100th Post (I'm a conformist)
Monday, January 26, 2009 at 7:03AM Today marks my 100th post. Yay! I wasn't going to be like all those OTHER bloggers and list 100 facts about myself. I was going to do something clever and different.
Except I couldn't think of anything clever.
So you get 100 facts about me. Um, yay?
I'm going to totally rip off aspire to be the Stiletto Mom and just start at the beginning. Hers turned out well.
(Probably because she's just an interesting person, and I'm not, but shut up. It's my blog).
1. When I was 2 the neighbour kids pretended to befriend me for gum and then locked me in an outhouse. I only know this because my mother told me.
2. She was outraged. I'm pretty sure those poor neighbour kids have more emotional scars now than I do.
3. We lived in a small prairie town (like, 500 people) until I was 5.
4. All I remember from that is making mud pies with the dog's poop and once getting my leg so stuck in a snow drift that I just stood there for what seemed like hours, imagining that the ambulance would arrive any minute to rescue me.
5. I'm pretty sure it was about 5 minutes.
6. I went to a french immersion program in elementary school.
7. I dropped out in grade 9. I can barely speak a word of french.
8. When I was 10 my family picked up and moved to New Zealand. I cried. A lot.
9. We lived there for 2-1/2 years.
10. I hear the NZ school system has gone in the tank lately.
11. While there I met friends who played D&D and started imaginary armadillo farming businesses. Once, we "kidnapped" one of our other friends wearing black masks (oddly, she wasn't fooled), brought her home and kept her in a closet for an hour.
12. What still baffles me is that our parents (and hers) went along with that plan.
13. When I was 13 we moved home. When I was 17 we went back to visit. It was like I had never left.
14. No, not really.
15. I slept through most of high school. I kept going to the doctor to find out if something was wrong with me, but I was apparently just bored.
16. I lost my virginity at 16 to a boy whose last name I can't remember. I just wanted to get it over with, I was the last of my friends to get laid.
17. No, my friends aren't sluts. Honest.
18. Oh, and it sucked.
19. Ironically, shortly after that was when my mother decided to have "the talk" with me. Um, Mom? See that barn door, and that horse disappearing over the horizon? Yeah.
20. Immediately after graduation I moved into an apartment with my best friend.
21. I don't recommend that. If you were wondering.
22. I started working at the job that I'm working at now.
23. The end. ...No, just kidding.
24. In 1993 I decided to go to college. I wanted to do a graphic arts program, and I wanted to move to the coast. None of the ONE graphic arts program I applied to accepted me. I had applied to a Stagecraft program on a whim, and they sent me an acceptance letter. So I did that.
25. No - I had never done anything in theatre before. Ever.
26. It rocked, and I met one of my bestest friends in the world there. It was our first day of Props class, and there were various supply boxes on shelves. One of them was labelled "Dead Things And Their Fur". I giggled. She whispered, "Are you laughing at that too?". Then we bonded over chocolate chocolate chip cookies.
27. "Dead Things and Their Fur" still makes me giggle.
28. Theatre tech school involved a lot of building, painting, and drinking. Not necessarily in that order.
29. One of us "techies" acquired a large, ugly, glass vase thingy on a stand. I think it was actually an ashtray from the 70s. We dubbed it "The Graille" and drank from it at every party. After everyone had contributed booze to it, of course.
30. I was the Queen of the Graille.
31. No, I'm not particularly proud of that.
32. After that diploma I went to the Banff Centre to do their summer program.
33. They had some of the most spectacularly crappy food there EVER. I lost 10 pounds, despite the copious amounts of alcohol I was consuming.
