I see these everywhere on other people's blogs and I think they're great, so I'm tagging myself to write 100 Things!
1. I don’t do religion. I understand that it is a very supportive thing for other people, and provided it doesn’t hurt anybody that’s great. South Africa is very Christian and I went to Sunday school, and was a member of the Scripture Union, and we had hymns and prayers and bible readings every schoolday, but it didn’t stick.
2. I also don’t believe in ghosts or that kind of stuff, although people I respect and trust have had some interesting experiences. Until it happens to me I’m not going there.
3. I think you should be able to rely on no one but yourself. A couple of years ago I was in a very bad place emotionally, and everyone I tried to lean on had better things to do (or were too far away) and I had to do it alone. And you know what? I turned out fine eventually! I have great friends and a fab boyfriend, but I know that if the shit really hit the fan I’d be able to cope on my own.
4. My mother is my best friend. We were always close, but after she and my dad divorced when I was 18 we became best buddies. She knows all my secrets. Yes, all of them! We can go weeks without emailing or talking, so it’s not too weird like those girls who have to speak to their mom every day… I wish she was in the same country as me.
5. I get on fine with my dad too. We had a tough few years in my teens, but once we started treating each other as adults it came right. Sometimes he tries to tell me what job to take or something but that’s because he cares about me. I make my own decisions and he respects that. He didn’t half freak when he saw my belly piercing though – I was 28 at the time and had to laugh.
6. I love my sister, but I can’t say we connect, and that makes me sad. I don’t want to talk about her here.
7. I usually only cry when I’m angry. In a crisis I’m cool and collected, and in grief you’d swear I was the ice queen, but I’ll burst into tears if someone is mean to me.
8. I adore food, especially the salty, savoury, meaty, nutty, greasy kind. I have been known to serve roast pork to friends, and when they’ve gone brought the crackling out of hiding and eaten it. Alone.
9. I also love fresh vegetables and fruit (there is always a bowl of fruit on my desk, and salad in the office fridge), but I’m not bothered with sweets.
10. I thoroughly enjoy wine, generally a crisp dry white but I’ll drink anything really. I drink far too much of it, far too often. When I am honest about my wine intake people look at me like I’m a freak of nature and ask how I can be possibly functioning the next day.
11. I struggle with my weight (funny that). Folk who know me only from work think I am a gym-addicted salad-and-water health nut. They wonder why I don’t lose weight. I am under no illusions as to why I don’t lose weight, but at least the gain is under control!
12. I can’t stand being in a relationship with someone who isn’t bothered about food and wine.
13. I avoid fizzy drinks like the plague ever since I found out that I have dissolved patches of my teeth enamel from too much diet coke.
14. I never used to floss, but now that I am starting to get fillings between my teeth I floss every day. Talk about closing the stable door after the horse has bolted!
15. I have the slowest growing hair on the planet. Seriously. I haven’t had it cut in six months and it’s barely grown 3cm. I’ve been growing out a short style for three years and my fringe hardly touches my chin. And then the ends split and I have to get them trimmed…
16. My natural hair colour is mousy dark blonde. I think – it’s been a long time since I saw it! I’ve tried several colours including red, black and brown, but I always come back to blonde.
17. When my hair is not blonde I become invisible. It’s weird, no one sees me, I get inferior service and guys don’t flirt with me.
18. I love to flirt. I miss the dirty banter we used to have in my last job in the UK.
19. I hate wearing bras.
20. Luckily I have great small pert boobies, so I can get away with not wearing a bra most of the time.
21. I love high heels but they hurt my feet so I wear medium-high heels.
22. All my high heeled shoes (and boots) are black. Not through conscious choice really, just seems to have turned out that way.
23. The best thing that ever happened to me was graduating from college and getting out into the big wide world.
24. The worst thing that ever happened to me was realising that my sister was not ok, and that she’d never be the friend and confidant and role model I wanted.
25. I love reading other people’s 100 things but I had no idea it was going to be so hard to write one of my own!
26. In my head I feel 25 years old.
27. Apparently I can pass for 30 years old.
28. I don’t consider myself ruled by my relationships, but some of the biggest decisions I ever made were caused by the men I was with, or wanted to be with. Like changing countries. Twice.
