nerd knits

1. I was born two weeks after my due date, by ceasarian section. “Late” is my natural state of being.

2. When I was little, my parents used to pretend that I’d disappeared. They’d ask each other where I was, all the while ignoring my exclamations of “I’m here! I’m right here!” I think this explains a lot about me.

3. When I was three, my parents took me to see Sesame Street Live. In the middle of the show, Big Bird’s eye fell off and rolled across the stage. All of the music and singing is pre-recorded, so the singing and dancing continued as Ernie chased Big Bird’s eye, to the accompaniment of hundreds of small children screaming. I think this, too, explains a lot about me.

4. I began reading very young (three-ish.) Occasionally my reading outperformed my comprension – I went to the zoo with my preschool class, and lagged behind at the monkey cage. When one of the teachers came to collect me, I refused to leave, pointing to a sign that read “Vanishing Species.” I told the teacher that I wanted to see them vanish. I was very disappointed when my teacher explained that they weren’t going to disappear before my eyes.

5. I think that may be part of the reason I don’t like monkeys.

6. I have never broken a bone.

7. The worst accident I have ever been in was a bike vs. car incident. I was 12 or 13. I coasted my bike down a hill, into an intersection, and into a (moving) car. I flipped over the trunk. I was bruised and scraped up, but otherwise remarkably unhurt.

8. My mother was in a very serious car accident when I was in sixth grade. She was on her way to pick me up from school – as she drove through an intersection, she was struck in the driver’s side door by a woman who ran a red light. She had multiple broken ribs, a broken collar bone, a deflated lung, and a severe concussion. She was in intensive care for two weeks. If she hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt, there’s no question that she would have died. If there hadn’t been a nurse in the car behind her, who immediately got out to help her, she might have died anyway.

9. My mother taught tole painting classes for years. In one of her classes, several years after the fact, she told the story of her car accident. One of the women in the class said that she had witnessed the accident – that she had pulled over so that she and her daughter could pray for whoever had been in that horrible crash. This freaks me out, chokes me up, and makes me insanely grateful all at the same time.

10. I refused to talk about (or listen to anyone else talk about) my mother’s car accident for a long, long time.

11. My father is a very skilled but very nerve-wracking and rude driver. He tailgates, he speeds, and he enjoys sliding around on icy roads. I hate riding in the car with my dad.

12. But I didn’t always. When I was young, one of my parents’ favorite forms of entertainment was “riding around.” Dad would drive more-or-less aimlessly while he and my mother chatted or sat in companionable silence. I would sit in the back seat and think or make up stories. This made me very introspective as a child, which is a good thing and a bad thing. I still do my best thinking sitting in the car.

13. I was the first child of my generation on either side of my family. It became pretty obvious pretty quickly that I was a) very smart and b) a little crazy. Because my father and both of his parents are extremely intelligent, and because my mother has a history of anxiety and depression, everyone figured that I got my smarts from my dad’s side of the family and my crazy from my mother’s side.

14. Nine cousins later, we’ve reversed that theory. All of my cousins on my mother’s side are exceptionally smart. The cousins on my father’s side of the family feature severe learning disabilities and a case of Asperger’s Syndrome.

15. One of my greatest fears is that I will become severely, delusionally mentally ill – usually, that I will become schizophrenic. At 27 years old, schizophrenia is the last major mental illness I might develop, other than something resulting from massive physcial or emotional trauma. The movie A Beautiful Mind scared the bejeezus out of me.

16. I think names are very, very important. Every name has a meaning, and that meaning is often reflected in the person so named. Every character I write for a role-playing game, every character I create for a video game, every person in every story has a name that I probably spent upwards of two hours contemplating and researching.

17. For this reason, when we’re writing NPCs for BloodShadows Bradon will often name all the NPCs, so I don’t go crazy coming up with the perfect name.

18. My name (Marisa) means “of the sea.” I’ve also seen “star of the sea.”

19. I was named after a character in a book my mother read, years before she got pregnant with me. My name was also intended to be in honor of my great aunt (father’s aunt) Mardelle. She went by Marcy, and my parents intended for me to go by Marcy, too.

20. I am not, and have never been, a Marcy.

21. Despite loving video games, spending a lot of time playing video games, and owning a lot of video games, I very, very rarely beat/finish the video games I play. I get bored, get distracted, or get frustrated, and abandon them. This drives Bradon (and a lot of other gamer geeks) crazy.

