1. i can tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue. apparently, this has some sort of meaning, but i always forget what it is. and just for the record, i can't do this on demand, or anything, just when the wind is blowing right and the gods of cherry stem tongue antics smile favorably upon me.
   
2. in the words of wally pleasant, "i boycott led zeppelin because i think robert plant sings horribly." that said, i am not self-righteous, pretentious, or politically correct. well, maybe sometimes pretentious.
   
3. i am allergic to just about everything on earth. i had to get allergy shots once a week for about five years. as far as i can tell, they didn't do a damn bit of good.
   
4. i have allergy-induced asthma. i smoke. i am brilliant when it comes to health matters.
   
5. if i hear someone say, "i'm not eating that. it's like, 7 points!" i know exactly what she means.
   
6. i think i've gotten to the point where i just need a diet coke IV drip. oh, my poor, eroding internal organs.
   
7. when i was eight years old, i saw fiddler on the roof for the first time, and i was mad that i wasn't jewish. after that, though, i only liked jewish boys for the longest time. that's all connected, somehow. you figure it out.
   
8. right now, i'd really like some soup.
   
9. hey guess what? i just had some soup. but through the magic of the internet, you didn't even have to interrupt your reading while i was making and eating said soup. yay, technology.
   
10. i suppose one word to sum me up when i was a kid would be "troublemaker." my mom said that when i grew up, i was going to have kids just like me. as such, i think having kids might be a bad idea. yikes.
    
11. and while i'm talking about my childhood, i might as well just come out and say that when i was little, i imagined that when i grew up, i would be some amazing mixture of she-ra and jem.
    
12. my proudest moment might just have been the time i won a table in a raffle at a bowling alley. i would like to thank jose cuervo for persuading me to buy a raffle ticket, because it's a really nice table.
    
13. one time a boy sent me the leonard cohen song "suzanne" in an e-mail, but then he never explained why. though this was a long time ago, i still sometimes wonder about it. and the boy, for that matter.
    
14. i've performed in theater for most of my life. my first production was a christmas play, in which four-year-old jamelah starred as a sheep hanging out near the manger.
    
15. i think people don't use the word "expunge" enough, and that's damn unfortunate.
    
16. i eat the black jellybeans first.
    
17. you know what hurts? slamming your knee into your desk. you know what hurts more? doing it again while you're still cursing and crying over the first time. you know how i know this? it happens to me all the time. and by "all the time" i mean "at the very least, daily."
    
18. i talk in my sleep, apparently.
    
19. my feet are cold all the time.
    
20. i used to work for a youth ministry. it was during this time that i learned it really is possible to whistle with crackers in my mouth.
    
21. i can pick up accents almost immediately, so i often come home from trips talking like i'm from wherever i was. i don't do this on purpose, and i'm never even aware of it until someone tells me to stop talking funny.
    
22. while on the subject of talking funny, i had my tonsils out when i was 10 and while i was healing, i always sounded like i had a bubble in my throat whenever i talked. this kid in my class kept telling me to stop talking funny, but i couldn't help it. that kid was a real bastard.
    
23. while on the subject of my tonsilectomy, i will just say that codeine makes me vomit, and i did not discover this until after my tonsils were removed and that was the painkiller my doctor prescribed.
    
24. i never did get around to buying a chia pet. i think this might disappoint me, if i ever thought of it enough to be disappointed.
    
25. when i was seven, my favorite movie was calamity jane!, starring doris day. i don't think i've seen it since i was nine. my mom made me watch a lot of musicals.
    
26. i find it mildly amusing that even though i say i don't like kids, the majority of the jobs i have had throughout my employment history involved me working with and/or teaching children.
    
27. in conversation, i often sound way more sarcastic than i intend to.
    
28. i think the main reason i don't really like talking on the phone is that i like to look at people when i talk to them. for this reason, i don't understand why IM conversations don't bother me.
    
29. i have been known to consult my magic 8 ball concerning major life decisions. this might explain a lot.
    
30. i cannot stand to have my ears touched. it freaks me out to an incredible degree. obviously, whispering in my ear is out of the question. gack, i say. GACK!
    
31. i think it was some misguided statement i was making, but i once went a whole year without wearing socks. winter, of course, was fun.
    
32. when i feel sad, i play the piano. but not very well, or anything.
    
33. i think i have an addiction to lipstick. i was going through one of my bags today to find a pen, and i couldn't find one. what i did find, however, were nine tubes of lipstick. this was just the one bag. if i went through all of my bags and counted my lipstick, i bet i'd have over 100 tubes. the funny part of this is that i don't even wear lipstick that often. it's just that i like having options.
    
