(This is a work in progress.  I just couldn’t get it all out in one breath.)

1. I have red hair.

2. But it’s not very bright red, it’s more auburn. And quite long.

3. I drink tea. Mmmm, tea. (Coffee makes me sick.)

4. I have a big organic, heirloom vegetable garden and I grow most of the things for it from seed.

5. I don’t like hot sunny weather. At all. You will never catch me laying out on a beach. If you do, it’s probably a suicide attempt.

6. I love to read. Faves include Ursula Le Guin, Neil Gaiman, and Connie Willis.

7. I have lived in Michigan all my life.

8. Foreign countries I have visited: Canada, Israel, England, Scotland, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. My itch to travel has barely been scratched.

9. I have been knitting since spring 2002 when my friend taught me to knit socks. I became seriously addicted a year later while living abroad, working on my master’s degree.

10. I learned how to knit as a child in the winter of 1985-86 when my second-grade teacher offered that we could stay inside during lunch and knit with her instead of going outside. (See # 7) Also, as a shy, new student, I had no friends. I was pretty pathetic.  But I had an awesome burgundy acrylic scarf in progress!

11. I work as a freelance writer and editor. My experience is largely in reference books on literature, biography, and social studies.

12. I have wanted to be a writer since the age of 12 when one of my friends told me that she DID NOT want to be a writer like her family kept suggesting. It was the first time I had realized this was an actual career.

13. My total income, to date, as a creative writer is $8. (The freelance reference book writing does not count.)

14. I have wanted to be an archaeologist since the age of 17. I have a BA and an MA and zero work experience. Babies and archaeology don’t mix. But babies grow up and I have not given up on this, just waiting, waiting, waiting.

15. My specialty is chiefdom-level societies and Mesopotamia. Yeah… that would be another reason I am not heavily pursuing archaeology at the moment.

16. I can do laundry all day but I hate washing dishes.

17. I also don’t like to cook. Although I will gladly grow all the food.

18. Someday I want ducks. Chickens are all the rage these days for organic gardeners but I want ducks. It’s totally Eliot Coleman’s fault.

19. We got a German Shepherd puppy this summer. If she and I survive a year together, maybe I will finally bring home the ducks.

20. I love animals but I really am a cat person.

21. Cesar Millan makes me believe the dog and I will someday peacefully coexist.  (I am convinced that he is some kind of shaman.  No joke.)

22. I love to make lists!  I get this from my dad.

23. For example, I make myself a To Do list almost every day and do about 1 or 2 things on the list.

24. Because I work from home and have no defined work hours, I have to leave the house to take a vacation. (See #8)

25. My sport is hiking.  I did a lot of backpacking before my son was born.  I’m lucky if I get to go on one backpacking trip per year. I miss it.

26. My husband Matthew and I were engaged for three years before we got married.  We planned the wedding in six months.

27. He asked me to marry him at dawn on a dewy hillside in Pennsylvania.  He was so nervous he actually pushed me down and sat on me so I couldn’t get away.  Trust me, it was romantic.  Dewy hillside, remember?

28. We were married outside on the autumnal equinox (a lucky coincidence of dates).  I wore a green and gold dress and he wore a bowler hat with his tuxedo.  Our officiant was a friend of a friend who was a Unitarian-minister-turned-pagan-priest.  We had a huppah, a ketubah, and a unity candle.  Instead of non-denominational, I would say it was multi-denominational.

29. Our son Zander was born two and a half years later.

30. No, he was not named after that character in Buffy.  It’s a family name.

31. I was in labor for 25.5 hours.  No drugs.

32. I’m going to do it again in March 2009.  Mercy.

33. I am half-Hungarian, one-quarter Irish, one-quarter a bunch of other stuff.

34. I wear glasses (nearsighted) but otherwise am ridiculously healthy.

35. I used to work in a cubicle but now I have recovered.

36. I miss my friends from work but none of them are there anymore either.

37. On gray, rainy days, I am thankful to work from home.  In homage to cubicle rats everywhere, I drink a cup of cocoa and read a book, curled up on the couch or in bed.  It was what we always wanted to be doing on icky days instead of being at work.

38. I was a serious theater techie in high school and had a crazy amount of fun but could never get into it in college.  I miss being backstage during a production.  There’s nothing like it.

39. Coincidentally, Matt was also a high school theater geek and we sometimes talk about joining a civic theater.

40. My favorite fruit is black raspberries, picked straight off the bush and eaten sunshine-warm.

41. I also love avocados, spinach, butternut squash, and nectarines.

42. I want to plant cherry trees and apple trees.  We have over a third of an acre but the previous two owners planted a ton of trees already–maples, oak, and hickory–so I struggle with my conscience as to whether or not we should, ahem, replace some.

43. My favorite season is autumn.

44. Autumn is about two weeks long in Michigan.

45. Despite knowing this, I was totally confused during the year I spent in England.  It was November but it felt like September.  I kept waiting for it to get cold.  Instead it just got darker and darker.  Total darkness by 4pm was more than my soul could handle.  But at least it wasn’t all that cold!

46. I only sleep about 6 to 7 hours per night.  If I sleep more han 8 hours, I get a sleep hangover.  Matt is the opposite and needs/wants 8-9 hours or more.  (This was all true before we had kids, lucky me.)

47. I am a secular Jew with unidentified spiritual tendencies.  Matt is a recovering Methodist.

48. It makes the winter holidays interesting.  We celebrate Christmas, Winter Solstice (Yule), and Hannukah.  For Christmas we drive all over the state visiting the in-laws.  For Solstice we have a party with my family and give each other handmade/sentimental gifts (one each which is completely disproportional to the Xmas experience). Hannukah is extremely low key, as it was intended to be, with candles and a tiny gift for any children around each night. Sometimes there is a holiday meal because the food is yum.

49. I am a Cancer, astrologically speaking, and could be a dictionary model of the term.  I am not really into astrology too much but after a college friend pointed it out, I can’t help but notice that a vast proportion of my close friends are also water signs (Pisces, Cancer, Scorpio).  I also get along well with earths (that would be my boys, Matt and Zander). And I grew up with a fire and a air so there is a place in my life to love those people also.

50. I can’t believe I am only about halfway through my list.  There cannot possibly be 51 more things to say about myself!

51. Music.  I like folk, rock, folk rock, ska, classical, and showtunes.  I have also been in a music desert since college so I just don’t have anything smart to say on this topic.

52. My favorite color is green.

53. My least favorite color is pink.

54. #52 and #53 have been true for at least fifteen years.

55. My favorite beverage is tea but since that was also covered in #3, I’ll add that I am also a fan of hot chocolate, ginger ale, red wine, and wheat beer (like Blue Moon).

56. My personal mission when I eat out at restaurants is to find dishes with lots of vegetables.  I am not vegetarian but I like vegetables and have discovered that since mainstream America does not, restaurants don’t serve them. At least the chain ones do not.

57. Luckily I live in a university town with lots and lots of ethnic and/or locally run restaurants.