My life story in 302 bullet points

1. My parents met in April 1970.
2. They were married in August. After spending only 3 weeks together.
3. They said they had to get married because they knew I was coming...
4. 8 years later.
   
5. I was born July 9, 1978.
6. When I was a little kid, I was suspicious of my parents waiting so long to have a kid. But now that I'm married with a kid of my own, I can understand the need to just be a couple for a while. Especially if you basically just met your husband.
7. I was born in Jacksonville, Florida.
8. My dad was in the Navy.
9. When I was still very very small we moved to Norfolk, VA.
10. We lived in Norfolk for over 4 years, with brief stints in Rhode Island and Idaho interspersed.
11. My earliest memories are set in Sun Valley, Idaho.
12. I wore a snowsuit (yellow?) and was instructed not to eat yellow snow.
13. My dad broke his leg skiing and had to take care of me while I was potty training. Poor guy.
14. In Norfolk, I began attending West Ghent, a preschool, when I was two.
    
15. I went to West Ghent through Kindergarten.
    
16. That where I met Amanda, my oldest friend.
    
17. We met at 2 and 20+ years later we were in each other's weddings.
18. Halfway through Kindergarten my dad got orders to go to Coronado, CA.
19. In Coronado I had my first experience as "the new kid."
20. The teacher had me stand up and introduce myself to the class. I felt tall and awkward.
21. My half-sisters, E and B, lived in Coronado, and I met them for the first time.
    
22. E took me lots of places and introduced me to people and talked about how much we look alike. Which we still do.
23. B picked me up from school sometimes and took me to the park where she could touch pigeons.
24. I could never touch a pigeon. I tried. They ran away.
    
25. B was a nurse and she administered some of my booster shots. She assured me that yes, they would hurt.
26. I remember going to her nursing school graduation. We had those confetti cannons, but I couldn't get mine to work.
27. My BFFs in Coronado were two brothers, Will and Joe.
    
28. We were together all the time outside of school, but didn't really talk at all in school. Such is the nature of the boy-girl friendship.
29. Will, Joe and I were jumping off swings, developing our "Jumping Off Swings Show" when I decided I could jump higher than Joe and landed wrong and broke my elbow.
30. I had to have surgery.
31. My dad was deployed at the time. My poor mama stayed up all night with at the hospital what feels like several nights in a row, but I don't know how long we were actually there.
32. Maybe a year later I dumped boiling water on my stomach and put my mom through it all over again.
    
33. If you haven't gotten the picture yet, I was quite accident prone.
    
34. While we lived in California I learned to ride a bike.
35. I still know how to do that.
36. While we lived in California, my maternal grandfather died of cancer. I still miss him and am sad I didn't get to know him better.
37. During second grade my dad got another set of orders. To Hawaii! Cool! Then they changed and sent him to Washington, D.C. instead.
38. We lived in D.C. for one year. My parents bought a townhouse in Alexandria, VA.
    
39. I started second grade... new kid again.
40. I rode a school bus for the first time. I thought the school bus driver was going to be really smiley and friendly like on Sesame Street or similar, but good lord! she was mean and yelled a lot.
    
41. Needless to say, the bus was a big disappointment.
42. New orders: Great Lakes, IL. In the summer of 97 I began to call the Chicagoland area home.
43. I went to sleep away camp that summer.
44. My 4th, 5th and 6th grade years resonate most with me, but I can't think of any good or life changing stories.
45. I got my poodle Louie for my 10th birthday. That was probably the most awesomest birthday present ever.
46. That same summer, my very cool nephew Andrew, E's son, was born.
    
47. My friend Katy and I had our class's first boy-girl party for our joint birthday celebration in 6th grade. Groundbreaking, we were.
48. I also wrote a little 'zine called The Dorky Gazette. I was so hip and I didn't even know it. The zine included exposes on cafeteria food and science class.
49. My sixth grade class was a core group of 26 kids. We were pretty tight. I actually got together with a lot of them and went out drinking a couple of years ago. It was unbelievable... I hadn't seen most of these people since we were 13 and we all got super drunk and had an unbelievably good time.
50. Husband was there too, and after a while I think people forgot he wasn't in our class. I think someone asked him if he had Mr. H for science.
51. Sorry, digression. At the end of 6th grade my dad retired from the Navy.
    
