100 Things about The Gina

It took me awhile but I finally put this together. I got it from K and K. I don’t know if I saw it in other places too, but if I have, it has been so long I have forgotten.

100 Things
1. I like being tall. I am tall for a female (6 feet even) and while it is a pain is some regards (buying pants) for the most part I love it.
2. To build an appreciation of being tall (I was suppose to be 6 ft 3 inches. I like my 6 foot even just fine thank you very much.), my parents gave me prized for every three inches I grew from 5 ft 3in onward. At 5ft-3in, I got a new hairstyle/perm. 5ft-6in was a night in a nice hotel with my mom (I thought that was really cool at the time), 5ft-9in was a room redecoration done MY way (the walls were sunshine yellow, the wide trim was lime green and the ceiling was dark blue, all my favorite colors at the time). As I managed to creep up to 6ft (5ft and 7/8th then 5ft and 15/16th according to my dad), I traded in my initial desire to try sky diving and added my graduation (from high school) present to get a trip to the 25th anniversary Dr. Who Convention in Chicago the weekend after Thanksgiving. It was a Creation Con and for those of you who do not know these cons, it was a waste of time.
3. My parents did something I think is very cool. They offered me and my brother $1,000 if we did not drink or take drugs until we were 21. After that we could do whatever we want. Our bodies would have grown as much as they were going to. It was a great excuse to avoid peer pressure. Being the smart ass I was at 13, I suggested that they put in the bank and let us have the interest until we get the entire amount. That interest (at the time it was 5%, wow) paid for my science fiction convention habit for many years.
4. I have attempted to try pot, but I couldn’t inhale and the coughing made me fall off the kitchen table. Never bothered again.
5. I have a blood sugar problem. Can’t/shouldn’t have Sugar, Caffeine, or Alcohol. Started in 1988, sucked ever since.
6. I use to put sugar on my Frosted Flakes. I discovered by myself that a spoonful of sugar make the hiccups go away. I think I used up my lifetime allotment of sugar before I was 22.
7. This little issue that shows up with sugar also means I am very susceptible to many things. I have gotten gigglingly high off of the smoke in the lungs of a friend talking to me from across a small room. Had to sit outside for an hour before I could go home.
8. I can’t do spicy foods. If the word spicy can be involved (i.e. it is hardly spicy at all) then it is too spicy. Savory foods are great.
9. I really dislike other people making me put up with their smells (perfume, cigarettes, cigars). I tend to get headaches and take it personally.
10. I was born in Minnesota but only have been there for the first 6 months of my life. I had a layover there a few years ago and that is the closest I have been since then.
11. I love Hot Dish. I think it comes from my being born in Minnesota. Or at least that is what I tell people.
12. My parents moved to Paris, France after Minnesota. And they traveled all over, they weren’t going to let having a baby with them stop them from seeing things. This resulted in me having been to many many places and countries that I don’t remember. Doesn’t count, can’t remember.
13. I have told my parents that I am sorry they had to deal with a 2 year old while traveling around Europe. I had to do that one day and felt bad for them. It was still their fault and their decision but I can sympathize.
14. I have no problem with the concept of Death. Dying on the other hand is something that scares me. Can I just skip from Life to Death without the dying part, please?
15. I believe (and desperately hope) that there is no life after death. I am tired of this one, I don’t want another.
16. I could die at any time and that would be fine with me. Yes there are still things I want to do but once I am dead, it won’t matter any more. Couldn’t do it to myself but if that earthquake has my name on it, fine.
17. When I do die, I want people to be happy for me. They can be sad for themselves because I am gone, but happy for me.
18. All my grandparents are dead. The last to go was my Grandmother Edmisson in Oct 2001. I can’t get beyond thinking “Happy happy Joy joy” about her passing because she so didn’t want to be here anymore, was really hurting by just living and her Alzheimer’s was getting worse. Once you are done with your body, it is time for it to end.
19. I don’t want to reach old age. I decided when I was a teen that mid 40s is “old age”. Haven’t changed my mind.
20. When I graduated college, I lived in Belgium for a year.
21. Place out of country I have been to that count because I remember them: Canada (crossed the border briefly, once), Mexico, Jamaica, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Hungry, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Italy
22. I seriously considered living in Wien, Austria (Vienna). I loved it there.
23. English is my second language. My parents claim my first word was Bonjour so French would be my first language.
24. I can’t speak French.
25. I like German and would learn it if I could find a use for it.
26. I feel like I know as much German after a one week conversation class and 3 weeks in Austria as I do French after 2 years of high school French, repeated that in 2 semesters of college French, a conversational class in French and a year living in Belgium where they only speak French. I don’t do well with French.
27. The story is told that I use to talk a lot until my parents took me on a Mediterranean cruise around 2 years old. I have many people saying to me “What a cute baby” in many languages. I then didn’t say anything again until I was 4. I think this is why I don’t do well in French. And why I talk so much now. :)
28. My dad has gotten me hooked on the Enneagram. I think I am a 7 but I could be a 4. The indecisiveness is a characteristic of a 7.
29. I was Sweet 16 and never been kissed. I was turned 18 and still had never been kissed. I was a late bloomer.
30. I never really had any real friends until after I graduated high school.
31. I think I am an extrovert that was trained to survive by being an introvert at a young age.
32. I blossomed into being who I really am in college. I am not sure I existed before that as more than a blob of protoplasm.
