Did someone say to make a 45 Random Things list?

Ha ha! It's harder to make a list for yourself than someone else—the explanations come to mind too easily! Also, for dramatic effect, I couldn't resist splitting some of the points into two or three. So it's probably really 25 things like it should be. (Matt's more concise list is still better. :)) Here are a few things about me that may interest a variety of readers. :)

For the sports enthusiast

1. I was kicked off the 6th-grade volleyball team twice! Ha ha! My teacher, behind my back, negotiated a mulligan when I was cut (the first time) from try-outs. Halfway through the first practice I hit the ball so that it flew back behind me and went through the basketball net. The coach came over and said something like: "you may as well just leave now.... This isn't going to work." Ha ha! I still hate playing volleyball. :)

2. I redeemed myself a few months later by being the star basketball player for the same coach. (We won the district. :))

3. In fourth and fifth grade, I had been the best volleyball server around.... Funny. :)

4. In 8th grade, I became temporarily good at high-jump. Natural talent! I was seriously amazing. The coach started having me at high-jump through most of P.E. every day, and visions of glory were running through our heads.... One day, I went to jump and none of it made sense! I tried again. And again! But it was gone.... Ha ha! Never came back. (That's what too much thinking can do to you! :))

5. I once ran over 100 miles in a couple weeks on a broken ankle. Very lovely. :)

For the person who knows what metaphysics means (I'm not sure I do...)

1. I'm pretty sure Socrates didn't exist. No one will ever be able to convince me he did. Hehe.

2. I enjoy looking forward to the future, and I reflect on the past more than I want to (see more about that below :)), but I'm pretty sure the present doesn't actually exist. What's the present? The thing I just barely did? Oh, drat! It's gone! Ack! Gone again! Ok, I'll try to savor the present as I type the period at the end of this sentence. Oh, whoops! :) I just don't see how the present can exist when our brains are too slow to process things in real-time, right? Everything "present" is a reflection of something that just barely passed! Now, an overall mood.... THAT I can sometimes appreciate as actually being in the present. It lingers enough to savor. But actions, events, thoughts, behavior...? You can only appreciate that it's about to be or recently was. The "present" is too elusive! It doesn't exist! (Just like Socrates. Hehe.)

3. I'm extraordinarily introspective. Which is sometimes kind of painful, to be honest with yourself about yourself! But I make myself work at it until I really understand me.

4. I have zero problem reconciling science and religion. And no misgivings about theories of the age of the earth and creation of the universe, or evolution.... The more we learn, the more I'm in awe of creation! Just think, all these billions and trillions of years—the slow, slow process of getting this earth just right so that life can develop just so, and so slowly—all for the sake of any one of us. That's how valuable a soul is. I'm in awe of what we know and of what we don't know yet, of God's amazing scope and love, and of how mankind has been flooded with knowledge and just keeps gaining more. Science is the opposite of offensive to me. It's really very inspiring. (I'm much more concerned about unequivocally turning a blind eye to learning for the sake of "protecting" personal faith. Faith shouldn't be so fragile.... Questions are healthy! More than healthy. They're vital! Besides, God is so incredibly incomprehensible to us that there is infinite room for mutually-exclusive ideas to not really be mutually-exclusive. And that's truly awe-inspiring to me.)

5. My weight fluctuates within about four pounds from day to day. (Apparently, my body does weird things with water!) I never know I'm actually losing or gaining weight until it dawns on me that I haven't seen my normal lowest or highest point in a while.... I think that's very metaphysical, don't you? :)

For the eye-roller

1. I'm the world's greatest sorter, collator, labeler.... Silverware putter-away-er...! Anything requiring a tedious, monotonous, continuous process. (Fun, fun. :)) My drive for efficiency met its perfect mate at my dad's office all my life, where my motor skills were fine-tuned on all sorts of print projects! Boring, ohhh yes. But blazingly light-speed-fast and perfectly efficient, yes, yes, YES!!! I'm seriously amazing. (And available for Christmas card labeling parties. :))

2. Feel free to roll your eyes at anything in any other category as well. :)

For anyone who knows it sometimes stinks to have an outrageously good memory

Without ever deciding to, I accidentally recall things I was embarrassed about or would like to go back and change on, really, a daily basis. I'll get this pit in my stomach and think, ok, why the pit in my stomach...? And then I'll realize that something reminded me of some distant event that I'd do differently if I could, or that was left unresolved. I'd love for my memory to not be quite so sharp....

