Playing tag!

I was tagged by my old friend Stephanie (déjà vu) and thought I would post something back. I have already tagged 10 people with this on facebook, so my list at the end only has 15 people on it.

Here are the rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.

1. I tend to think I'm really witty and funny even though I'm really not. This makes for so very awkward moments in conversations when I think people should be laughing but really they're just very uncomfortable.

2. I am an obsessive reader. This might not seem like something random about me, but it is when the things I’m reading are ads on the Metro, the backs of cereal boxes, books in other people’s hands…

3. I hate driving or riding in cars in general. I hate the way stupid drivers make me so angry, I don’t trust my own driving and I can't stand having to park in teeny-tiny spaces. I would prefer to ride public transportation any day, even if it is unreliable and smells like pee.

4. I have always wanted to be a writer even though I’m not particularly funny, smart or good at spelling. I just get stories stuck in my head that drive me crazy with the talking and moving about that I have to get them out of there so other people don’t begin to think I’m a schizophrenic.

5. When I was in middle school, I met a boy online who started stalking me. He became obsessed with meeting me and even ran away from home when his mother told him he couldn’t fly out and meet me. His mom finally got my email address and told me I had to tell her son to back off and stop emailing me. It was the one and only time I broke someone’s heart.

6. I am embarrassed by the fact that I’m in love with Bon Jovi and Sugar Ray. I love music—especially good music—and have no idea how these two groups became a part of my otherwise non-conformist musical taste.

7. I’m having a hard time thinking of 10 random things let alone 25 of them. I have such a big mouth that nothing really seems random.

8. I am obsessed with the etymology and grammatical structure. I love looking up word origins and having discussions about why phrases are put together in particular ways and how language is used in general. The only problem is, I never remember what I read or the conclusions I come to, so my vocabulary and spelling never improve.

9. In elementary school I was obsessed with the name Sammy. In second grade I had a mealworm I named Sammy. In third grade I had a guppy named Sammy. In fourth grade I wanted to name the class pet Sammy. I think this might have been because I was a little bit in love with Sammy Davis Junior at the time, but it could also be that I was just as crazy then as I am now.

10. I have a tendency to come across sick people/accident victims on the road. I once helped a mother get to her three year old who had locked herself in the car. I gave a woman rescue breathing at a gas station in Wyoming. I was the first responder to a T-bone accident where a woman was hit on the way to her father’s funeral. I helped a family on the highway in Utah whose son was having a massive seizure.

11. I can’t stand the sight of blood, and the thought of visiting a sick person in the hospital gives me panic attaches. When I was thirteen, I had to sit on my dad’s lap when I had to get a tetanus shot, and once when I saw a woman with a broken finger that had gotten infected, I passed out.

12. I get peed on by dogs all the time. This has made me not like dogs or animals in general. When I tried to explain this to a friend of mine, she didn’t believe me until we saw two dogs in one day and they both peed on me.

13. I have the worst red-light luck of anyone I know. I have to leave ten minutes early for anything because I know I will hit 90 percent of the traffic lights red. But some of that time is made up when I park—I can get rock-star parking just about anywhere I go.

14. I love to move. I am a natural pack-rat, and moving helps me control the clutter. I always do one purge while packing and another while unpacking. It helps me know what’s really important.

15. I cannot help but buy books. While every once in awhile I buy books I have never read, the majority of the books I invest in are books that I love and want to share with others. Often times that means I loan out a book and never see it again, but I figure if I get one person to read a book I love, it’s worth the cost.

16. I hate swimming in the ocean, but I love the beach. I’m always afraid I’ll get salmonella or step on a stingray. I end up going into the water up to my waist, but I spend more time messing around in the sand. I’m okay with rivers, lakes, pools, ponds and streams, but I can’t do the ocean.

17. I have all kinds of plans to travel around the world, but I’ve never left the United States (Tijuana doesn’t count). I read about other cultures, have shelves full of travel books and talk about traveling all the time. But I never seem to have the money, time or energy to follow through on those plans. I always seem to get caught up by school, a move, a family emergency or a wedding and end up flying somewhere in the States instead.

18. I’d kind of like to try out for American Idol. I can’t sing, I’m not a bombshell and I don’t even watch the show, but I’d still like to go and audition just to see what Simon says to me.

19. I like to blog-stalk people. I read blogs compulsively and then tend to think I’m friends with people whose blogs I’ve read yet never actually met. I am well aware this makes me sound crazy, but I really do know the difference between a friend and stranger. I do, however, have a few legitimate friends whom I have met through blogging, so maybe this is just my way of hoping I can be friends with everyone I meet.

20. I have an aversion to contractions. I have to force myself to use them and often have to go back and re-write something so it flows more conversationally.

21. Sometimes I miss watching commercials on live TV. Because I watch everything online, I never hear about new movies or laugh at clever ads anymore.

22. I am always cold. Seriously, it can be 90 degrees in the shade and I’ll be cold. Sometimes I wonder if this is a sign of a rare medical condition that will bring me to my death bed and lead the writers of House to feature my story on prime-time television.

23. I like being alone in a crowd. I like living in the city and being all alone yet never being alone. I think this is also why I like the internet so much—you can stay connected to people without ever having to be with people.

24. I spent years studying journalism but I still can’t write a concise piece to save my life.

25. Writing all of this has made me realize just how delusional I am.

I'm tagging Corinna (Six Feet of Fire), Celeste (A day in the life of...), Kevin (Calling Captain Obvious), Lori (goadingthepen), Sara (sarazarr), Sarah (The words I say), Katie (I Keep Wondering), Brittany (Turning Leaves), Tammy (As I See It), Gwen (g-when), Camilla (The Taylors), Angie (Brown Town), Lisa (lisamcmann), Ann Dee (adellis) and of course, Stephanie (déjà vu).