1.
I think smile lines are sexy and couldn't wait to have them. (I have
them now.)
2.
As a kid I had a love affair going with erasers. I collected them.
Even broken bits of erasers. Even eraser shavings (I kept the shavings
in a see-through pencil sharpener for easy gazing). I had to exercise
restraint to leave the erasers attached to the tops of pencils.
3.
I caught a tree frog one year on Thanksgiving at my uncle's house and
kept him as a pet for exactly one year, setting him free the following
Thanksgiving. I still miss him and still feel bad about keeping him
from his outside life for any length of time.
4.
Reading the dictionary makes my mouth water.
5.
I am still afraid to swim in the deep end of a pool by myself because
of the shark that may or may not be lurking near the drain.
6.
If I were offered the opportunity to trade in my songwriting ability
for something different, I would decline, even if the other offer was
the ability to fly.
7.
I have asked strangers if I could touch their dreadlocks. They all
said yes.
8.
The Coldplay song "Don't Panic" kills me every time I hear
it.
9.
I drink a coffee substitute called Cafix, which thrills my gills.
10.
I want to visit Vermont in autumn.
11.
I picture myself living there or someplace equally as beautiful
when I am old.
12.
Ron Sexsmith's music makes me feel as if everything will be OK.
13.
I smoked cigarettes for five-and-a-half years.
14.
The day I decided it was time to quit was the day I became acutely
aware of my heart and how it is so dedicated to keeping me alive no
matter what I do to my body. I sat and cried, grateful and ashamed all
at once.
15.
I once told a guy from the Los Angeles Times that I was dead when he
asked to speak to me to find out if I wanted to subscribe for the
ten-thousandth time. They finally stopped calling.
16.
I once tied a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue, but haven't yet
been able to repeat it.
17.
I have hitchhiker's
thumb.
18.
I have finished reading only one book this year.
19.
There is a hearty pile of half-read books on my bedside table.
20.
The smell of witch hazel delights me.
21.
I worry excessively.
22.
I have the cleanest teeth in town (ask my dentist).
23.
The sound of snoring makes me want to scream.
24.
I wish I had never called anyone ugly.
25.
I have eaten rose petals. (I enjoyed them.)
26.
It is very difficult to successfully lie to me.
27.
Insincerity gives me a lonely feeling.
28.
Halloween is my favourite holiday. This time of year is enormously
comforting to me.
29.
I love popcorn and sometimes eat it for breakfast.
30.
When people say "Micky Dees" I get embarrassed.
31.
I don't keep in touch with anyone from school.
32.
Television commercials make me want to throw the TV outside.
33.
I watch very little TV.
34.
I have no interest in having a washboard stomach.
35.
I don't stay where I am not happy.
36.
I think cat breath is adorable even though it's not very pleasant.
37.
I have a great amount of love in my life.
38.
I wish the same for you.
39.
I met a lifelong friend this year.
40.
The concept of forever scared the living trixies out of me as a kid.
41.
Burritos hurt my feelings but I love them anyway.
42.
I am a natural redhead.
43.
Other people's loneliness kicks my ass.
44.
I read Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey every few
years.
45.
I know nothing about photography other than I am mad about taking
pictures.
46.
I collect the cat whiskers I find around the house and put them in a
handmade box brought back for me from Italy by someone I adore.
47.
Contrary to a popular belief of my youth, I could not really live
happily on cheesecake.
48.
I don't watch the news.
49.
I want to learn how to tap-dance.
50.
Celebrity worship freaks me out.
51.
I would love to be a brick mason.
52.
If I could make myself invisible at will, I would go to restaurants
and sit in on various conversations.
53.
Blindness completely fascinates me.
54.
I have crackin' detective skills.
55.
Sue-happy people disgust me.
56.
Anorexia breaks my heart and pisses me off something fierce.
57.
I am glad to know the difference between I and me. I no
longer say sentences like "Margarita took a picture of my sister
and I," because you wouldn't say that Margarita took a
picture of I. No, Margarita took a picture of me. And
Margarita isn't going with my sister and I to dinner either,
because she will be dining with my sister and me. But my sister
and I do think Margarita needs to lose that fugly coat she's
been dragging about lately. (Some years back I told a friend about the
difference between I and me, to which she said,
"Eat I.")
58.
My nose tends to run a bit when I eat.
59.
If I could draw well, one of my favourite things to draw would be a
lone tree.
60.
I have been wanting to write a play since high school.
61.
And when I do write that play, I am going to star in that fucker.