52. He fulfilled a life long dream and purchased a sailboat.
53. We lived on that sailboat and traveled for 2 years.
54. We pretty much sailed from Florida to Venezuela and back with lots of stops along the way.
55. I get seasick. Very seasick.
56. I was homeschooled during this time, and I didn't really meet a lot of kids my age.
57. When I did meet someone, we were fast friends for 24 hours and then we went our separate ways.
58. This was a lonely and difficult time for me, so I am not going to use any more bullet points to discuss it, but I do think it explains a lot about me.
59. We moved off the boat and back to Chicagoland so I could start high school.
    
60. I chose to go to the Catholic girls school that most of my friends from 6th grade were attending.
61. I tried out for volleyball.
    
62. I didn't make the team.
63. I tried out for basketball.
64. I made the team and rode the bench.
65. I quickly learned I was not athletic, a fact my basketball coach enjoyed mocking which was particularly awesome since she was also my homeroom adviser. For all 4 years.
    
66. At assembly I gave a short presentation about living on the boat. I was so petrified to talk in front of the whole school, I can't believe I actually did it.
67. This led to my "discovery" by the speech coach.
68. Sophomore year I joined the speech team. I was significantly better at this than sports, so I quit basketball and proceeded to rack up lots of trophies and begin attending national tournaments which were paid for out of pocket because the school didn't give a crap about the team.
69. In fact, after the speech coach took a new job and I had graduated, they folded the team entirely, removed all my trophies from the school trophy case and mailed them back to me.
70. Getting that package in the mail really sucked. It was truly brutal. Those stupid trophies are sitting in my garage right now.
71. I still can't believe they folded the team. We were really good. My former coach is currently kicking national ass with a team of kids in Iowa. I believe his school is nationally ranked, they are seriously badass.
72. Yes, speech and debate can be badass. Aren't I living proof of that?
73. My freshman year of high school I also somehow became the sound designer for the spring play.
    
74. I stage managed all the plays after that.
75. I really loved theatre and the behind the scenes thing.
76. I majored in theatre in college, and I stage managed multiple shows every year.
77. So then I got a professional stage management job. And I freakin' hated it. So that was the end of that career path and a waste of a major. So depressing.
78. I'm jumping ahead. I applied to lots of colleges my senior year.
79. I just ate the most fantastic egg salad sandwich ever.
80. I got a list of schools strong in technical theatre, and just applied to those.
81. I also applied to Swarthmore, Brown, Drake University in Iowa (because my former speech coach offered me a job if I went there), and Illinois Wesleyan.
82. The tech theatre schools started contacting me to audition which I didn't want to do, so I withdrew those applications.
83. My college guidance counselor encouraged me to apply to Wake Forest, so I did, mostly to placate her.
84. My grades were alright - As and Bs, the occasional C.
85. My standardized test scores were really good. I didn't like school, but I could fill in bubbles like nobody's business. I didn't do nearly as well on the GRE as I did on the SAT and the ACT, and I think it's because it was on the computer so there were no bubbles to fill in.
86. 1420 and 32 in case you were wondering.
87. I don't remember my GRE score, but Husband and I got exactly the same cumulative score.
    
88. Right, so I got into the safety schools, didn't get into Brown or Swarthmore, but I did get in to Wake. So I went because it was the best school I got into.
89. I was very apprehensive at first. I went down to visit and was hosted by an inhospitable TriDelt who left me alone in her room without a key for 4 hours.
    
90. I called my boyfriend crying.
91. Related: I dated a football player in high school, which is so un-me. The boyfriend I called in #90, however, was not the football player.
    
92. When I met the Wake theatre folks the next day, I felt much better about the whole situation.
    
93. So I went to Wake and did lots of theatre.
94. I also stage managed and wrote for the Lilting Banshee Comedy troupe. You can google them. They have a website. That was a pretty cool group that I was proud to be a part of. For a while.
95. J-Money and I both quit the troupe my senior year because we were tired of people being assholes.
96. J-Money was my roommate senior year.
97. The Rover was a very close friend.
98. As was Duane of Life With Duane.
    
99. I bet I could use up A LOT of bullet points this way.
100. Just one more shout out to Kiwi and Jeremy, also college friends.
     
101. Most important college friend is, obviously, The Bird Man.
102. His blog? Used to be my blog. Check it out. The archives go back to 2001.
     
