100 Things About Me

The "100 Things" was a meme from sometime in the early Noughties. I can't honestly remember when I first generated this list, but it does get updated now and then, believe it or not, and some of the things on it don't really change, anyway. I'm not really that much of a "participate in memes" person, but this one was kind of weird and interesting and fun to do, so I did it, and I liked it enough to keep it. Here it is.

1. I don't have a favorite color, although I'm quite partial to green and to purple, and I often wear red or orange.
2. The predominant color in my wardrobe is black.
3. I have moderate to severe dyscalculia, a learning disability that affects my ability to work with and conceptualize numbers.
4. I never liked coffee nor did I drink it until I was in my mid-thirties and had a friend who worked in a coffee shop. I learned to drink coffee when I was thirty-four, and I'm glad now that I did.
5. I used to hate Christmas (too many bad memories), but now that it's in summer (since I moved to Australia), I like it because it's like a completely different holiday (although I can still do without it, really).
6. I absolutely love The Beatles and I have all of my life.
7. I really dislike stupid people. I don't mean people who have a low "measured" IQ, I mean people who don't seem to use the intelligence they do have.
8. I'm an only child, as are both of my parents.
9. My favorite tea is Earl Grey, and I drink most teas with milk and sugar.
10. I never wear heels higher than about one and a half inches, and then only rarely.
11. I didn't finish high school, but I got a G.E.D. (General Education Diploma) the same year I would have graduated and passed with amazingly high marks. I eventually went on to university and flew past my entrance exams (and I had a very good GPA).
12. I rarely drink alcohol, but when I do, I tend to like sweet liqueurs such as Bailey's Irish Cream, Kahlua, and amaretto, and I'm developing a fondness for certain white wines, particularly chardonnay
13. I qualify for Mensa, but have no intention of becoming a member.
14. I have been interviewed and had stories about me and/or my experiences published in the Melbourne Weekly (regarding net relationships), the New York Times (for my participation in a large, splashy website years ago when the web was still fairly new), and The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette (because I had a homepage at all, at a time when the web was very, very new).
15. I have had my digital artwork published in Computer Graphics and Publishing and won a number of awards, ribbons, honors, and so forth for my conventional media artwork.
16. I appeared on television on a local Phoenix, Arizona children's television show The Wallace & Ladmo Show because I sent in the winning joke for the week (I won a bag full of toys and junk food, it was cool).
17. I qualify to become a Daughter of the American Revolution, and there's a chapter of the DAR in Melbourne. I'm not a member.
18. I sing alto and used to want to be a professional singer.
19. I adore my cat and paid more to import her to Australia than I did to ship my household goods.
20. I was a Girl Scout for many years and earned a whole sash full of badges.
21. I have a severe phobia about climbing ladders and I won't go past the second rung. Ever.
22. My maternal grandmother was a natural redhead, and I have her fair complexion, but I have to chemically alter my hair to make it red (nature just got a little confused; I was meant to be a redhead, I'm sure).
23. I love living in a city or suburb of a big city, and, not surprisingly, I quite dislike living in a small town.
24. When I was a kid, I studied ballet for several years and used to be able to do the splits, cartwheels, handstands, and other feats of flexibility and strength.
25. The name I have now, Bonni Elizabeth Hall, is not the one my parents gave me. I legally changed my name in 1998. I won't tell you what my old name was, though, because I'm not that person any more.
26. My first computer was a Tandy TRS80 Color Computer.
27. I have a naturally addictive personality (i.e., I tend to get addicted to things, not that people get addicted to my personality).
28. Generally speaking, I don't like people much. I like individual persons and can be very compassionate, but I think that people, in the general sense, suck.
29. When I was a child, my imaginary friend was actually an imaginary horse.
30. I once worked in a factory as a slave floor worker. It was there that I developed the severe tendonitis in my hands, wrists, and elbows that still sometimes plagues me.
31. I don't really like to argue. I'm far more inclined to just walk away. I don't want to change other people's opinions. I just want to express my own.
32. My second computer was a Commodore 64.
33. I have something of a phobia about going to the dentist as well as a genetic tendency to gum disease. As a result, I ended up losing some teeth (well, I had them removed because I finally went to the dentist and found they were loose). I now wear a partial denture on the top and on the bottom, but the good news is that the fake teeth are much more attractive than my real teeth were.
34. I have an almost obsessive fascination with human nature and trying to work out why people do the things they do.
35. George Harrison is my favourite Beatle.
36. I don't like peas, but I like split pea soup.
37. My maternal grandmother's first name was Bonnie. My paternal grandmother's last name was Bonnie (at least, it was at the time I was born).
38. Although I've lived all over the United States and in Europe, I consider Arizona to be my childhood home (three years in Tucson, three years in Phoenix). The state in which I lived the longest was Illinois, where I lived for a total of about fourteen years (though not all at once).
39. The words I uttered right before becoming totally and completely hooked on the internet were, "What on EARTH do we need a modem for?"
40. I'm orginally American (by birth and culture), but now I'm an Australian citizen (by choice).
41. I'm a very good cook, but I don't really enjoy the act of cooking all that much (I still do it regularly).
42. The two most important and life altering things I learned while living in Europe can be summed up as "Women don't have to shave their legs and armpits if they don't want to," and "You don't have to live in the United States to have a great life, lots of personal freedom, and a high standard of living."
43. I was born in midtown Manhattan in 1964.
44. I've known my brothers-in-law, Greg and David, longer than I've known my husband, Andrew.
45. I wear my nails long, at least to the length of my fingertips and usually quite a lot longer.
46. I no longer have a gallbladder.
