Lisa 101

1. Ha! This list is going to be FABulous fun! I absolutely love to write when I'm not expected to persuade. Or create characters and develop a plot. Or make a point. Or inform. Or be creative or profound in any way whatsoever.
2. I started "Lisa 101" after a business associate--a quirky character of a man who amuses me greatly--posted a challenge on his own blog for others to "do a 101 on yourself."
3. I can be pretty flighty with my spare time, so the likelihood that I'll keep blogging is slim. We'll see.
4. Most people I know believe (or assume) that I'm creative....whatever that means. But in my own head, I'm a poser who just gets lucky now and then. Years ago, I read in Andy Warhol's diary that he felt the same way. He lived in fear that one day the world would figure this out about him.
5. Out of everything I've read about Warhol, the thing I remember most is his "Piss Paintings" series, called "Oxidation Paintings" in polite company. He and his friends would urinate on canvases prepared with minerals and paint. There was one friend in particular who produced very richly colored pee because he was quite healthy and took a lot of vitamins.
6. Hmmm. That last one isn't really about me, is it? Should I rewrite #5? But it *does* make a bit of a statement about me. I mean, geesh.....some of the things that stick in my head are just sorta weird. And that observation makes a great #6.
7. I love my Mac.
8. I love my Powerbook.
9. I love my AirPort.
10. I love my iPod.
11. I love my new iPod Shuffle.
12. I acquired my Shuffle a few months ago after I started going to the gym on a regular basis. Which, by the way, is an entirely different experience nowadays than back in the day. Everyone (OK, not everyone, but a heck of a lot of people) has some sort of listening device attached to themselves, and they navigate the fitness equipment while in a self-contained audioworld. Some of the people smile at one another.....but the wires trailing from their ears to the tiny box attached to a body part screams, loud and clear, "leave me alone!" The effectiveness of that message is why I bought my hip little lightweight Shuffle-with-a-clamp. Swwweeet.
13. I can be anti-social at times.
14. As a child of about 6 or 8, I remember wondering....if I weren't me, would I be someone else or would I just not exist? If I didn't exist, what would it be like? Would I know that I didn't exist, or would there just be.....nothing? What would nothing be like?
15. I used to beg my mom to burn the green beans on purpose. The crusty black part was yummy.
16. My Barbies lived through precarious times. I used to strip off all their clothes, tie their hands and feet, and then stash them somewhere dark and scary, often leaving them there for months. I never did that with Skipper, though. Only the grown-up Barbies.
17. My parents would never allow me to have a Ken doll, no matter how much I pleaded.
18. I grew up on a 100-acre farm in Upstate SC.
19. I hate that I keep using the word "I" in this list. How can you avoid that when you're writing about yourself? Hmmmm.
20. Am having second thoughts about publishing #16 on the internet. Do you think it will attract some sort of bot designed to notify "the authorities" about potential n'er-do-wells? Ha! Perhaps it would help my image as an artist if I were labeled a subversive.
21. In the third grade, I started a school newspaper. I was forced by my teacher to go to the principal's office and ask for official permission....and, boy, was I scared! As far as I knew, only very BAD children made trips to the principal's office. He asked me questions about how I planned to get it done, and I guess I had the right answers, because he provided his blessing. My itty-bitty staff and I (was it two other kids? I can't remember now...) only produced an issue or two before getting bored with it. It was a 1-page, 1-sided, legal-sized deal replicated on mimeograph equipment by the school librarian.
22. The third grade was also when I started to mull the idea of becoming an artist. My home room teacher could paint flowers very well, and she'd have little art sessions with the class now and then.
23. Was it the third grade when I started to write stories, too? I think so. Gee, I was blossoming.
24. I don't remember the fourth grade at all.
25. In the fifth grade, the boys in my class started talking dirty to the girls. I smoked my first cigarette. I idolized the "bad" crowd.
26. In the sixth grade, I had a friend--a rail-thin, mousey-haired, nervous girl--who bragged about smoking pot with her big brother. She also had a pet monkey. I was very jealous of her life. Another friend had a neighbor--a very cute curly-haired boy a few years older--who shared stolen cans of his daddy's beer.
