25 Random Things Part Deux

Ok, so as I said Monday, this got too long for one post, so I chopped it up. If you can’t remember or don’t know what the heck is going on, all the details are available there. Enjoy!

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25 Random Things (continued)

13. If it were up to me, there’d be readily-accessible public transportation everywhere. This isn’t because I’m particularly green (altho I do love the planet, blah blah blah). It is because I hate driving.
I don’t hate driving as much, largely because I don’t have to do it as much. This is because I no longer work/have to commute, because I now live where my family lives and so no longer have to travel for holidays, and because The Fiancee loves to drive and drives my happy ass around most of the time. (teehee)

14. When I was a kid, I practiced my signature until it looked “grown-up” – my signature hasn’t changed one iota since then.
Funny story – so I’ve mentioned The Fiancee and you can figure out I’m getting married. Well, I’m going to change my name – something I never thought I’d do, by the way, but which I’m oddly not at all disturbed about now that the actual event is nearing. I was always rather of the “why should a woman change her name, what about the man?” or “my name is who I am, and why would I change that just because I got married?” But now that I’m actually going to get married (something I honestly thought I would probably not do, since it hadn’t happened/no prospects were on the horizon by my late thirties), I find that I don’t mind so much. In fact, I mind not at all. And yes, I’ve already started practicing my new signature. It too will look grown-up. And it will look surprisingly like my current signature – even though my new name will be much longer and comprised of many new/different letters. That’s largely because my signature now is a scrawl of three letters – first letter of my first and last names and last letter of my last. And my new last name ends in the same letter as my current last name. So I’m really only swapping out one letter. Or, in other words, new married me will be surprisingly similar to old un-married me – just with a twist in the middle… 😉

15. I read, on average, 150 books a year.
This number has been up and down in the past couple of years – but I’ve written on that already here and here and there’s nothing new to say really (other than that numbers are coming back up, which is good).

16. I LOVE being at home alone in my house. Seriously. LOVE IT. Can’t get enough. This doesn’t mean I hate other people. Just that I really like me…
This and number twenty-five are tied for the biggest changes in my life from 2009 to the present. I can no longer say that I “can’t get enough” alone time. I still need occasional time to get lost in my own head, don’t get me wrong. But ever since The Fiancee (poor you, my love, you are sprinkled throughout today!), I find that I need less of it than I ever dreamed and that if I get too much, I start to get a little antsy. I still really like me (teehee), but I have found that I can be me and be inside my own head when he is around too. And that’s pretty amazing.

17. I actually DO hate other people some of the time.
Still true. And likely always will be. (teehee in a big way)

18. I want Kate Winslet to play me if there’s ever a movie about my life. I dig her – she does funny and random very well…
I still think this is a good idea, and am pleased to report that I have yet to see her make a movie/do anything that changes my mind. Way to go Kate – way to not follow the Hollywood trend of inevitably imploding…

19. Everything I like best about me can be traced to the influence of Aunt Ruth. She may be gone, but will never be forgotten…
Most definitely still true and always will be. For those of you who never knew her – or those who did and just like to be reminded of her – I have written on this before too.

20. I spend a ridiculous amount of money on books every year. I keep having to buy new bookshelves to hold them all. Unfortunately, I’m running out of places to put new bookshelves and soon I’m going to have to buy a new house…
I spend less than I used to, because I’m not gainfully employed any longer, but I still do buy an insane amount of books. I complain constantly that I don’t have enough time to read them, and the stacks of things to be read are ever-growing (especially now that I am reviewing books for others!) and now exist across two households. Fortunately for me, The Fiancee does not mind this and only makes (mostly gentle) fun of me in good humor. I knew he was great, but didn’t fully realize HOW great quite until we started talking about building Dream House and he said “of course our study will have walls of bookshelves…” Hooray for me – I caught me a keeper, eh?! J

21. When I was a kid, my friends and I used to play in their garage and pretend it was a spaceship that crash landed on a planet called LIP (Live in Peace – seriously). (you know who you are, mysteriously unnamed “friends,” who I have left unnamed so you don’t take any grief from other people for the ridiculous name of our planet)
Ah, those halcyon days of yore, when children used their imaginations to craft elaborate worlds for their own amusement… Hey, wait a minute – I do that now. (teehee)

22. I have never had a pet (goldfish and sea monkeys don’t count). I occasionally think it’d be nice to have one, but then I think about dog slobber and hair balls and salmonella (which I recently learned you can get from turtles – who knew?!) and have to rethink my position on goldfish and sea monkeys.
I now have two African dwarf frogs that live in a Lucite cube in my dining room. My sister (hiya Mamy!) gave them to me when I was moving and I am pleased to report that I have kept them alive for going on two years now. They are the perfect pets. They are self-contained with no disease risk, quiet, slobber-free, don’t shed or cough anything up, don’t need to be walked, do not stink, and only need to be fed twice a week. I cannot say enough good things about them, and I do not care what anyone says, they DO count as real pets, they DO love me, and they DO have very fulfilling lives even if the only thing they know of the world is a Lucite cube.

23. The best chicken I’ve ever eaten, bar-none, is Willy’s Garbage Can Chicken. And the fact that it was made by the bouncer of the bar I used to sneak in to as a kid only adds to it’s status…
I don’t know that I can say this quite so unequivocally anymore. The Fiancee has introduced me to the miracle of local barbecue, you see…

24. I seriously think you should need to get a license before you can have kids. I mean, you need a license to go fishing. Seriously. Is fishing really harder than having kids?
I still think this is entirely and completely true. And by far not the craziest idea ever, in either political or regulatory contexts. And you can trust me – I was a regulatory attorney and government relations/policy expert.

25. I love being an aunt (faux to date, altho one day Amy…). I like kids – like playing with them, buying gifts, even perversely looking forward to awkward “uh, Aunt Jill, can you come bail me out and please not tell my parents” phone calls. But I honestly don’t think I want any of my own. I probably couldn’t get a license anyway…
As I said, this is tied with number sixteen for the biggest change. I still do love being an aunt, mind you – no change there. Still like kids too. But, um, well, I do kind of want my own now. Actually, not my own – our own. I’m still worried about the license, by the way, but fortunately he already has kids and is an amazing dad and so I’m hoping to squeak in under his… 😉

So there you have it – random 2009 stuff, with random 2011 annotations/notes/comments added in. Remember to stay tuned later this week for some 2011 completely random stuff – I mean, come on, random is fun(ny), right? And if it’s not, well, it’s a way to pass the time… 🙂