34. while i was taking my high school government class final exam, i got to the middle of the test and saw that the teacher had typed "DO NOT CHEAT. I AM WATCHING YOU." i looked up and he was staring right at me.
    
35. i am a very good cook, and i love cooking, but i wish i was skilled at making something other than food.
    
36. just once, i want to ask "did i need to be silver to be suitable?" and have someone get what i'm talking about.
    
37. i find it odd that i used to be able to speak arabic, but now i can only remember how to count to seven, and say "hello" "goodbye" "thank you" and "you're welcome." i can speak arabic english, however, which is the way arab immigrants speak english and it is really like a whole other language.
    
38. i ordered a barry manilow mouse pad for a friend of mine as a joke and now i can't get the barry manilow people to stop e-mailing me.
    
39. completely at random, when i'm not even expecting it, i will start singing "baby one more time" by britney spears. i think maybe i don't like this about myself.
    
40. i've thought about it quite a bit, and i think william faulkner might be my favorite writer of all time.
    
41. together with photoshop 7.0, i will take over the world. or at the very least, i will make the world prettier.
    
42. it is my belief that you can't know how well your relationship is working until you go on a road trip with your significant other. and i'm not talkin' about a short road trip, either. i mean, trap yourself in a vehicle with each other for like, 20 hours, and if you're still in love (even if it's that "i hate you and please don't talk to me for the next hour but you're still cute and i won't mind sharing sleeping space with you later this evening" kind of way) by the time you get to where you're going, then you know you've found a keeper.
    
43. one thing i constantly wonder about is how we name cities. okay, seriously... the italians call it venezia, so why don't we? why do we change it to venice? why? WHY?
    
44. it's hard talking about myself without really saying anything while also not saying the same things i've already said. get that?
    
45. my hands are really cold right now. really. cold.
    
46. pedicures are an important part of my life.
    
47. i have no tattoos because i fear commitment.
    
48. for the life of me, i cannot remember what ever made me think the verve pipe was an okay band.
    
49. sometimes i catch myself talking to myself in italian.
    
50. i can't remember the last time i had a cup of coffee.
    
51. sometimes it goes beyond want. yes, sometimes i just need hash browns.
    
52. all of my relatives (at least those i grew up around) are from the south. every once in awhile, i will listen to myself talking and be rather amazed at the fact that i sound like i'm from arkansas. this doesn't happen all the time; it just seems to be something i slip into occasionally, often when i am at a family gathering. most of the time, i apparently sound like some weird canadian/chicagoan crossbreed. or at least i do if i am to believe the people who have tried to place my accent.
    
53. i adore southernisms. currently i am mystified by the phrase "i do declare" because it is never followed with anything. you do declare what, exactly? i also love how "bless his/her/your heart" is used to soften an insult. "he's dumber'n a box a hammers, bless his heart."
    
54. i am pissed off about the fact that i started using the word "like" as filler when i was making fun of someone who said it like, totally all the time, and now i can't stop it.
    
55. i think that, even though kisses themselves are (usually) good, it's the split second before they happen that's the most exciting. i don't know, i guess i'm an anticipation junkie.
    
56. it's amazing, really, the amount of range i can bring to the word "yeah."
    
57. i believe it is possible for certain memories to taste like ice cream.
    
58. i find it incredible how much hair i shed. i think i must be constantly molting.
    
59. one time i was walking home in the rain, and this boy i knew offered me a ride home. i accepted, but regretted it as soon as i got into his vehicle, because the car smelled like some horrible nightmare combination of licorice and cats. i made him drop me off at my grandma's house because i didn't want him to know where i lived.
    
60. the first time i played spin the bottle i almost got my braces stuck with this boy's braces, and that would've been bad.
    
61. i have long fingers. they are all kind of crooked.
    
62. i think it's weird that even though i didn't grow up around my dad, we make all the same facial expressions. i also look more and more like him the older i get.
    
63. remember those lace ankle tights? i used to have a pair for every color in the rainbow, and i thought it was cool to wear them underneath my jeans, with the ankles of the jeans pegged to show off the lace. yeah, i was a stylin' pre-teen. i also wore a lot of vests.
    
64. i can remember a time when i thought all of molly ringwald's outfits in the movie sixteen candles were pretty.
    