62.
Fucker is one of my favourite swearwords. It's hard to take
that word seriously, you know? If someone were to call me a fucker, I
think I would probably laugh.
63.
The feeling of newspaper grosses me out.
64.
The movie Little Shop of Horrors brings me great joy.
65.
I wash my hands more than anyone I have ever known.
66.
I still believe (from childhood) that African Iris plants can cure
cancer.
67.
I called that plant the pickle plant and still do.
68.
The coat my parents bought for me when I was about 12 is hanging in my
closet. It still fits.
69.
The thing I seek most in this life is to know my worth.
70.
Kindness impresses me most of all. And integrity. Money doesn't
impress me in the least.
71.
When I ride a roller coaster I keep checking the seatbelt like a
lunatic.
72.
I have never owned a fuzzy steering wheel cover and still don't want
one.
73.
I have kickass intuition, but often forget to use it.
74.
I procrastinate. (It took me a while to type that because I was
putting it off.)
75.
The last song I downloaded from iTunes was "Under the Milky
Way" by The Church.
76.
I love Necco Wafers.
77.
I have been saving movie theatre ticket stubs for years.
78.
I've attended two movies by myself, and had a heartache both times: Sibling
Rivalry and Fried Green Tomatoes.
79.
I prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate.
80.
Sometimes it feels as though all I do is wait. For what, I don't know.
81.
I don't think I could be less interested in politics.
82.
When I was a young girl, I became obsessed with having blonde hair and
begged my mom to buy me a blonde wig. I thought my life would change
for the better. She repeatedly said no, that I was beautiful the way I
was, so I fantasized about how I was going to somehow make it over to
the department store to find the wig of my dreams in the glorious wig
department, and how I was going to pay for that thing.
83.
I never bought the blonde wig.
84.
In grade school a boy named Eugene got some other boys to join him in
calling me "red-headed rooster" every day at least
three-thousand times.
85.
Because of my last name (Escaip), I was also called a jailbird quite
often. "Linda escaped from jail!" Later I escaped from
Alcatraz. And a little while after that I escaped from New York. I
didn't mind being an escape artist.
86.
A stranger called me Booby recently in a innocuous tone and it
nearly sent me into hysterics (laughter, not crying).
87.
I don't put much faith in doctors. I keep it for myself.
88.
I love goats and hope to adopt some later in my life when I have a
home with more land.
89.
I believe there is magic everywhere: under couch cushions, in train
stations, hiding in the pocket of your favourite coat, in the shape of
a cloud, at the top of your list. Everywhere.
90.
I really do challenge inanimate objects to duels when I feel it's
necessary. Like when I have walked into a door frame or the corner of
a table. Or when a pen I'm trying to write a letter with keeps falling
to the floor.
91.
I don't believe in sin. I believe there is love and the lack of it.
92.
I am a closet choreographer.
93.
Little chocolate liqueurs in the shape of bottles thrill the toots out
of me.
94.
Often when people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I'm a
candle trainer. And it's a lie because I don't actually get paid for
it, but I am very, very good at it.
95.
Going to Canada was the first big dream I realized in a decade.
96.
I have a bunch of dreams I plan to realize and quite frankly, refuse
to leave until I have.
97.
I am not arrogant enough to believe I am more important in the scheme
of things than the owl flying over my head, the praying mantis on my
doorstep, the opossum who lives near my garage, etc.
98.
I have a most beautiful friend. I refer to her here as The Lovely Bea,
and I will tell you one quick story about her. Years ago she took me
to see a doctor in Westwood; I was feeling very weak that day.
Afterward, we were walking to a restaurant for lunch when we spotted
an obese pigeon in the middle of the road, busily pecking away at
nibbles there, oblivious to oncoming traffic. A car nearly flattened
him and I began to cry, feeling utterly helpless. My sweet Bea, the
sweetest in existence, stopped traffic that day to escort the hungry
round pigeon to the sidewalk on the other side of the road. Slowly she
walked with him, guiding him gently with her feet as cars stopped all
around (no one honked or yelled, if you can believe that), until he
was up on the safety zone where there were plenty of morsels to be
enjoyed. Like I said, I have a most beautiful friend.
99.
I finished the song I mentioned here.
It's called "All Of My Life" and it's one of my favourites.
100.
I am sentimental and don't care who knows it.
101.
(There should always be one extra, like with birthday candles.) Albert
Einstein's face is so adorable it melts my heart every time I see a
picture of him.
