Ha, Facebook meme

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 also 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.)


Twenty-five random things about me.

1. As crappy as I am at it now, Chinese was my first language. When I first entered daycare at the age of 3, I (allegedly) spent all my time crying in the arms of one of the ladies there because I had no idea what was going on. I learned English by watching Disney's Sleeping Beauty on continuous repeat and singing along (I remember asking my parents what "familiar" meant, and coming away thinking that it meant "evil."). Then, when Arthur started using words like "dad" at home, I started doing it too.

2. When I was younger, my mom and I would watch cooking shows together CONSTANTLY. There was a lot of Julia Child, Yan Can Cook (love him, love him), and that skinny man with the beard. The Frugal Gourmet? We'd also go to the Union Twp Library and borrow videos on garnishing and cake decorating. These we would watch while I drank Crystal Light lemonade.

3. I got a bowl cut in the 1st grade, then started growing my hair out as long as I could. This lasted until, like, 6th grade? Anyways, back then, and then also in junior high, strangers would come up to me and demand that I never cut my hair. In the lunch line, waiting for the next roller coaster car, these girls would literally say, "You have such pretty hair! Please don't ever cut it, please!" Meanwhile, my dad was convinced that the weight of my hair was dragging down the right side of my head and resented it.

4. All right, I have a comic book collection. It is in the basement in a cabinet under the bookshelf. It is still being refreshed from time to time. Mostly it's X-men and its ilk. This is rounded out by the 4-player arcade game from the early '90s, original arcade cabinet. But if you're reading this, you knew I was a dork already, so whatevs.

5. I don't really enjoy shopping anymore. I am less and less a fan of the mall. That said, I still love perusing for trinkets and gifts in small shops, and sometimes a purchase can release some much-needed endorphins (just as making a return the next day allows me to feel like a responsible adult). None of this applies to food shopping, which I still approach with passion.

6. At birth (mine), the doctor apparently used pincers... wait... he was not a lobster. The doctor apparently used calipers to, uh, pull me out. My mom would look at my face sometimes while I was growing up and blame him for putting my eyebrows off-kilter.

7. You know the red Triaminic? I hated that stuff. I probably still hate it. You know when your doc told your mom that it's time for Triaminic and you went with her to the medicine aisle and prayed that you were getting the orange kind (for sinus trouble) but she always crushed your hopes by picking the red kind (for coughs)? That always happened to me! Anyways, as a result, I cannot enjoy cosmopolitans especially, and most drinks made with clear grain alcohol in general.

8. The single most-played song in my itunes right now, according to the program, is "Elevator Love Letter" by the Stars, by a surprisingly wide margin. My best explanation for this, other than that I do like that song, is that it topped one of my playlists for a while, so whenever I started it, that song would play first. But it's a good song.

9. I adore spicy food. The more tears and snot running down my face, the better. In fact, food like that feels like a gift from the universe directly to me. I date this back at least to mapo dofu when I was 7 or younger, though my most vibrant memory is of a PHENOMENAL bowl of beef noodle soup in some random little Taiwanese shop. Nothing compares, though these days a bowl of Lanzhou noodles with several hefty spoons of the available spices hits the spot. BTW, the best treatment for a sore throat is spicy food.

10. One summer, after spending most of one night awake in my dad's study finishing a history paper, I moved masses of blankets and pillows into the family room and set up a pretty comfortable bed for myself. I started brushing my teeth in the downstairs bathroom. My parents humored me, even though a) i was blocking the tv, and b) there was a giant bed in their family room. Then I came home one day at the end of the summer and it was gone. It was time. But I continued to brush my teeth in the downstairs bathroom until we moved some years later.

11. My parents played oldies in the car, always (ok, not counting long car trips that necessitated those friggin Chinese music tapes), and so this is the music I listened to until just before high school. I couldn't tell you song titles, and would have a hard time naming any artists, but if it was popular in the '50s or '60s, I probably know all the words to it.

