The early 2009 time capsule

I’m doing a bit of house cleaning lately, in both a real and metaphorical sense, and I was looking at old Facebook lists. Remember that? A few years ago, Facebook friends were tagging each other and, I think, trying to find common ground with one another through lists of beloved movies, books, and my personal favorite, 25 Random Things About Me. After I wrote and shared my list of random things, I discovered that it was a set of prompts, a self-generated word association game of sorts about what was on my mind. So now, looking back more than four years at the list I wrote in January 2009, it’s like a thin-slice time capsule of who I was on the cusp of turning 40. Enjoy, and yes, I’ll write something new soon.

1. Great coffee is a tasty, strong espresso-based drink with warm milk and not a lot else. Making the milk scalding hot is an awful Starbucks/Peets thing that ruins the whole experience in my opinion. (If I had wanted to drink the coffee 30 minutes from now, I would have ordered it 30 minutes from now.) The best coffee I’ve ever had was on my honeymoon at the Hotel Bora Bora.
2. If I had more time and patience, I would be a vegetarian and practice yoga.
3. I am learning so much more about males than ever before since I had a son. I have developed more of a fascination for trucks, planes, trains, and machines in general than I ever thought possible. And little boys at age 3 already seem to have such simpler friendships (in a good way) than girls do at the same age. At least this is true of my son and daughter.
4. I spent a lot of time as a teenager worrying that I would inherit my father’s mental illness (most likely paranoid schizophrenia). I haven’t so far, and I don’t think it’s likely I will.
5. Exercise ceased being all about weight control and became more about burning off tension and staying sane about 10 years ago.
6. If I had finished my PhD and stayed in my career as an epidemiologist, I eventually would have done research on obesity and inflammation.
7. Sometimes when I drive around in Los Angeles, which I do a lot of, an 80s New Wave soundtrack is playing that seems like the perfect score to what is all around me. This is true whether or not the radio is on.
8. I enjoy cocktails more than I should. Some favorites include Grey Goose lemon drops and margaritas (I’m not as picky about tequila, but it should be smooth and not give me a headache).
9. When I was younger, I hated being of mixed race. It underlined how I didn’t fit into convenient categories in other ways as well. I wanted to fit in and not have an asterisk next to my name and status. Now I feel uncomfortable in instances when discover that I do fit neatly into a predefined demographic.
10. I like cheese and salty snacks more than sweets. When I’ve been pregnant, this is one of the factors (other than genetics) that made me look puffy and have gigantic feet.
11. I have a good mind for details, which is good when I edit but bad when I parent. I sweat the small stuff.
12. I truly hate swimming. This relates to my father, who in addition to being mentally ill was also a champion swimmer. He used to make me swim laps in a hotel in Eau Claire when he was with me on his court-appointed visits. I have resigned myself to never being a triathlete.
13. I hope my children become confident swimmers, so I hide my hatred of swimming from them and take them to lessons every summer.
14. If I were more spontaneous and okay with chaos, I would travel (and bring my kids) more than I currently do. As it is, I don’t get out of town very often.
15. I learned to snowboard when I was 31. I’d like to get better at it, but I haven’t been snowboarding in almost 4 years.
16. I love Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest in general, and if I hadn’t become so wimpy about seasons and sunshine, I could see myself living there.
17. I am either an agnostic or a deist, but too intellectually lazy to figure out the definitive answer. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic)
18. I’d like to have myself hypnotized so that I could remember the Mandarin I used to speak as a child. Since I’m an adult, taking a class always involves learning the characters, which is not happening anytime soon.
19. My sensitivity to sound is a little abnormal. I use noise-cancelling headphones in my office because noise distracts me.
20. I am a sunscreen freak. My husband, children and I never leave the house without being hosed down in SPF 30.
21. When I was 2 years old, a dog attacked me. I spent 28 years trying not to be afraid of dogs, but then got my own dog, which helped me get over it.
22. I dress in mostly neutral colors. I feel a little ironic when I am in anything other than dark blue, black, brown, gray, or khaki. Green counts as a neutral color.
23. I smoked on and off from age 16 to 28. The vanity of having stained teeth was one of the reasons I finally quit.
24. My husband thinks I am a gay man in a straight woman’s body.
25. Sometimes I wish I’d been a pastry chef.