27. The summer before my seventh grade year, my parents had a very serious talk with me, and said they were sending me to private school. Ha!
28. My mom tells me nowadays that if it weren't for peanut butter and rolls, I would have starved to death as a child.
29. The best food on the planet is Thai. On a hotness scale of 1 to 10, I usually order a 20.
30. In recent months, I've begun to really enjoy sushi. A year ago, the thought of eating raw fish disgusted me. The same friend who introduced me to Thai food also introduced me to sushi.
31. Change is good. It shakes things up and keeps us all from being bored.
32. I'm not lazy....I'm hedonistic. I came up with that one three or four months ago, after an exhausting ass-kicking session with my personal trainer. Sitting on my butt in the middle of the gym seemed like a MUCH better idea than doing more of those damn 'plank' things.
33. Mediocrity scares me more than death. Of course, that's easy to say as I sit on my blue couch on a sunny Saturday morning. No one's aiming a gun at my head or anything.
34. It's hard to fathom the courage it must take to willingly put yourself in a situation where a gun WILL be aimed at your head. Well....unless you're suicidal....
35. One of my uncles survived a Nazi prison camp. I never heard him speak of his experiences, myself....I was told he didn't like to talk about it.
36. The most life-changing book I've ever read is "The Power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell.
37. TV shows I can't miss: "Lost," "Jericho," "Heroes."
38. Traits that I admire in other people: irreverence, nonconformity, honesty, loyalty, empathy.
39. Many years ago, I remember telling Friend A about Friend B's blog. Back then, blogging wasn't common at all, and Friend A thought it was amazingly, unbelievably arrogant. "Why does he think anyone will CARE?" he asked. This keeps running through my head as I write today, because it really does seem arrogant, in a way.
40. No one has ever accused me of being arrogant, but I'd bet a freakin' enormous sum of money that some people have thought it.
41. I *have* been accused of being deviant. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
42. I enjoy a good dirty joke. And obscure sexual innuendo. And not-so-obscure sexual innuendo.
43. Pickles are revolting. The abundant quantity of juice that bleeds out of them will taint anything in its path.
44. Mayonnaise is revolting. It's spoogy.
45. Mustard is revolting. German people who own deli restaurants are offended when you ask them to hold the mustard on a sandwich.
46. Catsup is revolting. Bleck.
47. Tomato soup is yummy. Yeah, yeah.....I know. That doesn't make sense in light of #46. I don't delve into the psychology of those opposing sentiments.
48. Tomato soup is not as yummy as tom ka gai.
49. Last year, I was obsessed with Geocaching. I'd get back into it in a skinny minute if my OCD had not latched onto exercise after the holidays.
50. This year, I learned that if you get back into exercise after a nearly 20-year hiatus, you'd better take it slowly. If you don't, body parts will protest in ways which raise concern.
51. I don't really have OCD, but I do think I have a tendency or two. Or three or seven.
52. The mind-numbing tedium of everyday lifecrap annoys me. Lifecrap includes things like washing clothes, going to the grocery store, cleaning house, washing dishes, and paying bills.
53. Perhaps I have a touch of ADD, too.
54. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only female in the world who doesn't particularly like chocolate.
55. I enjoy playing Texas Hold 'Em, but I'm not that good at it. I have to use a cheat sheet that tells me which hands beat others.
56. If I've told you in the past 3 or so years that I've read a particular book, chances are I haven't technically read it. I've probably listened to it on my iPod.
57. I used to love a good Mac vs. PC argument, but lately I find it boring.
58. Also boring: conversations involving fingernail polish.
59. Not boring: using fingernail polish to paint designs on.....well, anything.
60. Boring: watching golf on TV.
61. Not boring: going to a golf course and racing those little carts.
62. Boring: listening to endless chatter about nothing particularly important.
63. Not boring: authoring an endless list about nothing particularly important.
64. I've been doing Weight Watchers since mid-January. The number of points in a glass of sweet tea is obscene! Seriously.