22. I am perfectly comfortable holding two seemingly mutually exclusive opinions at the same time, without any sort of logical or psychological difficulty. I once got into a long, emotional (drunken) debate over how I could be pro-choice and anti-eugenics at the same time. I eventually understood why the two viewpoints might seem contradictory, but that
didn’t change my opinion on either topic.

23. I am an emotional (and occasionally ugly) drunk. As a party goes on, and as I drink more, the probability of me having an emotional breakdown of some sort approaches one.

24. Sadly, this does not prevent me from drinking at parties.

25. That makes me sound like some sort of horrible lush. I really don’t drink much any more, and I’m perfectly capable of having a beer with dinner without breaking down crying. It’s just that when I go to a party (a rare occurance anymore), I usually drink excessively. And when I drink excessively, I usually freak out.

26. I have only blacked out from drinking once, during what is known as “The Great Tequila Incident.” I drank a frightening amount of tequila straight from the bottle, took all my clothes off, and…well…I don’t remember.

27. Though I tell stories about it like it was funny, The Great Tequila Incident scared the bejeezus out of me – I don’t like not knowing what happened. I didn’t drink at all for a long time after that, and have been much more careful about drinking in moderation since.

28. The Great Tequila incident also had the unintended side effect of my friends tending to offer me tequila, in hopes that I’ll take my clothes off again. It hasn’t worked yet.

29. I started smoking when I was 15. I started quitting when I was 23. I haven’t quite
gotten the quitting thing right yet, but I’m still working on it. I will have it perfected at least 1 year before I get pregnant.

30. In the summer before entering college, I made the very conscious and well-thought-out decision to do some limited experimentation with drugs while in college. I do not regret that decision.

31. I have done drugs once since the summer after my sophomore year of college, for a very special occasion. I will never say never again, but it would have to be an equally special occasion for me to consider doing them again.

32. My best friend in my first two years of college was Finley. When I chose to stop doing drugs, she chose to do more drugs. This pretty much destroyed our friendship.

33. I have never and will never inject any drug. Similarly, I have never and will never snort any drug. Shit does not go up my nose – it’s a good rule, and one that I strive to live by.

34. As long as we’re making me sound like some horrible, immoral kid, I should mention that I tend to date older men, as well. When I was sixteen I dated a twenty-four-year-old. When I was eighteen I dated a twenty-seven-year-old. Objectively, I understand that this is sketchy and potentially dangerous. Subjectively, I see nothing wrong with it. My parents are very relieved that Bradon is only 3 years older than me.

35. I became aware that I am bisexual when I was 15, after having a delicious and explicit dream about a friend. It freaked me out for a little bit (like, a few hours), but since then I have been very comfortable with my sexuality.

36. The first girl I ever kissed was Alison, a beautiful redhead that I met in college. We had no realtionship to speak of.

37. I’ve had a thing for (female) redheads ever since.

38. My experience with women has been pathetically sparse. I know how to flirt with men…I have no clue how to flirt with women. I get very awkward. It’s not pretty.

39. I fell in love – really in love – with a girl named Mariah, shortly after graduating college. I had a boyfriend, and so did she. My boyfriend was okay with it (so he said), her’s wasn’t. I haven’t seen her in years, and I’m simultaneously curious and terrified of what would happen if I ran into her again.

40. I have lived in 18 houses/apartments (not including dorms), in 7 cities, in 6 states.

41. No, I’m not from a military family. We just moved a lot.

42. I was born in Ventura, California. Though I normally speak with no accent at all, I can slip into a “valley girl” accent very easily.

43. I can also slip into a southern accent, though that one takes either conscious effort or extended exposure to my mother’s side of family (they live in Mississippi.)

44. I took French in school for 5 years. I’ve forgotten 90% of what I learned.

45. I learned American Sign Language in fourth grade. I’ve retained more Sign Language than French, but not by much.

46. I am very gullible.

47. For that reason, I was miserable when I was in second and third grades.

48. Contrary to nearly everyone else on earth, I loved high school. I was bat-shit-crazy, surrounded by nonstop drama, and I loved every minute of it.

49. I wouldn’t reexperience it with my current mental/emotional outlook for all the money in the world.

50. In contrast, I hated college. I didn’t like 95% of the people I met there, and I was so done with institutionalized learning.

51. I like reptiles, amphibians, and rodents, but I am terrified beyond all reason of bugs. Butterflies are okay (in moderation), and I can live with spiders on a “I’ll stay over here, you stay over there” sort of basis. Everything else scares the shit out of me. Roaches and crickets are the worst. Full-blown crying and screaming and hyperventilating panic attack. I can’t even get close enough to remove/kill them. It’s that bad.

