eptivity

As stolen from the meme going around Facebook: “Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.”:

1. I’m thinking about getting some chickens so I have something to nurture.

2. Sometimes I try to read fiction, but I don’t usually like it.

3. I suck at Facebook.

4. My list of countries visited tripled in the last year with the addition of England, Scotland, Wales, and France (previously: Canada, Mexico).

5. I’m dying for Cenaida to get married so I can help plan another wedding.

6. I like to pretend that my cell phone is only pink because it’s the only color they had in stock when I had to buy a new one the day before I went to London to work for three weeks last fall, but secretly I like that it’s pink.

7. I only watch the beginning and final episodes of American Idol.

8. I think Paris Hilton is quite clever, in a public persona and media manipulation kind of way.

9. I’m a sucker for argyle.

10. Also tone-on-tone sequins.

11. I hate watching TV without doing something productive at the same time (note: “productive” is relative).

12. We’re currently on the best TV schedule since we got here: all of our US shows are broadcast in the UK after their initial US broadcast, but the lag time can vary widely. Right now we’ve got (or soon will have) Lost season 5, Project Runway season 5, America’s Next Top Model cycle 11, and Mad Men season 2. All I’m missing is Big Love and The Tudors. Bonus: all of these high-end dramas I would have to watch on DVD back home because they’re on the expensive non-standard channels are on regular type channels here.

13. I have nothing against nicknames, but I find it impossible to use them.

14. Stephan’s and my pet names for each other are “wife” and “husband.”

15. I really like surprises.

16. I’m a horrible photographer, but I’m mildly obsessed with stereoscopic photos and pinhole cameras.

17. I don’t like snowboarding, and it took me a long time to realize that this does not mean I’m a bad person.

18. My alternate-life careers include: package designer, librarian, wedding planner, teacher.

19. I miss Netflix and Craigslist. Also Target.

20. I like marching bands.

21. I am also a coin dork. Not that I go out of my way to collect them, exactly, but I have all of the state quarters and am working on the presidents and two sets of the 2008 UK coins (before and after the new reverses were issued).

22. Also those smash-a-penny souvenirs you get from cheesy tourist attractions. This is fueled by Stephan’s apparent glee at getting to turn the handle.

23. I have the ticket stub from every movie I’ve ever been to, except the Milton-Freewater (“Home of Low-Cost Utilities”) drive-in, where you don’t get one. This is harder than it sounds because sometimes you have super nice friends who insist on paying when they take you to the movies and then don’t want to give you your ticket stub because they are afraid that you will see how much the movie cost and then try to pay them back for it. They are wrong.

24. When I was little and my brother was mean to me, I would threaten (to myself) that I wasn’t going to invite him to my wedding because that was the meanest thing that I could think of ever.

25. The books on our living room bookshelf are currently arranged by color. This is because though I find the idea patently ridiculous, I have always secretly wanted to try it and since our books here only fill three shelves as opposed to the hundreds that they filled back home, I figured now would be my only chance.