29. I have been really, truly, “he’s the One” in love three times.
30. I had to kiss a lot of frogs to find my prince, but it sure makes you appreciate him when he turns up.
31. I will never say how many frogs that was. Some things are not meant to be shared!
32. I have never been proposed to. Well, not when sober!
33. I’d like to be married before I have children, but I’m running out of time so I may have to skip that part.
34. I have never fantasized about my wedding day.
35. I have never been broody, but I’d love a family with the right man.
36. I think I’d be a super mother, strict but loving and fun. Hopefully.
37. Kids love me, and babies think I’m funny.
38. I have never changed a nappy.
39. I enjoy sex enormously, if the man is not being selfish. A quickie now and then is fine, but not every time!
40. The better the sex is, the more I want it. When things are great in that department I reckon I think about it as much as men are said to.
41. When I am single I don’t think about it at all. Although I’ll probably, um, help myself achieve a certain state every night once I’m in bed. Yes, every night, it’s a great way to fall asleep!
42. I had sex with a girl once, as part of a threesome. It doesn’t do it for me. Girls are too smooth and petite and squishy.
43. I will never have a threesome (or more) again. Way too destructive.
44. I won’t be posting any details about that.
45. I was born with a strawberry birthmark on my left cheek, and it has always bugged me.
46. When I was 16 I had the birthmark removed. Now I have a scar on my left cheek and it bugs me even more.
47. Apparently a couple of years after removing my birthmark they invented laser treatment to remove birthmarks without scarring. You have no idea how much that bugs me!
48. I rarely leave the house without a smidgen of base, powder and concealer on my scar and face.
49. Apart from that and a bit of eyeliner I don’t really wear makeup. Lipstick and mascara on special occasions.
50. I think the new lipsticks and mascaras that don’t rub/wash off are the bee’s knees.
51. Until the next morning when it’s all shifted a bit and I struggle to get it off because I look like a clown. You have to get special remover for this stuff, the usual remover does nothing.
52. I read a lot, only fiction but most genres with a heavy lean towards sci-fi and fantasy. I am always a member of the local library and I try to select a broad mix of genres when I’m borrowing books.
53. When I go several days without reading I get twitchy and have to make time for it.
54. I would rather read a good book than watch TV.
55. When I do watch a TV series I prefer to get whole seasons out on DVD and watch it in one go.
56. I used to be totally addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I only discovered the show in season four, so was able to watch all four seasons over the course of a couple of months. That stuff gives you very odd dreams after watching 6 episodes in a row!
57. When I am home alone I rarely turn on the TV or the radio, I enjoy the silence when I can get it.
58. I liked living alone, it doesn’t make me lonely. I lived alone for a year in Cape Town, and for three years in England.
59. I can’t stand sharing a house with anyone except my significant other. I lived in some very nice shared houses in London and they still drove me crazy.
60. I don’t like renting a house as I like to be able to renovate and redecorate my homes.
61. In one place I rented I painted all the rooms warm colours while I lived there, then back to white as I moved out. The landlord had no idea!
62. I enjoy gardening, with the exception of weeding stuff.
63. And maybe digging holes. That’s not much fun.
64. Oh yeah, and mowing lawns, I don’t enjoy that.
65. So really, I should say that I enjoy planting and growing things in gardens, but the maintenance is a bit random.
66. I’m not bothered about pets, but I think I’d like a dog once the kids come along. And maybe a cat too.
67. We didn’t have any pets when I was a kid because my sister is very allergic.
68. I am slightly allergic to animals, unless I’m living with one.
69. I kept pet mice in my teens because they were small enough not to affect my sister. They were called Bubble and Squeak.
70. I get hay fever from time to time, but nothing like in my teens and twenties.
71. In my teens I had a constant stuffy tickly nose, and I used to get yelled at all the time for sniffing. One day when I was 20 I mentioned my tickles to a friend and he said “Oh yeah I get that. Here take this” and the tickles stopped immediately. When I asked my mom why she’d never thought to give me hay fever meds she said it never occurred to her there might be a physical cause.