52. I have encountered a few people in my life who think that my mortal terror of bugs is funny and/or cute, and therefore present me with bugs in order to watch the shrieking hysterics that follow. I hate those people. They are not my friends. Luckily, they’ve been few and far between.

53. Yes, I am aware that this kind of phobia can be treated, and very effectively. However, I have my degree in psychology, and I KNOW WHAT THEY DO TO TREAT PHOBIA. No, thanks though.

54. I was raised Lutheran, and for a while I had a very good relationship with God. Unfortunately, I have become so thouroughly disenchanted with her fan club that we have had a bit of a falling out.

55. As I’m getting older, and as I’m starting to think about raising children, I’ve found myself reexamining my relationship (or lack thereof) with God. I keep thinking about finding my way back to religion – some religion, any religion – because there are things about it that I miss. Despite all my thinking, I have yet to take anything that could be construed as action. It will come.

56. I do believe that there is a Big, Benevolent Something – a force or a a power that loves us and wants us to be kind and generous and thoughtful and happy. I don’t think that it cares if we love men, women, both, or neither. I don’t think it cares what name we use to describe it. I don’t think it is male or female exclusively. I don’t think it loves and trusts men more than women. I think it just wants us to be kind.

57. I am an incorigible packrat. I horde things not because I think I will need them someday (though that happens, too), but because I become emotionally attached to EVERYTHING. I have an excellent memory for emotions attached to objects – I can pick up an odd plastic toy that I have stuffed in a drawer and remember that my second boyfriend gave it to me after getting it in a happy meal, on the day that we went downtown to spend three hours at Tower Records. I was wearing the jeans with the holes in the knees and my favorite grey sweater. It rained. Then I stuff the toy back in the drawer. I have tons and tons of crap like this.

58. I am trying to get better, and am slowly sorting through it all and throwing a lot of it out (or donating it to charity, where applicable.) It’s a slow and painful process.

59. On the other hand, I tend to write down phone numbers on slips of paper, without writing down WHOSE phone number it is. I have a huge stack of (probably outdated) phone numbers with no names attached. Maybe one day I’ll call them all and see who I end up talking to.

60. Actually, that’s pretty bloody unlikely. I hate talking on the telephone. HATE. I don’t even like talking to people I LIKE on the phone. The only people that I will voluntarily spend hours on the phone with is my parents, and that’s only because they live far away, and my mother is scared of computers and can’t/won’t use e-mail. *sigh*

61. And yet, when I was younger, I spent countless hours on the phone. I’m not sure what changed.

62. I’ve been to England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, and Mexico (Nogales counts, right?)

63. I love England, Belgium (nicest people EVAR!), the Netherlands, Denmark, and Canada. I didn’t like France so much. But I think that’s mostly because I had an emotional breakdown in France, where I discovered that my friends were stabbing me in the back, brutally and repeatedly. Oh, and I had a strange man try to grab me off the street, despite the fact that I was surrounded by 54 high school students and a dozen responsible adults. That didn’t help either. (I don’t think Nogales counts as representative of Mexico for this one.)

64. I did, however, get to eat a brie sandwich sitting at a cafe, in the shadow of Notre-Dame de Paris. That was pretty cool, and almost made up for the rest of the crappy stuff that happened in France.

65. When I travel abroad (all three times), I am very self-conscious of appearing American. I’m so appaled by the world’s (mostly correct) perception of Americans as uneducated, loud, arrogant and slovenly that I try desperately to seem non-American. When travelling with 54 American high school students, this is impossible. When travelling to Denmark to visit a (now ex-) boyfriend, this works beautifully…until a lovely Danish woman walked up to me and asked me what the time was, in Danish. I don’t speak Danish.

66. Okay, I know how to say “I love you,” “I love you, too,” and “(the elevator is) in motion.” (I only know that because it’s “I fart.” I’m not much for scatalogical humor, but seeing signs all over the city proclaiming “I fart” made me giggle.)

67. I hate money. That’s not to say that I don’t want money, but I hate that it’s necessary. I hate having to worry about it. I hate having to manage it. I hate that everything is measured in money. I look forward to a Star Trek world, where energy is free and economics are unnecessary.

68. I think communism is a great idea (gasp!) that doesn’t work in the real world, or at least not on a grand scale.

69. I loathe celebrities. I think it’s disgusting that atheletes and actors get paid unfathomable amounts of money, while my high school AP English teacher had to work part time at Blockbuster to make ends meet.

