Happy birthday to me

[romanticalgirl]

So I turn 48 today and, in honor of this, I have come up with 48 things about me that people might be interested to know. Or are bored enough to read.

1. Nicknames I’ve had: Sis, Sam, Cookie, Mrs. Schmoopy, Lizard, Reena
2. Flowers: love carnations. Hate lilies. Roses remind me of the scented tampons/pads they had when I was a kid
3. Slept with: 6 guys - one went to jail, one disappeared off the face of the earth, one transitioned to female, one was married, one married a woman 40+ years older than him, and one I married. I win a lot of “ex-boyfriend” contests.
4. When I was a kid, I called horses “blompity blomps” because that was the sound they made.
5. In the 7th grade I played the French horn. It is an evil instrument and it hated me with a passion unmatched by any but my own for it. TWELVE FEET OF SPIT. (I have a lot of issues with the French horn. Some perhaps unresolved.)
6. My hatred of Alexander Pope knows no bounds. By rights, I should hate my 12th grade English teacher who wouldn’t let me do a report on someone like Wilde or Jonathan Swift. Nooooo. She wanted to leave the easy guys to the other students. I got a “challenge”. In the days before the internet there were roughly three books that mentioned Pope. Needless to say, it didn’t have a long bibliography/a lot of citations. To forgive divine. Fuck you, dude.
7. I have multiple versions of the game Clue. I have a British Clue-do version, the VHS game (it would make a great DVD. Well, easier to play than w/ video. The game itself is awful and has HORRIBLE acting. “It reminds me of Sumatra.” “I vas never en Sumatra”.) The Disney Haunted Mansion anniversary edition, the 50th Anniversary Disney version, the Simpsons version, the Alfred Hitchcock version, the 60s version, the wooden box original replica version. Possibly more. I would like the Harry Potter edition, but it seems like a lot to spend on a game. Especially since the problem is that I don’t have anyone who will play Clue with me.
8. I have even more versions of Uno. Muppets, Harry Potter, Toy Story, Avengers, original, Charlie Brown, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Sesame Street and a special edition Mariners one. See also: No one will play Uno with me.
9. My 40th birthday was a Clue birthday party. I put banners on all the rooms. I made different color frosting cupcakes with little weapons on them. I bought hot dogs and hamburgers and all the fixings. I invited pretty much everyone I knew IRL and on the internets. And about 8 people came - two PTA friends, two ex-work friends (thanks sakuraigirl!), my in-laws, one of husband’s aunts and her husband. We ate a lot of hot dogs and hamburgers for a while. And I don’t do birthday parties anymore.
10. I have a tendency to over-estimate things. Friendships. If we’ve had some sort of interaction, I probably think you’re my FRIEND. This is not the case. We are internet-compatriots. We are acquaintances. We are not BFFs, and you do not think of me that way and, thus, I am not allowed to be upset when you don’t feel the same way. I am trying to get better about this, but I often fail. Basically my entire existence is “OMG LOVE ME”. I tell people I bake to show love, and I bake because I want them to love me back. And, no matter how many times they tell me they don’t need the baked goods to make that happen, I don’t think I’ll ever believe them.
11. When I was a kid, we belonged to a 4-Wheeling’ club called “The Wandering Polecats”. I still have the back wheel cover that has a tri-chem-ed logo on it. It’s amazing. My dad had this amazing red ‘76 Toyota Land Cruiser, and I swore it was going to be my car. I WANTED IT. We were moving from California to the Azores, and the guy my dad was replacing told us it would be an awful car for over there, so he sold it (I didn’t talk to him for a week). We got over there and found out that, not only was it the PERFECT car, they even had a Toyota repair place there.
12. The guy that my dad replaced is also the guy who called a 12-year-old girl (me), who was at home with just our housekeeper while my sister was back in the states and my mom was in Germany, and my dad was at Walter Reed with excruciating pain in his head and told me that the top level brain specialists had said my dad had [insert disease with a name about 193 syllables long] “and he’s probably going to die.” I walked up to the school devastated and crying and, fortunately, ran into one of my sister’s friends/his mom whose husband worked with my dad. She called him, he got my dad to call me even though he was in Bethesda military hospital and in EXCRUTIATING PAIN to tell me he wasn’t going to die. FORTUNATELY the guy who worked with my dad ratted out the other guy and he got into some shit. If I ever meet him though, I will punch him in the throat and then the dick. [my dad ended up having hormonally induced migraines or something like that, which my sister got at roughly the same age, which bodes well for me, doesn’t it?]
13. I pride myself on giving good gifts; however, I tend to make people uncomfortable with them, because I love giving gifts (see also the PLEASE LOVE ME aspects of my personality), and so will go maybe a little overboard. This year I’m setting some rules for myself where my friends are concerned - dollar/size limits, and attempting to give “experiences” rather than things.
