twenty-five

So there's this thing going around on Facebook: 25 Random Things. And you fill up 25 blank spaces with things about you or anything at all, really. I thought I'd share it with you, you my anonymous friends out there. I could probably keep going to fifty because I love lists. I love lists and I love learning about myself as I make lists. This is my list:

1. There is a cat in my lap. Her name is Snickers. Her head is six inches from the space heater, as usual.

2. I watch way too much tv. Yesterday, I finally unhooked the tv in my bedroom and put it in my closet. No more late-night-trying-to-go-to-sleep-watching-Conan O'Brien. I'm in withdrawal.

3. I bought an exercise bike after Christmas. It's in my living room facing the tv so I can watch while I ride. I love it!

4. I live in an apartment that I hate. It's tiny and dark and makes me depressed. I'm in the process of getting a new apartment almost twice this size with a "study"--but that won't be until July.

5. I'm so obsessed with getting a new, big, sunny apartment that I already have my furniture laid out in room planner software set to the exact dimensions of the new apartment. It's even filled with furniture the exact size of the new furniture I plan on buying when I move.

6. I'm obsessed with furniture and decorating, but that's nothing new. I've been drawing plans and picking paint samples since I was 10. I need a real house.

7. I want to move to Chicago. I hope I can find a job there when I graduate in 2010.

8. H&M is my favorite clothing store. There's a three-story one in Chicago, and I spent 2.5 hours there last summer. The closest one to Kansas is in Chesterfield, Missouri, just outside St. Louis. Jedsen and I spent 2 hours there a few Saturdays ago.

9. Jedsen and I have been together for four years and one month, exactly. We've never lived in the same city.

10. If you invite me to events on the weekend and I don't come, it's most likely because I'm with Jedsen in Lenexa on the weekends.

11. If you invite me to events, like parties, and I don't come, it's not you. It's just that I don't drink, and I feel awkward.

12. I don't know how to be social. It's hard for me to have fun and be myself around people. But I'm working on it.

13. I was in band from sixth grade until I graduated from high school and loved it. I played flute.

14. I have one brother who is ten inches taller than me and four and a half years younger. We used to play basketball and football together all the time. And then he outgrew me.

15. I have too many books that I've never read. I feel like a bad writer.

16. I have had ten poems published (or soon to be published). All in Kansas journals.

17. Jedsen talked me into writing more poems four years ago. Then I decided to major in creative writing. And then I thought, what the heck, I'll try to get into an MFA program. Now I'm in my second year of the MFA program in creative writing at KU. What's next?

18. Teaching is amazing. I strive to inspire my students to love writing and be empowered by language.

19. While shopping on Michigan Avenue in Chicago this summer, I became a member of Greenpeace. I wish I could do more than donate $15 a month.

20. I adopted Snickers when she was two years old. She was on clearance because she was so old. But she's more of a kitten with so much love and drool than any of the kittens I watched my parents raise. Adopting her was amazing because who knows what would have happened to her. Someday I'll adopt a dog, and they can curl up together.

21. I am consumed by school. I need to find a balance between school and having a life of my own outside of school. I need to have genuine fun.

22. I want to go places--anywhere. I want money so that I can travel and then come home to my own house and write during and in between.

23. Buying a laptop has changed my life. I love mobility.

24. I want to go to a KU basketball game at some point while I'm here. I mean, I have to. And I want to take my brother.

25. I hate talking on the phone and always have. I feel much more comfortable with a pen or keyboard. I like to see my words before they're spoken. Writing them makes me own them and it feels more real.