For anyone who thinks it's normal to be a little phobic

1. I have a phobia of birds flying over my head. If there is a bird above me, I am 100% certain it is going to poop on me. Hard to not react to that.... :)

2. I can't eat meat that I didn't grow up on. Beef and chicken and ham, they're just beef and chicken and ham. But introduce a new meat to me—say, lamb—and I can't think of it as food! I just keep picturing an animal on my plate and, ugh. It turns my stomach. I try! But I just can't do it. Anytime I start to internalize the fact that beef, chicken, pork and ham are really.... No, I'm not even going to finish that thought. :)

3. I have a super-high tolerance for pain, but my tolerance for "creepy" is ridiculously low. I'll roll my ankle and tear a bunch of tendons in my foot, and walk halfway across a city with my foot swelling out of my shoe and bruising filling my foot and leg—hardly a grimace. But I shudder at the thought of, say, a flu shot. Putting stuff in me with a needle? Augh! Disgusting! [I shiver.] Looking forward to giving birth, I was way more concerned about getting through things like IVs and catheters than I was about labor pain. Ridiculous. (And, whoa, the labor pain was SO much worse than those things—as in, a different universe of awful. But even now, I shudder more remembering procedures than contractions....)

4. I detest drinking cold drinks from a mug. Ugh! I can't think of any reason why this would be, but it really makes the drink taste metallic or something. Disgusting. And such a gross feel on the lips! I'm all for a mug of yummy hot chocolate or herbal tea, though.

For the lover of precious metals

My last name used to be Golding. The first two letters of my first name are the atomic symbol for gold (Au). Gold was discovered in California on January 24, 1848 and I was born on January 24th at 8:48 (I'd like to be able to say I sparked a second Gold Rush :)). Pure gold is 24 karats.... And there are the 24 gold plates (for all you LDS folks...). And I was baptized on February 4th: 2-4. :) Twenty-four is positively golden, as am I! I really looked forward for a long time to my "Golden Birthday." (And I got pregnant with Seth at the tail-end of my golden year, so it really came through for me. :)) I also was really excited as a newlywed that the star player for Auburn's amazing football team that year was Williams #24. I went to the Auburn catalog and bought a 24 Williams Auburn shirt. :)

For the art-interested

1. Puccini (the composer) and Whistler (the artist) are irrevocably superimposed on each other in my mind. They are the same person! I can't break him into two people, no matter how hard I try. I don't know, maybe it's the awesome mustaches, the kind-of-sad expatriate thing, the butterflies and Asian-themes and mind-blowing gorgeousness.... (I really, really love him. I mean them....) 

1b. Other people I think of as the same: John McCain and Paul Simon (ha ha! I'm serious :)); Boy George and George Michael; River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain (I know, I know! That's insane! But I do!); Matt's alternate personality when he's insanely tired and Matt; and Plato and Socrates (oh yeah, it's because they really ARE both Plato). People I think of as separate: 80's Michael Jackson and post-80's Michael Jackson; um, I'm pretty sure I was just thinking of a few others, but the mind tends to freeze up when thinking about post-80's Michael Jackson. 

2. I studied Humanities in college, on a track that made it one of the most credit-intensive majors in the whole university (tons more than the average). Then I barely didn't finish...! (It was a lesson in pride-swallowing and over-achiever-control to graduate when it made sense instead of destroying myself to finish the major. Not easy!) The result: my "complementary course of study" that was required in the Humanities major—one of the least credit-intensive, most bogus majors known to man (I opted for it over a minor since it made a double-major just as easy)—became my only major; while Humanities, which I had studied approximately a million percent more in depth (probably twice as many credits or more, and definitely more challenging courses) is my minor. Too funny! I think I should petition to have them reversed. It just doesn't make sense!

3. As part of my Humanities studies, I spent a semester in London studying art and architecture.

4. I tried to count up the number of theatre productions I'd seen and gave up at somewhere around 85. (Luckily, even if it's been 10 or 15 years, I can remember the really good ones pretty vividly. Sometimes even lyrics and melodies of songs I've never heard again....)

5. I hated Phantom of the Opera. The one show the general public—the masses!—have embraced (how?!), and I seriously could not figure out how anyone can even tolerate it. (Talk about boring. And, ack!, all that stereotypical opera-screeching!) Maybe I just saw a bad performance.... I doubt it, though.

For my kindred spirits!

1. My Cheese-Radar is extraordinarily sensitive. :) I can't take the slightest bit of cheesiness. Please! No emotional manipulation! Just be normal and real or I want to puke. Or laugh. Usually both. (Girls' Camp was always especially difficult, four years at BYU almost destroyed me, and you couldn't have PAID me to go to EFY! Oh. My. Goodness. Kill me.)

2. I crave order (in appearance) and efficiency. If I ever go crazy, it will be because order and efficiency were lacking for too long. 

3. Bare trees are wretchedly depressing to me! If everything is green and mossy and wet, they can be nice (like England or Oregon...:)). But bare trees in flat-land no-grass Denver for eight months out of the year...? It hurt me. Ughhhh.... Or bare trees in six-months-straight-of-grey-grey-grey in Provo...? Oh man! I really, really needed more evergreens. Or sunshine. Or something.