65. ok, i won't lie. i alphabetize my cd collection. and then i put albums by the same artist in chronological order. i hang my shirts up according to sleeve length and color. i am fastidious about my books, and have my library arranged in a very specific order. this order only makes sense to me, but that is beside the point. the point is, underneath all the chaos i embody, i am really a neat freak.
    
66. i own about 40 tori amos cds. she was the gateway musician that led me to listen to things that weren't being played on the radio, and for that i will always be grateful. plus, the song "sugar" is perhaps my favorite "i hate you, you stupid boy" song of all time.
    
67. i still have notes my friends passed to me in junior high.
    
68. if pressed, i could go for days without eating, just as long as i had a full supply of diet coke and cigarettes.
    
69. my elbows are really bony.
    
70. right now, i really like the word "lepidopterans."
    
71. i once was a spanish tutor, and had a student who was an avid entomologist. he had these hissing cockroaches and i didn't teach him for very long.
    
72. i fidget constantly.
    
73. i love to watch people's hands. i find men's hands incredibly sexy. sometimes.
    
74. the only year of my life i ever get nostalgic for is 17. man, that was a good year.
    
75. no matter where i stand on the religious spectrum at any given time, i always really like reading the bible.
    
76. i started college as a theater/english double major. after a semester, i dropped the theater, and decided to be an art/english major. then i was going to be a spanish/english major. i finally ended up just majoring in english.
    
77. i didn't begin my diet coke addiction until exams during my first semester of college. up until then, i drank tea.
    
78. i cannot stand tea with sugar in it. in fact, i have issues with sugar in general.
    
79. i am totally in love with jon stewart.
    
80. i am incredibly competitive, but only about really stupid things that nobody else seems to care about much.
    
81. maybe i've said this before, but i've said so many things in so many places i can't keep track of myself. anyway, when i was in seventh grade, i won the county spelling bee. the word i spelled to win was "deciduous."
    
82. my brain moves in too many directions at once and i have a hard time keeping up with what i'm thinking about, since at any given time, i am thinking about at least twenty or thirty different things. as such, i often have a hard time in conversation because i can't remember what i was talking about, and i constantly ask, "what was i saying?" actually, it's not that i don't remember what i was talking about, it's just that my thoughts are already 100 steps ahead of the words coming out of my mouth, and talking is always like playing catch up.
    
83. i was diagnosed with ADD when i was 15. i don't know if they use the same test everywhere, or if they even use the one they used with me anymore, but if they do, i dare anybody not to fail it. they made me sit in a dark room with a computer for 20 minutes and watch a series of rectangles flashed on the screen. if the black rectangle was at the top, i hit a button, and if it was at the bottom, then i didn't hit anything. seriously, how can anybody expect someone not to get bored and stop paying attention to something like that after two minutes? come on.
    
84. spiders horrify me. during the last lord of the rings movie, i just thought i was going to die.
    
85. i associate sounds, smells and tastes with colors. anything that sounds, smells or tastes pink is just horrid.
    
86. under fluorescent lighting, in the winter time, my skin has a greenish cast. this is the true meaning of "olive complexion," in case you were wondering.
    
87. if i run for any extended period of time, a bone in my right ankle will pop out of place. i avoid running as much as possible.
    
88. i still sometimes forget the difference between "lay" and "lie."
    
89. the weirdest thing anybody has ever said to me and meant in a complimentary way is, "you would be really pretty if your hair was on fire."
    
90. i get sleep paralysis sometimes. this involves me waking up in the middle of the night, completely unable to move or speak. it's a terrifying thing to have happen. it must be hereditary, because this also happens to my mother and my grandmother.
    
91. i love my grandmother beyond measure, but she drives me crazy. lately, i keep noticing ways that i am like her.
    
92. i used to believe that the people on television could see me. it kind of made me sad when i found out they couldn't.
    
93. big bird might be cool and all, but i have always been partial to oscar the grouch. i hate elmo.
    
94. the movie roman holiday still makes me cry, even though i've seen it way too many times. and i don't even cry when i watch movies. i don't know what it is about the ending, but dammit, it gets me every time. i'm really not sappy, i swear.
    
95. the first time i saw the cartoon of charlotte's web i cried when it was over. not because charlotte died, but because it was over.
    
96. in true scarlett o' hara fashion, i used to say "fiddle dee dee." i really think i should start doing that again.
    
97. for reasons too numerous to list, i hate the pennsylvania turnpike.
    
98. i am fascinated by trees and fields at any time of year.
    
99. once i got high in the prayer forest on the property of my church. eh. i was in high school.
    
100. i still stand steadfast by my belief that more people should say it with flowers.