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25, more or less

  1. Most people don’t realize I am passing as an American. I wasn’t born here. I had lived in three countries in two continents before I was 10.
  2. I have learned more from my childrens’ schooling than from my own.
  3. Babies relate to me right away, as they see me as a peer.
  4. I find working disagreeable and inconvenient, but I don’t feel that way about doing productive things of all sorts.
  5. I have moved too many times to call anyplace home other than where I am now. I have lived in this house longer than any other, almost 9 years. (I think I lived at about 20 addresses in the first 40 years of my life.)
  6. I have said “no” far too many times, when I should have said yes.
  7. I hoard art supplies but am too insecure to use them in case I spoil them.
  8. I, with help, foster sick kittens for a humane society and get them ready for adoption.
  9. I’m stealing one I saw somewhere else: “I think better when I walk. I should walk more.” That or take several showers each day with waterproof writing tools.
  10. I have been diagnosed with ADD twice but have learned/am learning to live with the benefits (see 9). (EDIT circa 2011: diagnosed once more but this time with a prescription that actually works. So far, so good, 18 months in.
  11. Coffee does not keep me awake, but it does help me get started.
  12. I never cooked until I was living on my own, and no meal I prepare for my family was ever served to me as a child. I’ve learned a lot.
  13. I enjoy living/fermented foods, like wild yeast or sourdough breads and kombucha, both of which I make at least once per week. Tried kefir and yogurt but supply outstripped demand.
  14. I can be led but I can’t be managed.
  15. I like the idea of demystifying photography by showing people what can be done with a cigar box and some time.
  16. I haven’t worked hard enough at any creative stuff to get good at it, and I hope to fix that.
  17. I get bored with most jobs at about 90 days (career-limiting fact?). Turner Broadcasting was the exception as there was so much going on, it felt like a new job pretty regularly.
  18. I wonder how much I’ll get done in the time I have left, given how I have spent my time so far.
  19. I doubt the human experience is supposed to be efficient.
  20. Almost nothing of my formal education was useful in my work life, except learning how to learn, and what I overheard outside the classroom.
  21. If I could be anything, I would be a musician.
  22. When people ask me what music I like, my usual answer is whatever I haven’t heard before.
  23. I don’t like genres or classifications of art: it’s either worth your time or it isn’t, and who better to decide that than you?
  24. I’m not interesting enough to have 25 things to list.
  25. I have come to realize that life isn’t about getting and spending but about making and sharing. But it’s too hard to keep score that way so we do it wrong.
  26. (to make up for 24). I’m terrible at staying in contact with people, even with remembering the names of people I see everyday. It’s not you, it’s me.