34. I returned to Vancouver and attempted to actually make a living working in theatre. Um, it's hard. And I'm a wimp.
35. So I moved back home.
36. I moved in with FoN and her then 2-year-old daughter.
37. Her daughter ruined the movie Grease for me by playing it repetitively all. day. For several weeks straight.
38. I used to love that movie.
39. Remember what I said about moving in with best friends? Yeah...that didn't last long. So I got my own apartment.
40. I miss living on my own sometimes.
41. I started dating a guy who was a pilot.
42. He was a cheating, manipulative, lying bastard.
43. I stayed with him for almost 3 years.
44. At one point I moved back out to the coast to try to work in theatre, just to get away from him. But he still had a hold over me, so I moved back and started going to university.
45. I also started waitressing.
46. This gave a lot of my good friends pause. Apparently, I never seemed the waitress 'type'.
47. When I finally decided I'd had enough of the asshole pilot, he didn't want to let me go. I literally had to punch him to send him the message.
48. It felt pretty good.
49. I've never punched anyone else.
50. Even though I wouldn't cross the road to piss on him if he were on fire, I appreciate that the relationship taught me valuable lessons. Like how to pick your battles. And when to listen to your radar.
51. I kept going to university. Eventually I started dating someone else.
52. He was a nice guy.
53. Are we only half way through? Yeesh. Kudos if you're still with me.
54. In 2001 both my maternal grandparents passed away. My mother took this opportunity to let me in on the fact that they were raging socialists commies. So THAT'S why they visited Cuba so much.
55. I graduated with distinction.
56. My grad show was a ceramic and plaster shrine to my alter ego, Super Keely.
57. A friend of mine took the 6' Super Keely after the show and hung it up on a pole on his farm with a light over it. It's creepy.
58. After graduation I had planned to go travelling with my friend Fashionista. We had intended to go to Europe in June, but couldn't get our poop in a group.
59. We worked for 6 more months and decided to head to Australia and NZ in February.
60. Fashionista's luggage got searched 3 times on the way out. Mine, once.
61. We spent 3 months in NZ.
62. I visited my old school. It was unimpressive.
63. I started a webpage so the peeps back home could see what we were doing. I scripted it from scratch in HTML.
64. Why the fuck didn't anybody say the word 'blog' to me??
65. We ran out of money and went to Australia, where we had working visas.
66. We worked for a month picking oranges.
67. I don't recommend THAT, either.
68. Did you know orange trees have thorns? And spiders? I was terrified that I would touch a spider while on the top of the ladder, because my first instinct would be to JUMP BACKWARDS, and then I would die. On an orange ranch in Australia.
69. After the orange ranch we hooked up with Fashionista's second cousin in Sydney, who had a candle making business.
70. The candle-making business was way easier and paid way better than oranges.
71. The nice guy I had been dating had made me promise to return, so I did, 8 months after leaving.
72. He dumped me a couple of months after I got home.
73. Fashionista came back too and we moved in together.
74. CLEARLY I DON'T LEARN. But we assumed since we'd been practically breathing each other's air for 8 months we'd be okay.
75. I started working for a film company.
76. It's not as glamorous as it sounds. On my first week an extra called in sick so I had to strip to my underwear and sit in a freezing cold river pretending to be a corpse. Luckily they were only filming my legs, otherwise I probably would have quit right there.
77. It didn't pay enough so I got another waitressing gig.
78. A guy I'd worked with at the first waitressing job was working there. We started hanging out again.
79. Someone asked, "Are you two dating?". I said no. They said, "Well why not?".
80. So I jumped him.
81. Fashionista moved out and he moved in, 3 months after we became a couple.
82. Some people we knew were going to open a restaurant/bar, so we signed on.
83. It was a complete fucking disaster. There were 7 owners.
84. The bar part was pretty successful at first, so we made some money and got the hell out.
85. I went back to working at the same company I'd worked for right after high school.
86. We bought a house.
87. Paul's parents had offered to help with a down payment, but changed their minds when they saw the house we'd chosen.
88. We bought it anyway.
89. It's now worth almost twice what we paid for it.
90. I do a little 'neener neener' dance occasionally. When I'm feeling juvenile. Okay, that's a lot.
91. A few months after moving in we got a dog.
92. A few months after that I got pregnant.
93. We never actually discussed trying to get pregnant. We just stopped using contraception. I assume he's okay with it.
94. I was an ambitious pregnant woman. I planted a garden.
95. I planted one this year, too.
96. I slept for three months, glowed for three months, and felt like crap for the remaining three.
97. In October 2007 Xander was born.
98. I started a journal. In August 2008 it turned into a blog.
99. We have logistical hiccups but life is good.
100. The end.
Reader Comments (25)
I think you cheated with # 100, but I'll let it slide.