4. I really, really don't like interaction in large groups. (And neither does Matt! This is one of the many reasons we shouldn't have a big family.... :)) To me, everything seems exponentially more real and genuine when there aren't a bunch of people together. Matt and I are both extraordinarily tough to entice to a party! (hehe :)) As a kid, I even hated going to my grandma's house for gatherings. I never made a big deal about it, and I didn't always anticipate I'd hate it, but once we were there the noise and commotion of all those people just made me want to crawl out of my skin. I much preferred seeing my cousins outside of the big group (and the ones I only ever saw in huge groups, I never felt I actually got to know...).

5. I'm hopelessly nostalgic but not at all sentimental, if you can believe those two traits can co-exist. I have no problem throwing old things away, I really don't need flowers on Valentines Day, and I would much rather soak up an experience than take the time to film it or get pictures.

6. I never spend more than 20 bucks getting my hair done. In fact, I feel a little put-out if I have to spend 15. I want to look put together every day, for sure, and even look pretty decent. But I just don't need ugly highlights, or that perfect haircut that's gonna grow too long again in two weeks anyway.... A haircut every 4-6 weeks at 15-20 bucks a pop is already stretching my vanity-meter to the extreme.

7. I haven't used a hairdryer in years. :) (Short hair ROCKS, by the way. I can't tell you how satisfying it is to have good-looking hair after only a minute or two of flitting some product through it! SWEEEEEEEET!!!)

For the academic

1. I wrote an undergraduate Honors Thesis about the effects of exposure to pornography on emotional intimacy. I was completing my research just as Matt and I got engaged and I was getting to know his extended family—it was a really funny conversation stopper when they asked what I was doing in school!

2. My second semester in college, I got Mono. For some freak reason, my immune system didn't bounce back, and I was sick with continuous infections (lots of viruses, including Mono recurring a couple more times) for more than three years. True story.

3. Someday, when our family life makes it compatible finally, I'm excited to go to graduate school. I'm not sure how I'll ever decide what the degree will be, though! Art History, Theory and Criticism just for kicks? (I'd LOVE it.) Social work? (I'd love that, too!) For fifteen years, I've looked at school counseling psychology.... Time will tell!

4. I'm a master editor of academic application essays! I think it's probably just the ultimate blend of my weirdo intuition and essay-writing skills (I'm a terrible creative writer, but I love crafting a good essay!:)). I'm pretty sure there are a few scholarship recipients floating around out there who never would have gotten that interview without da bomb essay-editing help.... I never write things FOR people. But I love to describe effects they want to go for in a sentence, or the kind of rhythm or idea they need in a spot, and see the brilliance they come up with. Somehow I just know what a sentence or paragraph will do to the reader. (My favorite success story is Matt's residency application essay. We were a great team! He had a number of interviewers comment that in the thousands of essays they'd read over the years, his was one they finally actually wanted to finish. Some even said it was the best they'd ever seen. Woo hoo!! And when he came to interview at UCSD, the director came right up to him and started asking him about his essay. It definitely helped our cause!)

For the zen/shaman/chiropractor-loving crowd

1. I'm pretty meditative. It sounds all new-age-y (and, whoa, I'm really not a new-age kind of girl :)), but I'm happiest when I have time for and access to beautiful, peaceful places to just sit every day and unwind, and sort of feel more connected to spiritual things. I've had a very difficult time when I haven't lived near peaceful, beautiful places.

2. I do not understand the idea behind organic food. Not that I'm against it, I just really fail to even begin to understand why anyone cares. Not treating produce is good, how...? (And organic milk tastes like grass! What the...?) 

3. BUT.... My favorite chocolate bar is the Green and Black's Organic dark chocolate with whole cherries inside! Mmmmm!! I don't even know what organic chocolate is supposed to mean. But it's SO good. And, wow, the whole cherries are amazing.

For the genealogist

1. I have some awesome ancestors! Priam, son of Zeus (I'm not joking). Lady Godiva. Princess Narragansett and her chief dad. And even Chinese and Mongolians from hundreds of years ago! I used to think all that British royalty in our lines was cool, but come on.... Priam and Lady Godiva and Asians pushed to Turkey by Genghis Khan...?! It pays to keep going back in your genealogy! :)

2. We don't know their names, but we have Cherokee ancestors only a few generations away. I may be pasty white, but I inherited the high cheekbones, flatter face, and almond eyes (so did Seth!). The one full-blooded Native American friend I've had asked me randomly which tribe I came from, like it was just a given I'm part Native American (I loved that :)). And in Korea, a couple people wondered if I were part-Korean. Kind of fun! :)

3. Ok, this isn't strictly about genealogy, but I couldn't find another place to put it. I LOVE to fill out forms! LOVE it. It's so funny to me that form-filling is one of the classic distastes of human experience, because I LOVE it. I used to roll my eyes at internet tags, but the lure of filling out a form finally got to me. Now I'm tempted to fill every one out that I see! Just to fill in the blanks. I love to fill out Matt's paperwork for applications and things—which comes in quite handy for him, since he despises it. :)

And with that, I leave you to find something else to fill out...! :)