65. I love naps.
66. I love to talk about the artist Piet Mondrian because I love to say "Piet Mondrian."
67. I love to be challenged with an unconventional thought.
68. It would suck if the Thought Police really existed.
69. I used to wonder as a child if everyone could read minds....everyone except me. Sometimes I still wonder that, because it sure would explain a lot.
70. I don't wonder about things as much as I used to. Nowadays I've accepted that I'll never have all the answers, and I'm pretty peaceful with the answers I do have.
71. Hmmmm, that was a lie. I do wonder about things. For example, why does it never occur to some people to zig--at least occasionally--when other people zag?
72. I took a nap in between #69 and #70.
73. I'm disappointed with myself that I didn't do something more creative with #69.
74. I don't hear very well. I blame a Motley Crue concert in 1989.....my ears have been ringing ever since.
75. Almost every weeknight, I fall asleep watching "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. Then I wake up around 4am to the unpalatable sights and sounds of those 30-minute-long "Girls Gone Wild" commercials.
76. So how many people are still reading this list at #76? If I had the money, I'd offer expensive, sparkly prizes to anyone who posted a comment incorporating the phrase "buoyant monkey-bullet." Ha! That would amuse me.
77. Something in my psyche compels me to save coupons, but I never--and I mean never--use them.
78. One of the few things I remember from my college art & architectural history classes is how to identify a five-part Palladian structure. Another thing I remember is that Michelangelo, after a heated disagreement with the pope who commissioned one of his large mural paintings, painted the pope's head onto the end of a penis in the painting. I can't remember if it remains to this day, or if he was forced to remove the image.
79. I have a font based on Leonardo DaVinci's handwriting. I like it.
80. Several years ago, I took a series of wheel-thrown ceramics classes after work. It was buckets o'fun to muck around in the mud for 3 hours a week!
81. I have several magazine subscriptions which I never read: Graphic Design USA, Smithsonian, Creativity.
82. I browse the magazine aisles at local bookstores and make pretty regular purchases. I bring them home and skim them....but I never really read them, either.
83. I do have two subscriptions to magazines I occasionally read: Bottom Line, Remedy.
84. I have some sort of disorder which prevents me from throwing away a magazine I haven't read.
85. Stacks of unread magazines litter my house.
86. I eat a banana almost every day.
87. I don't eat red candy. It's because it's red.
88. I love Butterfingers and Reese's Cups. Peanut buttery yumminess, yeah!
89. I'm OCD about wrinkles in my clothes. The iron and ironing board are among the most significant and virtuous tools in my house.
90. A couple weeks ago, I bought something that made me feel ever-so-slightly naughty.
91. Last week, I did something ever-so-slightly naughty. The item I bought the week before was not a participant.
92. A couple months ago, I did something VERY naughty, in plain view of a lot of people. No one noticed.
93. Every day, I say something naughty. Someone usually notices.
94. I enjoy the little light bulb above people's heads when they see something--anything--in a new and surprising way. It's hard to beat a good epiphany.
95. One of my favorite epiphanies occurred during my freshman year of college at Winthrop, in my very first psychology class. Our professor said, with an impressive air of quiet wisdom: "I want to make it clear that you don't have to believe anything I say. Almost everything I will teach you is theory. In fact, this will be true of most of your classes throughout college. Always challenge information which is presented to you as truth. You are here to learn how to think for yourself."
96. I attended three colleges, finally obtaining my degree from the last one: Winthrop, Clemson, Lander.
97. I had the most fun at Clemson, but it was at the great expense of academics. I was there for two years solid, but received incompletes in most of my classes for two semesters in a row.
98. I took a 5-year break from school after that. I needed the rest.
99. I don't regret anything I've ever done or said. Yep, that's right. Don't get me wrong -- I've made plenty mistakes. But I've learned from them and moved on. Regret implies that you've wasted time worrying about things that are done.
100. If you order a quesadilla at Corona's and ask for no cheese, the waiter will look at you like you have genitalia growing out of one nostril.
101. I asked a friend for help in writing this list. "What fundamental knowledge do people need to know about me in order to 'get' me?" I asked. The swift answer: "Harder is better."