Things I love...

Every now and then, I like to make a list of things I love...as a reminder that I do love things, love life, love being present.

I thought about doing that today, but have opted to write more about who I am. This may include things I love. This may include weird character traits. I'm not sure. I haven't written it yet.

Definitions of ourselves should be fluid. What "defines" me today, may not tomorrow. Maybe it will, I don't know, and I don't like the idea of having to know.

I could do this as an "I am" poem, but those always end up being too fucking deep. I don't want deep. I want surface... at least initially for this task.

(is this a task? i don't know. not really, i don't think). I think I need some coffee. Or maybe some tea. Something to wake my ass up. My water bottle is the closest thing to me... so water it is.


About me.

Food/Drink:
-I like my water at room temperature.
-I like my diet coke from a can.
-I like my vodka sodas with 2 limes and 1 lemon.
-I like green peppers only when they are raw.
-But don't like yellow/red peppers raw.
-One of my favorite things is to watch cream and coffee mix. It reminds me of a bi-racial relationship.
-I love ice cream. I eat it whenever I can. Like this morning for example. But I had a banana with it, to make it seem more like "breakfast".
-I love meat. But I'm broke, so I don't buy much of it.
-I love to cook, but cooking for 1 person (myself) is boring, so I don't cook as often as I'd like.
-I don't like to eat leftovers...this is probably because I don't have a microwave.
-Things reheated that I enjoy: Pizza (in a frying pan), and chinese food (also in a frying pan).
-I like sugar free popsicles, not because I'm watching my weight, but because they taste good.


Sports:
-I played hockey for 12 years. I could have played (lower end) D1. I kind of wasted that opportunity/talent.
-I lost my skates, sometime after high school.... I borrowed some from a friends brother, and had to give them back this winter. Now, I have no skates.
-I love to fish. Is that a sport? It's on TV sometimes.... and they have fishing jerseys, so it must be a sport.
-Why aren't there any women who umpire professional baseball?
-I played softball from when I was a little kid (actually, I started out in baseball), through the 9th grade. My coach always thought I cheated when we had to run the big block (around central). I was just that fast.... (compared to some thick softball players, big deal). She turned me off of the sport. I played a bit on a co-ed team with some friends, but the guys did the typical guy thing, and would basically run the women down trying to catch balls that were clearly not in their side of the field.
-I've gotten back into running lately. Thank god. I was slacking, and needed to make a change.
-Today I signed up to be a mentor for boulder options (like big brothers big sisters, but focuses on running/cycling).
-A couple of winters, I decided I should be a long jumper (mostly because my legs are long). I trained for a month or two, and competed in an open race at the U. I didn't come in last place.


Music/Sound
-I love music. Lots of people say that, but I really do. I take pride in my music library. -Sometimes people have asked to get my whole library on their ipod. I say no. This makes me a hater, I know... but I just can't do it. My iTunes library is my baby. I'll make you a mix CD though, any day of the week.
-In my little apartment, I have 2 turntables, a guitar, 2 keyboards, a drum, and a trumpet. Believe it or not, I'm actually a pretty quiet neighbor.
-I used to have a "sound machine" that I'd put on when I slept. I'm letting a friend use it this summer, since I have a window fan going most nights.
-I want to learn how to read music. I'm not very disciplined when it comes to doing it though.
-One of my favorite things is to wear my big ass headphones at track meets. This is for 2 reasons... one, it prevents me from getting "spooked" when the gun goes off. and two, it's really amazing to listen to sigur ros type stuff while watching fast/intense running races...it's kind of surreal.
-I want to see stevie wonder play live. Ideally at First Ave (or my house, if he really wanted to).


School/Education.
-I've been in/out/around college for 8 years. I'm still working on my bachelor's degree. I'm annoyed.
-I think education outside of the classroom is equally (if not more so) important that "traditional" education. I wish more people thought that way.
-I want to be a high school english teacher. Or maybe a counselor. Or maybe a social worker. I don't really know what exactly, but I want to be in a position to use music/art/creative writing to -help youth work through their issues/concerns in positive ways.
-I still keep in touch with some of my teachers, one from almost 20 years ago.
-I collect books, many of them non-fiction. I want to have my own library (at my house). -Furthermore, when I have a question about something, I want to be able to look it up in a book, not on wikipedia.
-I like to write. I should do it more often. I should do a lot of things more often.


Other things:
-I love hooded sweatshirts, and wearing layers of clothes. I can't do this in the summer, so I wear what every other mid 20's girl is wearing right now.... knee length shorts. Sigh.
-I love old people. LOVE them.
-I have the soul of an old man.
-My grampa was my best friend. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you should know this.
-I am not a morning person, but I am trying hard to be.
-I have a lot of different friends, from all over the place....they are different colors, genders, orientations, classes, personalities, ages, etc. My friends are awesome.
-I'm liberal in my thinking, but get annoyed with liberals. I get annoyed with conservatives too... but at least conservatives are honest about being greedy.
-I love st paul. I'm a st paul kid. I may leave, travel, study, whatever, but my heart is in st paul.
-I love kids. They are inspiring, humbling, challenging, etc... I want more kids in my life (not my own kids--yet, but kids to hang out with for a couple hours, or a couple days... and when they get bratty, teach them a lesson first and then give them back to their parent/s.
-My couch is more comfortable than my bed. If you stay the night, and we are not sleeping together, don't be surprised if I take the couch.... and yes, I'm trying to be a good host and give you the bed.
-I might go to noon meditation downtown st paul today.
-I'm true to my word. If I make a promise, I will keep it. (the only time I will break it, is if someone's health/life is in danger.... and if that's the case, I will let you decide who needs to make it known).
-I love doing the NYT's crossword puzzle. When I complete them (it's only happened a handful of times), I hang them up on my fridge.
-On saturday I wore a little white dress for a bachelorette party. Monday I wore carhartt overalls and worked a construction job. Tuesday I wore a business suit. Not to brag, but I made all of them work.


That's probably it for now. I've clearly bored myself. More soon. Oh, and the following is a picture that kind of describes my summer so far.... music and dead flowers. Life is good.