33. I don’t want kids. I remember the curse mother’s give of “May you have kids just like you.” I couldn’t handle a little me.
34. I considered having kids once, but I would want to adopt. I don’t like the idea of my genetic material running around. One me is more than enough.
35. If I did adopt I would want it to be an unwanted kid (one that is older than just a baby) but I don’t think I could handle the problems the kid would arrive with.
36. I don’t want to mess with kids until they reach at least the age of 10. They aren’t people before that. They are proto-people with potential. Really small children are just imprinted copies of their parents. There are parts of them that are individual but not enough to count as a person in their own regard. Once they can reason and have their own personhood, then I feel I can deal with them.
37. I have not been able to put this theory into practice more than once or twice.
38. I like to costume. I am very proud of the things I have been able to put together.
39. I don’t really like making things. I like coming up with the idea and having made the things but the process isn’t something I enjoy for its own sake.
40. I have a lot of clothes and costume pieces. I keep collecting. It makes me happy.
41. Since finding clothes I want is so hard because of my size, I have started to make my own. I have made pants, shirts, dresses, skirts, and shorts (about two of each so far)
42. I am getting better at sewing.
43. I got use to people not liking me or not being able to deal with me at a very early age. Now if there is someone that isn’t going to be able to get along with me, I want them to go away right away and not bother me.
44. The longest I have ever live anywhere has be 6 and a half years. It is in my current apartment. Still counting.
45. I have figured out that I am an extremist but physically I need to be a moderate. I believe contradictory things from different extremes but I have to moderate what I eat and how much I sleep.
46. I have a motorcycle license and can ride.
47. One reason I got it was because Haruka (Sailor Uranus) rides.
48. I wanted to learn to ride before that but not enough to make it happen.
49. The bike is one of the few things in my life that I kept working on after it got really hard. When things don’t work smoothly, I normally take it as a sign that I shouldn’t be doing it. With the bike, I kept on doing it.
50. My only broken bone came from riding the bike. Ok from dropping the bike actually.
51. I still wanted to get back on when my arm was in a cast and I heard the engine when a friend help me put the bike away. That surprised me.
52. I am very insecure and need to be told over and over that I am wanted and appreciated. It just doesn’t stick with me.
53. I read a lot. I like to read. It is all escapist for me. Take me somewhere that isn’t here doing something that isn’t me.
54. My mom tried to force me to read The Hobbit. I disliked it so much I stopped reading (the deal was as I remember it that I couldn’t read anything else if I didn’t read a chapter or two of the book my mom wanted me to read). I got out of the habit of reading for a little while.
55. Discovering Science Fiction in the Jr. High School Library ruined me for Christianity. I started thinking for myself and things just didn’t add up.
56. It was another couple of years before I gave up on Christianity. I currently believe all things which ends up in me believing in nothing.
57. I would probably be involved with an eastern religion like Buddhism if I had the discipline. But I get bored to easy.
58. I use to be Unique. Then I moved to the Bay Area and parts of my have been duplicated. There are others with my name, my food problems, my looks (I have found a couple of twins and we get mistaken for each other even by ourselves), my skills. I have had to learn to live with this.
59. I only ran into one other Gina and two Reginas in my first 28 years of life and believe me I looked. I got 5 cents for every Gina I found. This included Gina Marie cheese trucks.
60. My current object obsessions are Ivy, Columns, Skulls and cross bones, and Clouds.
61. I am delighted that my name is in the middle of the word original. It was not intentional.
62. It is also in imagination.
63. One of the reasons my name was picked was because it couldn’t be nicknamed. Nicknames don’t stick on me. I have always wanted a nickname. Friends always end up looking at me and saying “You’re Gina.”
64. In high school, I had a variety of nicknames that never lasted long. I thought they were all cool. Twicky, Toothpick, Spiderwoman, Stilts, and Hey Ugly.
65. Hey Ugly was the name the Baritone in band would call me. I was second (and last) chair trombone and he was the only baritone, we sat next to each other. We were always carping on each other in a fun way. I thought it was neat that he was comfortable enough with me that he felt he could call me Hey Ugly in the hallways. I don’t even remember his name.
66. In college, if I didn’t get called “bitch” by a certain friend of mine on a weekly basis, it usually meant there was a problem between us.
67. I was teased viciously in elementary school and had an unfair nickname the entire time I was there. It has scarred me in some ways for life. I am surprised that the other nicknames in my life never bothered me.
68. I am very narcissistic.
69. I have stopped traveling. I haven’t left the country since I got back in ’90. I haven’t really left the state since 2000 (one small trip to Eugene OR in March 2002 is the only exception).
70. I stopped flying in 1999. Too much hassle. Now if I go anywhere, I try to take the train. I like the train. Hate busses.
71. I use to love to drive. I use to want to be a truck driver before I got my driver’s license.
72. I now don’t like to drive. I can if I need to but I would rather not. I have curtailed most of my events and activities to a 35 mile radius of my home.
73. I am currently dating outside of this radius and that is an issue.
74. I have a problem with temperature. I am only comfortable between 68-72 degrees. I am freezing below that. I am uncomfortable up to 80 degrees, ill between 80-90, and non-functional above 90. And don’t tell me you are the same way, most people aren’t this bad but want to think they are. I am not exaggerating.
