- Inspired by a program called Reading Rainbow, in 1983, I started my own line of Smurf books from stapled construction paper and crayons. Sadly, I do not still have any of the books.
- My favorite color is blue, but I also like pink, red, purple, green, and orange.
- My “happy place,” where my mind goes during meditation, is the flume in North Conway, where I used to go on vacation as a kid with my family, before my family fell apart.
- My favorite foods are
- Ice cream
- Lobster
- Pizza
- My first cassette tape was Out of the Blue by Debbie Gibson in 1988.
- In 4th grade, I wrote slasher stories. In high school and college, angsty poetry.
- Harriet the Spy is my hero.
- I don’t like:
- Bologna
- Onions
- Mayonnaise
- I don’t like tags on anything: clothes, pillows, rugs, mattresses. They give me the heebeejeebees and I have to cut them off.
- I have recurring dreams about crazy elevators and my teeth falling out.
- I don’t go on carnival rides.
- People I look up to:
- My cousin Tara
- My older brother, Erik
- Wally Lamb
- Louis Sachar
- Gabrielle Kassel
- My first CD was Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy.
- My second CD was Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill.
- My third CD was The Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
- My first school friend (and boyfriend) was Paul McCausky at Holy Angels Preschool.
- I never had another boyfriend until I was 16.
- My first big mutual crush was in 8th grade.
- I’ve never broken a bone.
- I’ve never dyed my hair.
- I’ve bleached my teeth twice.
- I’ve had braces.
- I’ve never had a tattoo.
- I’ve never had anything pierced other than my ears.
- In seventh grade, I came home crying every single day because I had no friends and no one talked to me all day unless it was to pick on me.
- In seventh grade, I had a crush on Matt Divirgilio, and I told my friend Alisa, and she told him someone liked him, and he guessed it, and told everyone at a school dance. Then he danced with my ex-best friend, Amanda. The next day, everyone was asking me, “Do you like Matt Divirgilio?” Not anymore, I thought to myself.
- In 10th grade, I was obsessed with this kid, Arthur Makros. On an end of the year whale watch field trip, my BFF Christina went and told him I liked him. He already knew and was not interested, but he was obviously interested in Christina. I had to watch the two of them flirt with each other the entire next year before they finally hooked up and she dumped him for another guy three weeks later. She probably implicated me somehow in the breakup, because for the remainder of high school, he inexplicably hated my guts.
- I secretly like Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You song, but it reminds me of Charlie Diamantapoulos, who reached across the aisle in religion class, removed my shoe, and threw it in the trash when I refused to lend him a pen.
- I was flat chested right up through my mid twenties, until I started gaining weight and had two kids.
- I used to wear a size 6 jeans.
- I’ve never not been curvy. Even when I was 100 pounds, I still had hips and a butt.
- I am nervous about my upcoming surgery.
- I’m afraid I will never be good enough.
- I’m afraid my dreams will never come true.
- I’m afraid the truth will never come out.
- I’m afraid of wasting my talent.
- I’m afraid of wasting my time.
- I’m afraid I’m not a good parent.
- I’m afraid I’m not a good person.
- In my youth, I never imagined I would double in size.
- In my head, I still think of myself as thin, so seeing myself in the mirror or photos is always a shock.
- I can’t concentrate in a messy room.
- I need complete silence to study for tests or to read with understanding.
- I have difficulty understanding people when they try to talk to me from another room.
- I would rather be home alone than at a party.
- I’m rarely invited to parties.
- I have a hard time keeping in touch with friends.
- I avoid talking on the phone with most people until I can’t any longer.
- I fear that I am lazy.
- I fear that I am boring.
- I fear running out of ideas.
- In 8th grade, to save face in front of a boy, I stood up to the school bully in front of 23 gaping classmates. I have never stopped standing up for myself since. It’s exhausting.
- As a kid, I always wanted a treehouse and a swimming pool in our backyard.
- As a kid, I was always trying to start my own club: writing club, spy club, drawing club, anti-Jaime Picariello club, diet club…
- I wanted to marry Baby Gonzo.
- Because of my mother and grandmothers’ distorted world views, I was conservative, before I really knew anything about anything. I wasn’t an activist in college, but being there completely changed me and helped me discover who I really was, without all the nonsense they had filled my head with. I think it was due to being away and experiencing life without their influence. At my core I’m about as progressive as a person can be, but I’m still not politically outspoken about it. I’m a passive-progressive 😉.
- I loved my cousins, Tara and Amanda. We were close when we were little. We’re not, anymore. I wasn’t invited to Amanda’s wedding. Even though we’re not that close, it still hurt me.
- I don’t talk to anyone I care about as much as I should. I feel isolated.
- I don’t actually read as much as I should.
- I make a big deal about being organized but my house is almost always messy and disorganized.
- I try to avoid collecting items.
- I like to sing but I’m not good.
- I used to love to draw when I was a kid, and I thought I was good until my uncle (my mother’s brother) made fun of my drawings of horses one day while the rest of my family laughed and I cried. After that I didn’t draw, anymore.
- I know a lot of music trivia.
- I hum when I’m nervous.
- I always have a song stuck in my head, playing in the background of my mind.
- I fall asleep at inappropriate times and locations.
- Most men underestimate my age, while some women insinuate I look old: “you have a 7-year-old?” Note: the women who do this are typically older than me.
- I am right handed, but I do a lot of things with my left hand, for example, opening jars, twisting off lids, I used to smoke with my left hand before I quit years ago.
- I cry easily.
- I laugh easily.
- I don’t smile a lot, but it doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. It sometimes means I’m concentrating on what you’re saying or straining to hear or properly interpret what you’re saying.
- I try not to ever yell at my children, but Desmond calls it yelling when I change my tone to disciplinary, which I also try to avoid.
- Some people think I am too permissive, but I am not. I just don’t yell. I think you can manage behavior more effectively in other ways. Yelling is shown to be ineffective.
- When Desmond was little, I tried a variety of strategies to manage his behavior. The most effective ones seemed to be deescalation and waiting him out.
- I was actually pretty good at math when I could focus and practice it. I got an A+ in trig/ pre calculus. I killed it on the Praxis.
- I am not as good at math as Desmond.
- I have a pretty good idea of my limitations…for the most part.
I Learned Something Today 
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