72. I had my first boyfriend when I was 17. He looked like a blonde Tom Cruise and was an amazing kisser.
73. My mom was the coolest mom when I was 17 because she said she’d put me on the pill if I thought I needed it. No one else’s mom was that cool (South Africa is pretty conservative. I was one of the first girls in my class to even kiss a boy).
74. When I was 17 I asked my mom if I could go on the pill because… well, you know. Soon.
75. She said no. She and my dad felt I “wasn’t ready”.
76. They are so very lucky not to be grandparents of an 18 year old today.
77. A couple of years later I discovered that the local planning clinic would have given me free contraception with no questions asked. Why did no one ever tell us these things?!
78. When I was 17 and had my first boyfriend I couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about sex. I was very disappointed and didn’t bother again for a couple of years. Turns out we were just clueless.
79. I am not scared of spiders, but past a certain size it’s more likely to be killed than caught.
80. I loathe large cockroaches. When I was in school we had to dissect preserved cockroaches in biology. It was the middle of summer and my home room was the biology lab. The stench of formaldehyde in the hot classroom and the big jars of roaches totally freaked me out and I can’t go near the things today.
81. When I left school I knew I was going to be a graphic designer. I spent a year at art college and loved it. I got A’s for the fine art and failed the graphic design, so I dropped out.
82. Today I am a computer programmer. I don’t think you can get much different!
83. I still enjoy sketching. I don’t do it much because it takes up space and time. The last sketch I attempted was a zebra. Attempt one came out like a donkey, and attempt two like a giraffe. I need more practice.
84. I rarely use my computer at home. I definitely never program in my free time. I’m a geek, but not that much of a geek!
85. I’d probably enjoy computer games but I never really got into them. I had an ancient dos version of Civilization I used to play through the night, but I don’t think I have it around anymore. If it is around then it’s on a floppy disk and my new laptop doesn’t have a floppy drive!
86. I never got into x-box either, but when I do play I’m pretty good.
87. My outdoor hobbies are bushwalking, scuba, and swimming.
88. By swimming I don’t mean laps. I hate swimming laps. I will happily bomb drop, somersault, dive for pennies, do handstands and play piggy-in-the-middle for hours, but don’t ask me to swim laps.
89. And I love swimming in the sea and body boarding. I never got the hang of body surfing though.
90. I reckon scuba is the closest one can get to flying. Swooping out over deep chasms, gliding effortlessly up and down, barrel rolling weightlessly – it is wonderful. Plus there’s some cool stuff to look at down there.
91. I once went trekking in the Himalayas for four weeks – the Annapurna circuit. It was incredible, and really put the rest of my life in perspective. It’s kind of hard to get stressed about a mortgage tracking system after that.
92. I got really ill on the trek. A tummy bug that lasted for a fortnight, plus a throat and chest infection because I was run down. When I got home I’d lost 10 kg and had the body of a model. My collar bones stuck out, I had cheekbones and hip bones, I looked amazing.
93. I didn’t like being so thin! I had crow’s-feet and no boobies. So I plumped right back out again.
94. If I ever do a trek like that again, it will be with someone who looks after me properly and lets me stay an extra couple of days in bed when I obviously can’t walk up a mountain. I reckon my mom would be ideal!
95. I love doing jigsaw puzzles.
96. A couple of years ago in England a girlfriend talked me into ciroc/jive lessons. I adored it! I liked meeting people, flirting with the guys, laughing myself silly when we made a mistake and got completely tangled, and most of all simply dancing until I was soaking with sweat and my feet ached for days afterward. I miss it. A lot.
97. My best friend in high school, who meant more to me than anyone else, and who first got me tipsy on a sleep-over, and who was probably the reason I lost my virginity because she made it sound so interesting, dropped me from her life when I was 18 because her boyfriend didn’t like me (I went off the rails a bit when my folks divorced). I grieved for years.
98. My best friend from art college, who knew all the stuff about me the other girl knew, dropped everything to come and get me when I rang her in tears after my friend dumped me. She’s a strong Christian with high morals, but she has never judged me and has always been there. She is my closest friend in all the world (apart from my mom) and is totally incredible.
99. If I could change one about myself it would be… not much. Maybe a longer fuse on my temper.
100. If I could change one thing in my past it would be… hmm. Nothing. What I have done has made me what I am today. I rock.