75. I moved from Colorado because it got too hot in the summers. The regular summer temperature use to be in the 80s, now it sits in the 90s and will get into the 100s.
76. I was planning on going to Seattle or Portland. I figure my next move, as the world gets warmer will have to be Alaska.
77. I was willing to consider San Francisco because of the Mark Twain quote of never experiencing a colder winter than summer in San Francisco. I don’t leave the Bay Area in the summer. It is save here.
78. I like cloudy weather and fog. After getting back from Belgium, Colorado had too much open sky. Shiver. I hate the wind. I love the rain.
79. I think my best physical feature is my legs. I have long legs.
80. The anime character Emeraldas, is my role model. I was watching Galaxy Express 999 when I was in High School. Here was a character that had many of the same physical features (long legs, really thin, small chin, long nose, long head, it is anime – the eyes never count) as I did and I thought she looked cool. Therefore I must look cool too. It made me feel good about the way I look when normally your self-image takes a beating. I couldn’t do the solitary thing she does but I hope to be as strong.
81. I like attention. I need attention. I want attention.
82. I am very generous when feeling like my needs are met.
83. I am very selfish, stingy, and tight fisted when don’t feel comfortable or feel deprived.
84. I like to help. I feel a need to help. My first instinct is to try to figure out a way that I can get something someone wants or solve a problem for them. The closer I am to someone, the stronger the need. Then reality kicks in and I evaluate if it is reasonable for me to do that.
85. I can’t listen, I have to solve. The book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus presents the idea that when talking about a problem, women just want to be heard out and that men want assistance in solving the problem. Expecting one and getting the other is the reason for so many misunderstandings. Me, I am more Martian than anything else in this regard. I am lousy at just listening to friend’s problems and I resent when I am forced into that situation. If someone is going to tell me about some horrible thing, I am going to wrap my brain around the issue and figure out options. Otherwise, the horrible stuff gets stuck in my head. It is like handing me something, I work on it and hand it back. I have to be able to hand it back.
86. I don’t want to be #1. I like and do well at being number 2. I am neither a leader or a follower, an alpha or beta. I use to think I was a beta that could fill in for an alpha vacuum but I have figured it out better than that recently. I follow when the leader is going where I want to go, otherwise I will blaze the trail myself, others can follow me if they like or not. What I am really good at is supporting a leader and coordinating. Getting everyone on track with the direction we are all going.
87. I am a fan of most things Genre (Science Fiction, Fantasy, Anime, Comics, Gaming starting to add Mystery and Romance-mostly historical). I am not a strong fan of any one thing, although there are a few that I can get really really bouncy about.
88. I dislike sports. They make sense if you play them (I am not athletically inclined) but sitting around and watching them seems beyond silly to me.
89. I change my look a lot. I like drastic haircuts/changes in style. If I am paying to have my hair done, I want it to be as different as can be.
90. I really like my lock of gray hair at my right temple. So much so, I have bleached the hair around it as close to white as I can get instead of covering it up.
91. I change my look for every driver’s license picture.
92. I don’t like to write. Probably because I have to edit it later, go over what it says to be sure that is what I want to convey and it takes so long. I would like to have a Dictaphone in my head and have someone else edit this stuff for me.
93. I like Math. Algebra and Calculus is fun. I consider them to be games. I wish I had more to do with them in my life than I do.
94. English was my worse subject in school. I was in bonehead English until my senior year in high school. After my freshman year, it was because no one thought to tell me I could/should take regular English. I though I was taking regular English and feeling smart since I could finish everything so quickly.
95. I use to be an Architectural Lighting Designer. I am still a lighting geek but I couldn’t take the way the Industry operates. I had to get out after 3 years of school and 3 years in all aspects of the industry.
96. I actually appreciate MicroSoft to a certain degree. I like the fact that many of the programs I use can work together without major conflict. It helps that I can think along the same lines as MicroSoft. If the program is can do it, I can make the program do it. I can even get usable answers out of the MicroSoft Office Assistant (Clippy, the Smarmy French Paperclip).
97. My mother is in Bali, my Brother (younger by 2 and half years) is in Germany with his wife, daughter and another spawn on the way, my Dad is mostly in Colorado but ends up living all over the United States in his RV.
98. I don’t like transitions: Dry to wet, Wet to dry, Getting out of bed in the morning, Leaving home for an event, Leaving work at the end of the day. I feel like Inertia Woman, I want to stay in whatever state I am in. It usually has to be something good to pull me through the transitionary state. Which means getting up in the morning and getting ready for work has got to be the hardest.
99. I need an external structure. If I ever won the lotto or came into a lot of money, I would still have to work just so I would get out of bed in the morning.
100. I hate waiting. Needing to wait for a defined finite amount of time is moderately ok because I almost always have some form of entertainment with me. I really hate the undefined, “any minute” type of waiting, like for a bus or for someone running behind schedule. I get sick to my stomach, tied up in knots, panicky, always checking, can’t relax, don’t know what to do. I think my defense for this is to be the one that is always late. Unfortunately, this means I don’t have much of a leg to stand on when people are late with me. Still hate it though.

