.

17) I have a strong sense that I lived on a southern plantation in a past life. My favorite weather is in the 90s and humid (as long as I'm near water, of course), and I avoid air conditioning almost always.

18) While the movie The Notebook isn't the best, and even maddeningly cheesy, when Rachel McAdams wakes up in that incredible house he built with his bare hands, and she follows that path to find the art studio he created for her, well, that would be like the most amazing dream come true.

19) After a few wrong turns (that lasted I'm sure too long), I finally feel like I am working on, with, and toward what and who are right for me.

20) I am terrible at managing my money. I hope to reverse this situation completely by the time I turn 40.

21) Over Labor Day, the summer before I started Jr. High and the 6th grade, my family was out on an incredibly packed and wavy Lake Geneva in basically a row boat pulling my brother on skies with a 10 horse. I was in the bow of the boat, and after hitting a huge wave, landed on an anchor. I can still see the face of my father while it was happening, and picture my brother's face as he sank, inexplicably, into the rough water behind us. To this day I can't imagine what it was like for my parents, dealing with me in the boat and my 8 year old brother floating alone in this crazy environement. Then, after a LONG drive to an emergency room, my 11 year old self had to sit with my feet in stirrups, with my Mom in the room! while I got stitches "down there". Not only did I have to wear pads for the first time (un-period related), I had to miss the first few weeks of gym class without explaining WHY I had to miss.

22) The best sandwich I've ever had came from a closet-like storefront, across the cobblestone street from a falafel place, called Noe in Florence, Italy.

23) I've sat alone in a box at Orchestra Hall with the composer of the work being performed.

24) Every Tuesday when I was in the 2nd grade, my mother taught a tumbling class for kids and I was responsible for making the family dinner. My specialties were Greek chicken with rice and spaghetti.

25) I think Facebook started this thing to dig for and collect even more information about the members. I wonder what the motives are, what "they" will use this information for, if they will sell it, etc. Yes, I realize at times I can be quite paranoid, and yes, I know Facebook can probably find this post without even trying. But really, when you think about it, Facebook is kind of crazy.

*I'm not "tagging" anyone, but I will send those who tagged me to this post.