14. Tangentially related, I also tend to buy gifts all throughout the year and store them up. This year I’ve decided I’m not allowed to buy anything for anyone more than a month before the occasion be it birthday, Christmas, etc. So far I’m doing pretty well, but... well, it’s the first year, so I’m cutting myself some slack.
15. I honestly never thought I’d get married and/or have kids, so sometimes being married and having kids seems so completely unreal and bizarre to me.
16. I have no skill at hand crafts. Well, technically I do, but I don’t have the ability to imagine things. So, if I have a pattern, I can make cards and scrapbooky things, but without one, I’m lost. I don’t process things/think of things visually, so I cannot conceive of stuff on my own. Amusingly, I love to do these things, and end up in possession of a LOT of products related to these things and nothing to show for it, except full storage things. I also have absolutely no skill in sewing, crocheting, knitting, needlepoint, etc. Textiles and I are not buddies.
17. What little artistic talent that I do have follows the same non-visualization abilities. I write because I hear the stories in my head - conversations, voices. I tell people that I don’t write stories so much as transcribe them. I’m INSANELY jealous and in awe of people who can create things, who can draw. Seriously. So in awe. My sister has the annoying ability of being able to write/create stories and draw, so I mostly hate her. Actually interacting with people like Beckett (and my love of giving gifts) is hard, because I want to GIVE things, but I can’t give anything particularly personal because I don’t have that talent.
18. Speaking of hating my sister (and ex-boyfriends), when I was dating the last pre-husband guy, he picked me up from work one day (labor day, wherein all but one of my staff had called in “sick”, so I worked all day by myself, and I had woken up late, so I hadn’t been able to shower, and I felt gross and awful and NOT GOOD). He took me out to dinner at Denny’s and said we needed to talk. I insisted that he tell me there, because when I got home, I was GOING TO BED. So he informed me that he was in love with my sister and, sorry, but he was going to ask her out. Now, given that I have MAJOR self-esteem issues and have ALWAYS felt second-best to my sister, this was fairly devastating. He left my place, went to my sister’s, and confessed his love. She apparently gave him the “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, SHE IS MY SISTER, YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER DOUCHEBAG” treatment, and I was surprised that she stuck up for me rather than going out with him. I think she was angrier about that than she was about the fact that he’d asked her that.
19. Because of said shitty self-esteem, I took the dude back. But then I broke up with him on my own terms, and it was pretty awesome. Plus having the last word. And also, he was a douchebag. Since then, my self-esteem has gotten much better.
20. When we had kids, I explained to my husband (a first-born child) that there would be an EQUAL AND FAIR amount of pictures of the second child by himself as there were of the first child. I was a third child, and always hated that there were fewer pictures of me, like I didn’t rate pictures, since they’d already had two kids by the time I came along.
21. I have an older sister, but I also have an older brother who died of SIDS when he was three months old. I remember when we were moving from California to overseas and I found a box, and I asked my mom where she wanted me to pack it, and she ripped it out of my hands and said “That’s Michael’s stuff”. I hated that moment a lot.
22. When I was pre-teen, my bedroom was at the end of a hallway in our house. Right outside my door, there was a dresser of miscellaneous things - newspaper articles about Mt. Saint Helens exploding along with a jar of ash from said explosion, papers, pictures, etc - and on top of it was a small candelabra. I don’t know why. Anyway, one day I was in the bathroom, and I found these thin packages and I unwrapped one, and it was a little CANDLE. A cotton candle with a long wick! So I opened 12 of them and put them in the candelabra. And they were there for ages until one day, while having a Bunco party, my mom was walking down the hall and shouted “OH MY GOD! Who put tampons in this thing?” I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal, but that’s how I learned what tampons were.
23. I went on antidepressants after I had my first kid because instead of post-partum depression, I had post-partum aggression, and I was really afraid that I would hurt someone. Sometimes I hate the array of pills I have to take every day, but I also know that, without them, I’d be dangerous to myself and other people (mostly to myself). So even though a lot of people don’t understand or don’t think medication is necessary and give me a rough time, I still take them, because otherwise I don’t know what would happen.
24. It really bothers me how many of the pills of the medications I take are white. I really would prefer some variety.
25. I am forever constantly on the search for the perfect purse.