4 thoughts on “100 Things about The Gina

  1. This is quite an impressive list for someone who doesn’t like to write.

    I love what your parents did to help you appreciate being tall. It reminds me of my parents supporting me being left-handed. They used to buy me books listing all the famous left-handed people, get me special left-handed tools that only I could use, and teach me about the skills that left-handers tend to be better at. Instead of finding my handedness a frustration, it became a source of pride. I must admit I still make fun of people who can’t use my left-handed scissors. (I’ve learned to adapt to be able to use both kinds, but I prefer the lefty style.)

  2. Hmmm…

    I think I’d object to #30 – if it weren’t for knowing the truth about #52 & #67 – but then, I think I’ll object on principal… You had at least *one* “real friend” before high school – because 30 years after the time I first met you, I’m busy trying to hunt you down on the internet, for about the dozenth time…
    Go check your email if you’re trying to figure out who the hell this is – or just remember that I meant it when I said you were my best friend in grade school…

    :)

    1. Re: Hmmm…

      Gotcha,
      Just sent back a reply to your email. Yes, you were my best friend in elementary school but I was always ready to lose you. I had so many turn their back on me because of who I was / how I was treated. I couldn’t conceive and anyone sticking around. I didn’t learn how to have friends until after high school. I don’t think you and I became real friends until after then. And then we would pop in and out of each others lives.

      BTW, you don’t pop up too well in the vanity google department either. :P I think my main hit is for my resume on my old Yahoo web page. I am just The Gina. Since I am surrounded by so many other Gina’s I have to be special somehow. :) I was unique in Colorado, out here, there are many of MEs.

      ~pirategrl

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