1. I am a middle child of three.
2. I’m adopted,
3. But my sister is not.
4. Neither is my brother.
5. My parents were foster parents in our county when I was growing up.
6. Over the years they had over 25 foster children.
7. That’s a lot of siblings!
8. I was born in southern Indiana, I think.
9. The information on my birth certificate is made up, except for my name.
10. In reality, I don’t know when I was born, or where.
11. But I celebrate on June 4, because a piece of paper says so.
12. I broke my foot on the teeter-totter in the first grade. My teacher, Mrs. Pavy, carried me to the bus at the end of the day. They didn’t call parents to come get kids who had broken a few bones at school, apparently. Back in the 60’s, that is.
13. Little kids in Indiana were tougher back then, and teachers were allowed to touch you if necessary.
14. In second grade I told a little girl I hated her, but only because she said it to me first. She tattled on me, and my favorite teacher scolded me in front of the whole class. She didn’t scold the other little girl—she lied through her teeth that I said it first.
15. I learned a tough lesson that day.
16. Ten years later I beat out that little girl in a county-wide scholarship competition. I was the _____County Academic Teen of 1981. There was a cash prize. And a trip to Texas. It was my first airplane ride, and I did it all by myself.
17. Victory was sweet.
18. I have known my entire life that I would go to college,
19. And leave that little town forever.
20. I’m the only one who went to college of my generation in my family,
21. And the only one to leave the county.
22. I have 20 cousins, and two siblings.
23. Of the 23 of us, the only ones who have not been divorced at least once are my brother and I.
24. I’ve come kinda close.
25. But it had nothing to do with moving away.
26. I feel like changing the subject.
27. I have had painted toenails and manicured nails (of the acrylic variety) every day of my life for about 11 years.
28. I talk with my hands a lot.
29. My very first boyfriend ever turned out to be gay.
30. Turns out, everybody knew except me.
31. And perhaps, him.
32. I made it a policy to never date boys from my high school.
33. They were all farmers.
34. I have nothing against farmers,
35. I just wanted to remove all risk that I would marry one.
36. We marry young in my family.
37. I was the oldest one to do so, at 21.5
38. My spouse’s parents were embroiled in the ugliest divorce ever during our dating and engagement years.
39. The first time I ever saw them in the same room was at our rehearsal dinner.
40. It was not pretty.
41. My spouse’s parents did not want the two of us to get married. That’s the only thing they agreed on.
42. He and I were not of the same socio-economic class.
43. But we are now.
44. For the first 5 months of our marriage, while we finished school, I was the sole financial support of our little two-person family. That was never the case again.
45. I have a degree in Psychology, with a minor in Theatre,
46. Which pretty much qualified me to do nothing, except go to seminary.
47. I had a job with a family planning/women’s health agency for ten years when my kids were small.
48. It was part-time.
49. I miss it sometimes, now that I’m back near the community where I worked before.
50. But I don’t miss walking through a sea of protestors to get to work.
51. It was especially tough when I was visibly pregnant with WG.
52. I loved, adored, reveled in being pregnant.
53. I wasn’t very good at getting pregnant, but I was good at being pregnant.
54. I’m glad I had my kids early on in my adult life
55. Another thing I am very good at is being a student.
56. I hope to do that again some day, when WG is in college, which is in four years.
57. If she knows what is good for her.
58. I was raised in the Pentecostal tradition of Christianity.
59. Most of my pastors growing up were caught in either pedophilia or adultery situations.
60. Most of them are still ministers, although I think the pedophile might have died recently.
61. I left that tradition when I left my hometown.
62. I feel so blessed to be Mainline now.
63. My seminary President was forced to resign after having an affair with a student, a former colleague, and his former church secretary, concurrently.
64. He is now married to one of the women he was having an affair with, and is the President of another, more conservative, smaller, seminary.
65. The creeps are all over the theological spectrum, aren’t they?
66. Since the hurricanes and flooding happened, I have been overwhelmed by the urge to clean and organize my house.
67. Who am I kidding, I love a clean house all the time!
68. But still, I washed all the sheets, mattress covers, blankets, duvets, pillowcases and pillows yesterday.
69. It took ten loads of laundry, plus some drying at the Laundromat.
70. I have no “collections” of things, unless you count books.
71. A few weeks ago, I counted over 250 assorted pieces of pottery and ceramic ware in my parent’s house. Plus about 50 ceramic snowmen, and more Hummels than you can shake a stick at.
72. My parents are collectors, you could say.
73. I’m not interested in inheriting any of that stuff.
74. I lost my beloved grandmother—the only grandparent I ever knew—fifteen years ago.
75. The only item I wanted was the book I used to read on her couch on Sunday afternoons.
76. My “girl cousins” beat each other senseless over the rest of the stuff—Fiesta ware, quilts, jewelry.
77. I love my cousins, but still…
78. My mother has been disabled in one capacity or another since I was eleven.
79. I’m pretty sure that is when I learned to clean, and cook and do laundry, for six other people.
80. And came to hate clutter and tchotchkes.
81. There were different tchotchkes in her house at the time, but it was my job to dust them.
82. I feel like wrapping this up.
83. I’m 5’10”
84. I have short hair, which is brown.
85. I have more grays than I have earned.
86. It started when my son was born.
87. I kid you not.
88. I’m going on a trip in one month, and I’m dying my hair before I go.
89. I’m also trying to drop a few more pounds.
90. I have become a gym rat.
91. But I still had a little ice cream tonight, with a Milano cookie.
92. It was Breyer’s. French vanilla.
93. The cookie was a raspberry Milano. Not bad, but the orange is still the best.
94. All things in moderation.
95. Like lists of 100, for example. Why go all the way to 100? Why not get to 95 and be happy with it?