12. At a company picnic once, when I was young and oh-so-precocious, I found myself standing next to this woman who was lighting up a cigarette. I tapped her on the arm and said, "Girls don't smoke." She looked at me a moment, then said, "You know, you're right." And she put it out.

13. I used to treat dishwashing as a privilege, spending maybe an hour on a stool in front of a sudsy sink pouring heady "beers" into dirty cups, but that was an extremely long time ago. It is now something that I do not enjoy doing, but in the end I'm the person I trust most to get things satisfactorily clean.

14. Once I got out of the cartoon phase (i.e. when they cancelled She-Ra), my favorite show as a child was totally Get Smart. It's tough to watch now, but I'd stay up until 9 or whenever to catch it so I was always the most tired child in the mornings at daycare.

15. I'll wave to people as I say goodbye to them over the phone. It's not conscious, and I wouldn't know about it if someone hadn't pointed it out to me.

16. The first thing I learned to cook was scrambled eggs, followed quickly by egg fried rice. I also took advantage of the after-school cooking classes in elementary school. I don't remember any of those recipes, but during an illness that kept me home for two days, my mom taught me basic soy-marinated chicken and pork chops. That's come in handy.

17. It's great to have large gatherings of friends, but more than that I like hanging out with people one-on-one or in really small groups. The exception is groups of 3-- too often I'll just check out of those conversations.

18. Why are there so many pictures of you on my hard drive? Well, I'm a very nostalgic person, so even though my short-term memory is godawful, I put a lot of value into the things I can carry with me long-term. Sometimes one of my favorite activities is to just sit down with a friend and go over fond memories. Bonus points if there's a related video in which someone is singing. (This is also why things rarely get thrown away unless they've somehow proven perishable.)

19. If you ask me a question, I will answer it truthfully. I can't ever bring myself to lie. I'm sure I could be pretty good at it, but I don't like to let myself. The exception to this, of course, is if you are one of my parents and I think the answer is going to really tip the boat over. But even that has rarely rarely ever happened (like, twice in recent memory, and I can't even remember one of the times). This also means that I can't take being lied to, which i's one thing that will make me truly angry. Caveat: this doesn't mean that I don't get a kick out of bullshitting, which I do with vigor. It's fun, isn't it?

20. I am uncomfortable in situations in which I have to bargain or fight someone over the price of an object or service. I mean, I hate getting ripped off in any case, but most of the time, it seems like I'm not the one getting ripped off.

21. Traffic sucks ass, but I love to drive. Given a reasonably open back road or highway and enough juice in my music player, I don't even care where I'm going. My dream excursion is a long road trip.

22. Around 3rd grade I entered a non-fiction reading phase, and one week I'd read everything in the library about dolphins, and the next week it was volcanoes, then killer bees, ants, poisonous plants, snakes, and so on. At one point I read every synopsis of old-school horror flicks on the shelves. That's how I know the plots of the various Draculas, Phantoms, Frankensteins, and so on, even though I'm still too chickenshit to watch them myself.

23. I really can't stand the smell of pollen or any flower that smells heavily of pollen (lilies, if you need an example). This smell was everywhere right after my grandpa died, I'm assuming from all the funeral flowers, and I thought I could smell it on all my mom's clothes. I associate it with headaches and dizziness, which I was probably experiencing at the time.

24. Meanwhile, I can't tell you how many buses I've missed in Berkeley because I got distracted by all the gorgeous flowers in people's gardens. It really is nice to stop and smell the flowers, photos optional. And yes, I have TONS of photos. And yes, this also applies to rocks, cool bark, metalwork, found notes and tickets, glass, parked cars, clouds, the moon, and most things that are shiny. My attention span is what it is.

25. Anything that makes me laugh wins. Not to be confused with an ironic chuckle or snort-- I mean laughter that makes me throw my head back, fall out of a chair, or pee a little bit. I can forgo sleep (and GOD I love sleep) but I can't forgo this.