26. I am a collector. I like things. Over the course of my adult life, I’ve collected comics, X-men related action figures, Yosemite Sam stuff, Disney villains stuff, Nightmare Before Christmas stuff, The Tick stuff (comic book/cartoon only), Ranma ½ and Sailor Moon stuff, monkeys, Minions, Kermit the Frog stuff, Toy Story stuff (first movie original release mostly), movie posters, and now I have a lot of feelings about Captain America, so a lot of Cap/Avengers stuff. And band t-shirts. SO MANY t-shirts.
27. I am super sentimental. I have my autograph books from back when I was in grade school (It was a thing), and all the notes from my high school BFF, and all the letters from an ex. I keep telling myself that I should clean house and purge through that stuff, but I’m 99% certain that’s 100% never going to happen.
28. I was raised on country music from the 50s-70s. My music tastes are weird and eclectic, leaning heavily toward the 80s, because that was the music that was around when music was a THING in my life (ie: high school). I don’t have a lot of 60-70s rock knowledge because there was no one around me that listened to it, though I’ve gotten better in that area since I started dating/married the husband, since that’s his kind of thing.
29. I really got into photography via Courtney Beckett, because I looked at her stuff and seemed to suddenly realize that photographs aren’t just people. That’s what they’d always been in my life - family vacations, etc - so I’d never processed it for something else. When TAI did the Almost Here 10 year anniversary show in Chicago she was there, and I got to tell her, and it was really amazing.
30. When I was in college I dated a married man who was in an open relationship. He was amazing and smart and funny and I still have all the letters he sent me. I remember how he drove made me crazy - easing on and off the gas pedal for no reason. One year he sent me a stuffed animal harp seal (which I collected at the time) and he signed the card “Love” and, being a ridiculous 21-22 year old, it freaked me out since I really didn’t understand open relationships (or love for that matter) and I didn’t know what it meant. And not wanting to talk about something even though doing so could resolve things isn’t just a thing that happens in fanfics.
31. I am an incredibly jealous person. Not about things people have, but about people and experiences people have. I’ve gotten better in dealing with this since I stopped thinking the term “best friend” is a hierarchy based thing. I think it’s more the fact that I want to be able to do things with my friends, not so much that they’re doing things with other people.
32. I love office/school supplies. Back to school time is my FAVORITE ever. There are notebooks and folders and all sorts of amazing things that I can buy and use! Except I have a bunch that I’ve never used. My biggest downfall is journals. I love journals. I have two boxes full of new journals. I always tell myself I’m not going to buy any more, but then I see one that I just NEED, and then I have a new journal to go in the box.
33. I tend to go in cycles of how I write - sometimes it’s only possible for me to do it on a computer and other times I have to write long-hand. The only time I’m able to do both in the same cycle is when I’m totally engrossed in a fandom and have so many ideas that I can’t NOT write. This also applies to the fandoms I’m writing in. It’s rare that I’ll continue a steady stream of fics in a fandom once I’ve latched onto a new one. Which seems hilarious if you look at the number of different fandoms I’ve written for. But a fic here or there is different than multiple fics in progress for the same fandom.
34. I refuse to eat black-eyed peas because they stare at you, I refuse to eat lima beans because they are chalk, and I wouldn’t eat Jell-O in the third grade because it moved and therefore wasn’t dead yet.
35. When I was pregnant with my first kid I spent a lot of time watching “Investigative Reports”, and my husband joked that my kid would think Bill Kurtis was his father. He has the greatest voice. I looked him up on Wikipedia, and dude is interesting as heck.
36. I went to college for journalism because it was the only way I could think of writing as a career, since the thought of becoming a novelist wasn’t something I really thought was a viable option. I never went into the field and I’m really glad, because around when I graduated, the 24-hour news cycle became a thing, and then the stations started dividing along political lines, and it stopped being even close to impartial. I have a LOT of thoughts on the 24-hour news cycle, none of them good.
37. I’ve never really followed the concept of OTP in my fandom life. I’ve always been more of a “who should this person have sex with/be with now” kind of gal. When I was in Buffy and Dawson’s Creek fandom, two of my friends used to joke that my motto should be “make ‘em naked”. I’m far more of a one true character type person, and they often seem to fall into the misunderstood bad(ish) boy whose reputation and smart mouth is hiding someone with incredible pain and capacity to love. (see: Pacey Witter, Mickey Milkovich, Bucky Barnes). Despite all of that, I do have FAVORITE pairings, though never to the exclusion of other possibilities.