Happy Birthday! to your blog. Great post.
Great 100th post.
I totally want to be Stiletto Mom also. It's too late for me but save yourself! HA.
awesome post...it was fun to read!
I'm jealous of all your travels. Other than an occasional work trip or vacation, I have never left Illinois.
Wow! Suddenly my life seems incredibly BORING!
Happy 100!
PS- "Dead Things and Their Fur"? Great blog name.
Happy Bloggy Birthday!
I totally missed mine, but I liked yours a lot - painted a very interesting picture, Queen of the Graille!! And I agree "dead things and their fur" GREAT blog name!
First congrats on the 100.
I admit I totally expected it to be tedious, but it was an interesting read. I love the bio style chronological order thing. You're quite the world traveler. "Dead things and their fur" is great. Wow on your grandparents being commies. My grandparents left Cuba because of the commies, which worked out, you know, for my conception and all. ;)
Looking forward to 100 more posts.
so totqally worth not answering my office phone to read!!! And i'm with mrsbear on the whole commies thing - my grandparents left cuba too because of em and that paved the road to miraculous me! now I know why they want to return so badly! LOL
Congrats on your 100th post. Mine is coming up and I have no idea what I'll do.
New Zealand sounds very exciting. I understand completely how Grease can be ruined. My step-sister killed it for me. You can not watch it every day for a summer without starting to hate it.
Congrats on your 100th post. :) I'm a little jealous of all the world travel though!
Banff, ya. I'd say I remember that, but it was all a drunken blur. Did pay for a long drunken trip to Europe though. I love that you were a corpse.
I have a button left from my Thespian days which reads, "Techies do it backstage."
Great 100!
This was an awesome 100 list. I loved it. Hilarious story and great way to weave it! I'm still laughing over it all and it's taken me 20 minutes to comment because I had to wait until my boss wasn't looking. :-)
Great list and happy 100th! I wish I'd been to Australia, but not to pick oranges.
"Dead thing and their fur" is funny.
congrats on your 100th post new visitor here and I will be back.
Your life in a 100 comments--cool! You've had some darn interesting jobs, too :) Orange trees and restaurants--oh my! I love the neeener-neener dance. Fun get-to-know-you-better post... :)
Love it!!!
And a great read. I'd love to visit both Australia and New Zealand.
Congrats on 100!
Awesome. Congrats on your 100th post. I kind of lost my virginity the same way but my mom never ever had a talk with me. I blame her for what a slutbag I turned out to be. Oh fine, it was all my fault.
I made it through to the end and enjoyed the entire thing.
You picked oranges?
You owned a bar?
You are awesome (I broke my non-awesome resolution just for you).
Happy 100. Glad to have Super Keely around..
Dead things and their fur. Heheh.
what a lovely life story.
Congrats! Have you tried Greese again lately? It's been 13 years...maybe its worn off by now.
So I noticed that one of the labels for this post is called "hubby". Did I miss the part when you got married? Totally not judging, just wondering.
This was such a cute post! You're a very clever little chick-a-dee! Have a freaking awesome life, why don't you??
Wow! Fun! And jealous - I always wanted to go to Australia. Not to work on an orange farm, though. Arent there the most poisonous spiders there?!?!
Super interesting and very fun to read. I love hearing about other folks life wanderings! Very cool!! If you don't mind I may do the same type of thing when/if I make it to my 100th post! Thanks for sharing!!
wow, did all that really happen??
Travels are awesome. CHildhood sounded a litte freaky but more are....