Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

I just found this in my Facebook "Notes." It's from January. I forgot all about it, but parts of it made me chuckle. We're such changeable creatures, we humans, that even 7 months later I'd have some different answers. Well, not "answers," as there was no question for this one, it just said to write 25 random things about yourself. Here's what I wrote:

Follow up:

1. I always say that I watch too much TV, which I count as a "fail." But then when I'm talking to people about television shows, I find I have never seen any of the ones that the cool kids are watching. So I fail at failing? I can't even laze around and rot my brain properly? Great.

2. For me "sexy" has nothing to do with physical appearance. My list of Hollywood's sexiest men includes Eric Stoltz, John Malkovich, Patton Oswalt, Jeremy Piven, Zach Galifianakis and Nicolas Cage.

3. I am overweight, but my self image is too good most of the time to feel bad about it. This isn't good because I only rarely veer into a bad mental state where I wish I could fit into skinny jeans...if I felt worse about being a big girl, that would coax motivation to change. Since feeling bad about myself won't work as a motivation, what's a good motivation, then?

4. The primary reasons for number 3 above: I love bread, cheese and pasta and I really hate exercise. I'm built for comfort, not for speed.

5. I remember song lyrics, movie scripts and plays for many years (I can still recite poems I learned in fourth grade).

6. I hate to be misunderstood, and I seethe with anger whenever someone assumes that my innocent words or actions are nefariously motivated. I'll pick a random example: once I told a singer/songwriter how much I truly loved her CD. Then later in the month, when another writer at my magazine reviewed it negatively, the singer/songwriter emailed me furiously with accusations of lying about liking the disc to "cover my ass." Huh? So my reward for liking the CD and telling her so was to get reamed because some other writer DIDN'T like it? Musicians are nuts.

7. I've been really busy since high school.

8. Probably partly because of numbers 6 and 7, I've quit any activity connected to local Boston rock after 11 years of booking bands, doing radio shows and reviewing music. I have so much free time now, it's insanity.

9. I'm really messy, but I hate messes! So I struggle mightily to hang up my clothes, put my laundry in the bin, keep the clutter from my bureau top...it's a constant battle against my natural laziness.

10. In high school, when all the other kids were getting driving lessons from their parents in preparation for the driver's ed road test, my own parents scoffed that I couldn't drive and refused to help. My driver's ed teacher did not believe me when I told him I was unable to operate the driver's ed car...until I totaled the car...I think he believed me then, and probably if not for that I wouldn't have been mentioned in the yearbook at all.

11. I hated the color red until very recently. Now I love it. I even bought a red sofa from Bob's Discount Furniture.

12. I'll eat almost any foods except beets, which literally make me vomit. Purple vomit. I'm also not a fan of organ meats and other bits, like kidneys and liver and feet, but respect those cultures who consume the whole animal from snout to tail.

13. My brother is a good actor. When I saw him in "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea" I forgot I was watching my brother.

14. George was my favorite Beatle when I was little, and remained so as an adult, but for different reasons.

15. I find baldness a non-topic. So you're bald. So what? Men get as unnecessarily unhinged about their hairlines as women do about their waistlines. It's all good, get over yourself.

16. I haven't talked to a blood relative in five years, but still feel all the old insults, hurts and anger that led to me cutting them out of my life. I have considered talking to a professional about letting it all go, but haven't done anything about it yet.

17. When I was in the hospital in November, down for the count with an earache, when I got home I secretly felt refreshed and relaxed and cared-for...not saying it was a vacation or anything, but three days of morphine and meals in bed with no computer, phone or work was actually kind of nice.

18. I'm always calm. It takes a lot to get me to the end of my rope. If you can get me to the end of my rope, you have the ability to be a world class pain in the ass, my friend.

19. I reject the end of "Pretty in Pink" where Andie chooses Blaine over Ducky. It's wrong, just wrong.

20. I have decided over the past few years that most people don't know what "happy" is supposed to look like. People who have everything necessary for "happy" instead bitch and moan about what they don't have. They're after some fantastical, fairy-tale version of "happily ever after" that doesn't exist, so they miss their own chance at being happy because they always think it's destination that's ahead of them, when it's really all around them. There should be much less Zoloft, etc than there is, if people would only recognize "happy."

21. I love my boyfriend so much that it feels like a palpable substance. But we both have people in our pasts who we loved then just as much as we love each other now. We don't care about getting married.

22. I advanced pretty far in the regional spelling bees in grammar school, but now I'm a lazy speller. It's sad.

23. If I were a dude I'd totally find a way to be a full time drag queen.

24. I do not "do" my nails. I clip them with clippers, guitar-fret short, that's my whole nail routine.

25. The person I'm most happy about reconnecting with on FB is my most favorite and most successful female friendship -- my college roommate, a rare and wonderful woman.