70. I think (good) teachers are some of the most important people in the world.

71. I’m very ambivalent about children. On one hand, look, little people! So cute! So amazing! Continuation of the species! Yay! On the other hand…I can’t relate to them. I don’t know what to do with them. They kind of freak me out. Oh, and they leak. From every possible orifice.

72. However, I’m fascinated by pregnancy. I know it’s uncomfortable, and that most women hate being pregnant, but I’m really looking forward to it. I mean, just think…you’re growing a person! That’s crazy! I realize that this fasicnation will bite me in the ass, hard, one day. But for now, I’m looking forward to it – if nothing else, then for the unique experience of having my doctor tell me to GAIN weight.

73. I fidget when I’m nervous.

74. I am a very bad liar. This is at least partially because of #73.

75. Despite having never been married (yet!), I own a wedding dress. I bought it for $25 at a thrift store, and wore it as a costume.

76. “It would be a great costume piece!” is how I justify a lot of ludicris clothing purchases.

77. My favorite holiday is Halloween, followed by the Fourth of July – not because I’m a patriot (far from it), but because I love fireworks.

78. When I lived in Tennessee, the fireworks show we always attended let us sit very (probably dangerously) close to where they set off the fireworks. We would lay on the grass and feel the explosions rumble through our chests, and get pelted with shrapnel from the plastic casings on the fireworks. It was amazing.

79. I love the water, and especially the ocean. (See #18) I was born and did most of my growing up in Southern California, so I used to spend a lot of time on the beach. I’ve been landlocked for about 14 years, and it makes me twitchy.

80. Nonetheless, I love the mountains, too. There’s water here, it’s just…small.

81. I sleep naked. I’d be naked all the time, if it was legal. And if I weren’t so self-conscious of my body.

82. I try to remind myself every day that there are very few things that I have no choice about. When someone says “I have to…” or “I have no choice…” what they’re really saying is “I am unwilling to accept the consequences of the alternative.” I can choose not to go to work. I can choose not to pay for my groceries. I can choose to ram my car into the asshole who cut me off driving home from work. However, I find the consequences of these choices to be unappealing.

83. My father taught me that. He also taught me that it’s easier to get forgiven than to get permission. There have been times that he has regretted both of those lessons.

84. I talk to myself. Out loud. A lot.

85. I love a clean, uncluttered house. I am unwilling or unable (not sure which) to maintain one.

86. I have delusions of organization. I love organizers and boxes and little trays that sort odds and ends into little compartments. To me, organization means shopping. Which means that a lot of my clutter consists of organizational crap. I get it from my mother. We’re dangerous when we decide to clean and organize together.

87. I will consider my life perfect and complete the day that my closet is neat and organized, not overflowing with clothes and shoes, and all my hangers are the same color. I have resigned myself to the fact that this will never happen.

88. I sometimes think that a house fire would be a blessing in disguise, so that I could start over without all the crap that I’m saving for no good reason.

89. Almost every time I think this, I tear up over the thought of all the precious things I would lose, and I regret ever having the thought.

90. I feel like I’m on the brink of a major transition in my life…that any moment now, everything will shift, and it’ll all make sense. I feel like I’m half caterpillar and half butterfly. And I wish it would just be done and over with, because it’s kind of uncomfortable stuck in this cocoon.

91. However, I suspect that this stuck sensation is my own damn fault. I have this bad habit of waiting until I’m “ready”. Once I do this, I’ll be ready. Once I graduate from college, I’ll be ready. Once I get a job, I’ll be ready. Once I get married, I’ll be ready. I will never be ready.

92. I have a very strong sense of irony, which often leads to me laughing at things that no one else thinks are funny.

93. I find beauty in the grotesque. The concept of the “beautiful monster” is very intuitive to me.

94. I am an unabashed music snob. Everyone else’s taste in music sucks. Except yours, of course.

95. I’m very non-confrontational. I will go to great (read: stupid) lengths to avoid a fight.

96. My parents have been married for 37 (38?) years. They never fight. It’s not that I never see it – they really never fight. I have no idea how to disagree with someone I love. This has been a very serious problem in my romantic relationships. I’ve had three therapists tell me I would be better off if my parents had a worse relationship. Go figure.

97. I’ve been told by multiple people that my eyes change color. As much as I’d like that to be true, I’m not sure I believe them.

98. I take forever in the shower. (See #79.) This drove my parents crazy when I lived with them…it’s now driving Bradon crazy.

99. I want very much to be able to play an instrument, but I have no musical talent whatsoever.

100. I love being written upon. As in, someone else writing or drawing on my skin, a la The Pillow Book. That is one of my favorite movies.