I totally stole this idea from three wishes, who apparently lifted it from somebody else, but I thought it would be really fun to try. So, the following are 100 things about me. (This will be broken up into several chunks, and they are in no particular order.)

100 things about me, #1-14:

1. I have an unusually short torso. Which is problematic for me. I mean, you wouldn’t figure I have a hyper-short torso to look at me. It’s not like I’m four feet tall. I have really long legs and they disguise the fact that I have such an oddly short torso. Unless I’m sitting. Like at a dinner table. And my chin barely clears the table-top. Yeah. Then you know.

2. I have a confirmation name, Elizabeth. It comes from the time (before I could think for myself) when I was Catholic. I chose this name, because it corresponded to the Sweet Valley Twin I liked the best. And besides, there was no Saint Jessica.

3. I used to be Catholic. Did you know that?

4. I’m a really heavy sleeper. I used to live in Philadelphia, in an apartment that was right next door to a Laundromat. The Laundromat was on the corner. It was two full walls of glass encasing countless metal machines, not to mention all that water and clothing. One morning, a Very Large Truck plowed into the Laundromat. According to my mother (who was awakened, like the rest of the block, by the Apocalypse-like clatter), the whole neighborhood was awakened by the Apocalypse-like clatter. I believe her. She is not overly given to hyperbole. I slept through the whole thing.

5. I used to write on my bathroom walls in big letters in colorful permanent ink. Things like:

Viva La Vie Boheme

If you want to be happy, Be --Henry David Thoreau

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a wonderful Christmas.

I always thought that if I were popular, I must be doing something wrong. –Susan Vega

Jell-o is nothing if it isn’t a shimmy.

If you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere, you better wake up and pay attention.

For the sun will rise and the moon will set, you learn how to settle for what you get. It’ll all go on if we’re there or not, so who cares, so what?

Everyone is a moon and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.--Mark Twain

You get the picture. I also wrote boys telephone numbers on the bathroom walls, but much much smaller and in pencil.

6. I went to see “Interview With a Vampire” on my first date with a boy named Amit (I think). He was in the chess club. He was clearly not aware of the fact that it was a date.

7. I’ve been involved (since then) with a great many men and a great many women (sadly, not so many individuals of unspecified or multiple genders), in a great many combinations, it seems. But never multiple men in a given sexual interaction at a given time. Why is that? Bisexual men, where are you?

8. I lost my virginity when I was 18. After a semester and a half of college. I had thought it was very important to maintain said virginity through high school, furthermore thought it would be a Very Bad Idea to go into college a virgin, and consequently tried assiduously to get rid of the damn thing the summer between graduating high school and going to college, managed to commit (and receive) acts of fellatio and cunnilingus, respectively, but was not able to lose my virginity until I was a semester and a half into college. I was probably being a little too picky . . .

9. I’ve been in love 3 times. As far as I can tell, it’s always hard.

10. When I was much, much shorter than I am, I used to sleep in footed pajamas, which I would wear until my feet poked all the way out. This was because I was such a turbulent sleeper that the blankets (in the night) would end up somewhere between half-off the bed and half-way out the door. My mother feared that I would catch something like my death of cold.

11. At present, at a full five foot five (and because I am still something of a turbulent, or, at least, dangerous sleeper), my partner often wakes up blocking her head from my flying elbows. They’re very sharp. And my unconscious aim appears to be very, very good. Should you ever sleep with me, cover your head.

12. For some reason, when I think about interesting things to say about myself, most of them seem to be centered on the years 0-18, as if nothing all that interesting has happened to me in the last five years, which, as anyone who’s been around in the past five years of my life would find pretty laughable. I don’t know. Babies and puppies sell.

13. I never had a puppy.

14. I wanted a cat very badly. For my whole life. Finally, when I was sixteen, my mother caved. She gave me a guinea pig.