47. I am a diehard Monty Python fan, something which Andrew and I have in common.
48. My favorite city in the world is Melbourne, Australia, my favorite European city is London, England, and my favorite American city is Chicago, Illinois (though I admit that New York is also extremely fabu).
49. When I was fourteen, I had 147 pictures of Andy Gibb on my bedroom walls.
50. I haven't had any contact with my parents since 1997. This is by choice. I have no regrets, other than a lingering sense of sorrow that I have parents that are so toxic to me that I feel I must break contact with them in order to be healthy.
51. I've had as pets: mice, rats, hamsters, parakeets (budgies), turtles, cockatiels, dogs, cats, rabbits, and fish. Not all at the same time, though.
52. I like incense.
53. My Myers Briggs Personality Type is INFP (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving) and I'm an Enneagram Type 4: The Individualist.
54. I'm chronically untidy.
55. When my hair is long or medium length, it takes literally hours to dry if I let it dry naturally because it's so thick.
56. I used to wear contact lenses but I didn't like them so I went back to glasses. Now I wear multi-focals because I've hit "that age".
57. The first video tape Andrew and I bought was The Matrix.
58. The first DVD Andrew and I bought was Shrek.
59. I had my first romantic kiss at age twelve. The boy's name was Jim, but I can't for the life of me remember his last name.
60. I have a very neutral, non-regional American accent, on account of having lived all over the country. Living in Australia for many years has softened it somewhat, but not sustantially changed it.
61. I frequently confuse myself with trying to decide if I should spell things the Commonwealth (English) way or the American way. I used to try to stick to the latter, since I know American dialect a lot better than Commonwealth English, but after more than a decade living in Australia, I started to go the other way.
62. I haven't had cable television since 1991, but I do have a cable modem, which just goes to show where my priorities lie.
63. I have a history of mood disorders and mental illness, partly from genetics and partly from a dysfunctional, traumatic childhood. I still sometimes experience symptoms of panic/anxiety disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but it's fairly manageable now after years of therapy and practicing various coping techniques such as meditation and positive visualization.
64. I have a passion for perfume, and I know quite a lot about it.
65. I like café au lait, but I'm not that keen on cappucino, and I really hate it when they put too much foam on any cup of coffee.
66. I have six piercings, all in various parts of my ears.
67. I'm emotionally sensitive to the point of being empathic. This makes me extremely compassionate, but also very easily hurt. I tend to shield/protect myself, these days.
68. I used to get strep throat regularly when I was younger (and by "regularly" I mean "every couple of months").
69. I am a Star Trek fan from a very young age. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on the floor in my pyjamas, watching Mr Spock on TV. That was the original run of the original series.
70. I've read all of Terry Pratchett's Diskworld books, and always get the new ones as soon as they're available in paperback.
71. Despite having been married and/or engaged... well, more than once (let's not get into graphic details), no one has ever really "proposed" to me properly. It was always just sort of assumed that we'd get married...
72. I'm still friends with my "first love" (although we were apart for many years and only became re-acquainted via the net).
73. I never went to the Prom. I don't care.
74. I like to wear glitter nail polish.
75. I was a Rainbow Girl (I didn't like it much, but I think that's more of a reflection on the girls in the chapter I was in than on the organization as a whole).
76. When I was a kid, I was absolutely crazy about horses, and I read a lot of books on the topic.
77. I used to be really into classical mythology, including Greek and Norse.
78. I played fantasy role playing games for years and well into adulthood.
79. My desk is always a mess. And I mean always. Within five minutes of cleaning it up, it's messy again.
80. One of my children is mildly autistic, and autism in various flavors runs very strongly in my husband's family on his mother's side.
81. Pirates vs. Ninjas? Pirates. Arrrgh. I be a fine pirate wench, matey.
82. When I was in the seventh grade in 1976-1977, I went to an American school (7th-12th grades) in Ansbach, Germany. One of the school dances featured a band named Supertramp. Yes, I think it was THAT Supertramp.
83. I read my first serious historical romance novel when I was thirteen and I've been hooked ever since.
84. I'm a natural "night owl" and I tend to function best in the late afternoon and early evening (and sometimes well into the night).
85. My favorite television show is The Simpsons.
86. When I was very young, I wanted to be a cowgirl when I grew up. Later, I changed that to "ballerina".
87. My first paying job (other than babysitting) was waiting tables in a small restaurant in a small rural community, mostly filling coffee cups for farmers. Yee. Haw.
88. My personal "totem" or animal spirit is a horse.
89. I believe that "smart and not-so-good-looking" beats "cute and stupid" any day.
90. Andrew and I collect screenplays for films and occasionally television series.
91. I have many deep regrets and profound sorrow and sincere remorse for a lot of things. Most of the time I live with it, but sometimes it still surfaces and then I have to deal with it until it subsides again.
92. I can type and use a mouse while breastfeeding a baby.
93. I have a very dark, twisted sense of humor at times, as well as a dirty sense of humor and a highly developed sense of the absurd and nonsensical.
94. I have an unquenchable thirst for spiritual Truth, and I see God as Universal, eternal, and in everything. I'm not, however, very religious, and while I do consider myself a disciple of Christ, I'm highly esoteric and tend toward Panentheism.
95. I tend to be truthful because it makes life a lot simpler and you always have your facts straight.
96. I have a weird fondness for "tacky" things: postcards, knick-knacks, touristy gifts, etc.
97. I only rarely wear makeup, not because it's too much trouble to put on, but because it's too much trouble to take off.
98. I've always been a "square peg" (duh, I bet that one surprised you a lot, huh?)
99. The first computer I personally built was in 1998 and had a Cyrix 166 processor in it.
100. I'm a bit of a "rock hound" and I collect interesting minerals, stones, rocks, and crystals.

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