38. I love to bake, but I’ve discovered that I’m not very good at the whole decorating thing. People always say nice things, and I know we’re always our own worst critic, but I’m pretty sure they’re just being nice. So, you know, I’ll bake it, but someone else needs to make it look pretty.
39. Looking back at it now, I think if I had to choose a career/what I would study in college it would be either forensics or catering. Not together. That’s a little too Hannibal-esque, I think. It’s funny, when I see surgeries or something on TV, it always grosses me out with the glistening and the colors and the moving, but the thought of a dead body doesn’t bother me. Of course, I don’t think I’ve ever really seen the inside of a dead body, so I could be very wrong about that sort of thing.
40. I don’t drink really. I don’t like beer or wine, so I usually have to go with hard alcohol. Vodka gives me a headache, rum makes me a bitch, gin tastes like pine sol. So I drink tequila. Mostly I do tequila shots. Which make me very, very, VERY friendly. Also one time one of my friends was juggling limes and I’d had a little more tequila than I should have and I started crying because I was afraid he was going to drop the limes on me.
41. There used to be a restaurant/bar near where I worked that sold 30+ flavors of margarita. A bunch of us would go after work, and we’d try different ones. One time I got a banana margarita and said, “This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had in my mouth”, and one of my friends said “But you’re dating Matt”. And it was awful, and also hilarious. So, yes. No banana margaritas, my friends. I took that bullet for you.
42. My favorite book from childhood is “There’s a Monster at the End of This Book” because it is great literature.
43. I hate Nancy Drew. She’s a snobby know-it-all. If you want good teen detecting, you go with Trixie Belden because she’s the best. Far more relatable. She was 12, which was closer to my age, she didn’t come from money, she had to deal with siblings, and she was ridiculous. I still have every one of the books, even the bad ones that came out much later, as well as the quiz books. Also acceptable - Encyclopedia Brown.
44. Mystery-wise, I do not like Sherlock Holmes. This is extremely unfair because I’ve only read one story, and basically the answer was “the dog didn’t bark”. That, to me, is like Rob Thomas saying that it’s clear that Aaron killed Lilly because “Clash of the Titans” was playing in Veronica’s hotel room” (when clearly the murderer was Lianne). I also was never able to get into Miss Marple; however, Hercule Poirot was my jam. I can’t actually say that he’s any better than Holmes regarding what solves the case, but something about him just appealed to me more.
45. Both of my children think they’re smarter than me. This is true in some cases (math), but not true in most. If they are smarter, I say it’s because the umbilical cord is a straw they use to suck out my brain. My sister and I treated our mom the same way though. I think it was because the way she was smart wasn’t the way we were taught meant smart. If it wasn’t math or science or words it wasn’t really smart. Either way, I’m surrounded by three annoyingly smart guys and it’s annoying.
46. It’s amusing to me that, as someone who has written a significant amount of porn, I’m so utterly boring in the amount of porn-related-type things I’ve done. So I do a bad job of only writing what I know. Relatedly - in Buffy fandom there were some who called me “porn goddess” and in Dawson’s fandom I was “the patron saint of Pacey porn”. (the last of which actually was kind of on display when Joshua Jackson was on Graham Norton and they were talking about paceyporn.com which was a website that several of my friends ran, and they showed one of my fics on the TV. God, what if that’s my 15 minutes of fame?)
47. I have a hard time tagging my fic on AO3 because I have very few things that bother/trigger/squick me. I’m always willing to add tags, because I hate the thought that I’ve upset someone, but I literally cannot fathom what might set someone off. I don’t know. However, if I’ve offended you in regards to tagging, I’m sorry and I try and do better every time.
48. It is really fucking hard to come up with 48 different things when you’re a relatively boring person. Maybe that’s my biggest secret. :D

For my birthday a bunch of my fandom/internet friends put together a cookbook of their family recipes for me. It is the most amazing thing, and I cried while I was reading through it, because how are people so great? How am I so lucky? Here's a link to it. If you have any family-type recipes you'd like to share, please do! I'd love to add to the book.

Laura's Fannish Cookbook

Other updates -

Family went to Disneyland, Universal Studios, the Redwoods, stopped in Oregon for the eclipse in totality. Pictures eventually. Hamster on the go had a blast. Pictures of that (even more than were shared on Instagram) eventually as well. I don't know. Things. Things have happened, and I suck at updating.

I did write another fic! It was written for pod_together. MCU - Tony Stark gets captured. The Winter Soldier helps him out. Wackiness ensues! (wackiness does not ensue). Check it out!

Despite the Abundance of Violence