Fifty things you might not have known about me...and might not want to

With Supergirlfriend's permission (since she did this with her usual grace and aplomb on her blog (http://theoralreport.blogspot.com/2006/03/fifty-things-you-may-not-have-known.html), I'm playing with this here. Fiction Friday will return next week.

1. I really, really, really hate lima beans.
2. I lettered in chess in high school. Got a patch for my jacket and everything.
3. I’ve read Jackie Collins in French. Somehow it makes it almost feel like literature.
4. My favorite month is October.
5. My least favorite month is February, followed closely by November.
6. My favorite seasons are January Thaw and Indian Summer.
7. With the best of intentions, I buy a lot of produce and then forget about it until it becomes gazpacho in the refrigerator.
8. I hate shoe shopping.
9. The first album I ever bought with my own money was Carol King’s “Tapestry.” Then I discovered Mick Jagger and all hope was lost.
10. I love Doris Day movies.
11. Even though my father used to bribe me with quarters to go into the pool head first, I still don’t know how to dive.
12. I once hitchhiked from Boston to Black River, New York and spent the night in the woods near the Albany Thruway exit. Kids, don’t try this at home.
13. When I was twelve, I wanted to play second base for the New York Mets.
14. I actually thought I had a shot at it.
15. I never saw “Roots.”
16. I hated the “Lord of the Rings” movies. Ditto “The English Patient.”
17. I was once in a photo in a magazine ad. It was for cable network in Boston that advertised events going on in the city (so you didn’t have to stay home and watch cable). I supposed to look like I was playing the violin, even though I’d never touched one before. It was an outdoor shoot, at night outside Faneuil Hall, and it was five degrees. Since I worked for the agency, I got paid a dollar. And didn’t get to keep the violin.
18. My favorite color is purple. With teal a close second.
19. I think garlic powder and canned cranberry sauce are for Philistines.
20. When I was in seventh grade, my best friend Amy Ziffer thought she was a witch. She had a crush on a guy and asked me to get a lock of his hair for a love potion. I actually had scissors in my pocket and was standing behind him at his locker when I realized that this was totally ridiculous and chickened out.
21. I come from a long line of little Jewish women who used to cook with Crisco and swim with their heads above water like swans so they wouldn’t ruin their hairdos.
22. My great-great grandfather was a red-headed rabbi who had to get permission from the Czar to travel across Russia. I have a copy of the documentation.
23. The first thing I ever bought with money I earned myself was a tartan-plaid wool skirt from Dress Barn. It had fringe on the edges and a brass pin holding it together. I had it for years, until a well-meaning college boyfriend put it in the dryer.
24. I read “Bridges of Madison County” without throwing up, although I wanted to.
25. I would have made a terrible ballerina.
26. I collect Barbie dolls. My favorite, given to me for my fortieth birthday by my stepmother, is “Redneck Barbie.” She has black roots and Daisy Duke shorts and a cigarette glued to her mouth.
27. I once roomed with two gay men. One of them liked to wear my clothes.
28. For our honeymoon trip, husband and I went to Florida to see a space shuttle launch. At three minutes to go, it was scrubbed.
29. I know more about metal halide lamps, magnetic ballasts, zebra mussels and municipal water-intake valves than any writer ever needs to know.
30. I hate gardening. I hate bugs and don’t like to get dirty.
31. Frank Langella was my first on-screen love. Followed by Harrison Ford.
32. When “Gilmore Girls” gets cancelled, I’ll probably cry.
33. I’m a sucker for red roses and tulips.
34. My first car was a used Toyota Camry I bought from a dealer when I was 25. The heat didn’t work. They refused to take responsibility for it, so I got the NY Department of Consumer Affairs and Regional Toyota on their asses and they fixed it for free and were really nice to me after that.
35. Summer to me will always be yellow and purple loostrife and grasshoppers and the sound of someone mowing their lawn in the distance. It will smell like Coppertone and Yoo-Hoo from when Deanne Prusak and I used to lay out at the pool at Hopewell Gardens. Except she was olive-skinned and tanned, and I…wasn’t. And didn’t.
36. Somewhere at the bottom of Sylvan Lake in New York there are three child-sized peridot birthstone rings.
37. I know how to change my own oil but see part 2 of #30, above.
38. I lived in Boston for five years but only saw historic landmarks when people came to visit.
39. At 23 or so, while wearing the teeniest bikini you could imagine and still be legal, I ran into my sleazy boss on Nantasket Beach. The following Monday he kept staring at me like I was fresh meat in the Combat Zone.
40. I was valedictorian of my high school class and my best friend was salutatorian. And it didn’t make one lick of difference to either of our lives.
41. My favorite ice cream is Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. Followed by Heath Bar Crunch. And then a flavor called “Cherry Orchard” which Friendly’s doesn’t seem to make anymore, the bastards.
42. I never smoked a cigarette or had any desire to try. (tobacco, anyway)
43. I’ll drive an hour out of my way for Thai food. The spicier the better. With a cold Singh Ha on the side.
44. I could never do a cartwheel.
45. Offer me a selection of the finest wines in the world, and I’ll take a beer. Out of the bottle. If all you have is Bud, then I’ll take water.
46. I saw “Keeping the Faith” about two dozen times, mostly for the scene where Ben Stiller kisses Jenna Elfman.
47. When I was sixteen, and in front of my father, Harry Chapin kissed me on the mouth when I came up for an autograph after one of his concerts.
48. I was a bridesmaid at a lesbian wedding in Boston. Bride and bride wore matching motorcycle jackets, exchanged rings, and then we had dinner.
49. I wore my hair in cornrows for about a week during college, until some black girls shamed me out of it.
50. I went square dancing because my first boyfriend really liked it. If you tell anyone else, I’ll have to kill you. No, I did not wear gingham and bows, but he had a really embarrassing shirt.