103. He and I met in October of our freshman year.
     
104. We were each into the other one, but never pursued anything of or like a romantic interest.
105. By senior year, however, we were total BFF.
106. My junior year, I did a study abroad semester in London, England.
107. While I was there, my sister B, who had had skin cancer, came out of remission.
108. She died in June of 1999.
109. That really really sucked.
110. In January 2000 my beautiful niece, E's daughter, Elizabeth was born.
111. That was really really awesome.
     
112. Around the end of senior year, the Bird Man and I realized that all of our friends were either going to law or med school or had super duper high paying jobs at banks or accounting firms, whereas he and I had no plans whatsoever.
     
113. It wasn't just us. Pauly didn't either.
     
114. The Bird Man and I had planned to take a cross country roadtrip the summer after graduation.
115. That plan went out the window when he panicked and took a job in Oregon.
116. I eventually got an internship with a theatre in Washington, DC. and moved to Capitol Hill.
117. Paul moved to D.C. as well, so we hung out a lot. I dig Paul. HI PAUL.
     
118. I completed half my internship.
119. It was miserable.
120. So I quit and took a job with a consulting firm.
121. I had to move off the Hill which was sad because having the Supreme Court in my backyard was supercool.
122. But I moved to Adams Morgan which was the like the supercool non politico part of town into an apartment around the corner from Paul. HI PAUL!
123. I had an excellent time consuming mass amounts of whiskey for free because I am a good pal to bartenders.
     
124. After a while, I refused to hang out anywhere except the Fox and Hound because I always drank for free there.
125. This annoyed my friends a lot.
     
126. The Bird Man in the meantime had finished his job in Oregon and taken a job in Hawaii.
127. I was living in Adams Morgan with this really rad girl named Phillipa. I don't think she reads my blog. But I love her and miss her, so if she does HI PHILLIPA!
128. I confessed, for the first time to anyone ever, that I was madly in love with the Bird Man.
     
129. Lucky for me, the Bird Man realized the same thing.
130. So when he came back from Hawaii, we professed said love, and decided to get married.
131. He was starting grad school in North Carolina.
132. So I quit my job, sublet a friend's apartment and moved to NC.
     
133. I got a job through a temp agency at a pharmaceutical company.
134. I temped for them for A YEAR AND A HALF and they wouldn't give me a permanent position.
135. Bastards.
136. In the midst of all this, I was also getting my master's in English literature, because really? I should have majored in English in college.
137. I quit the temp job, and became the office manager for a dance studio.
138. I know nothing about dance.
139. I lost that job when the studio changed ownership and took a job in the business office of a major chain restaurant.
140. I did database management for the menu items.
141. You DO NOT want to know how many menu items at this place contain lard.
142. I worked there until the Bird Man and I got married on August 2, 2003.
143. We had a big, pretty traditional wedding planned almost entirely by my mom who has excellent taste.
144. We went to the Bitter End Yacht Club for our honeymoon.
     
145. It was awesome. There were a lot of lizards.
     
146. When we got back we adopted our poodle Barlow from a pound in South Carolina.
147. I got a job teaching developmental English at a small college.
148. I LOVED my job. I still love teaching.
     
149. I had some really amazing students that year and I miss some of them still.
     
150. I finished my master's thesis on the poetry of James Merrill and John Ashbery.
151. I did not pass my defense.
152. By then we knew we were moving to Missouri so the Bird Man could start his PhD.
     
153. I practically had to beg my committee to approve my revisions and allow me to graduate.
154. It was very demoralizing, and shot the plans I had to get my PhD in English to hell.
155. The Bird Man (now Husband) and I were in a band called Slicing Ginger.
156. I sang and played bass guitar.
157. I SUCKED at the bass guitar, but the singing part was okay.
158. Ask Eva, I sing to her all the time.
159. During a gig, I was talking to a friend of the band we were playing with, and she told me she was starting her MLS.
160. That's when it occurred to me that perhaps librarian was my true calling.
161. We moved to Missouri in 2004.
162. We bought our house in a whirlwind real estate trip.
163. We got our second poodle, Toby shortly after we moved in.
     
164. I applied for about a billion jobs and ended up working as an admission counselor at a very small women's college.
165. I was pretty good at my job.
166. There was a ton of travel.
167. Not to exotic places either, but to small towns in Missouri.
168. I left to go back to school full time for my master's in library science.
169. I absolutely LOVED this degree.
170. The classes were awesome and I had a great job teaching and working reference.
171. The Rock Star Librarian started the program the same time as me.
172. We became fast friends.
173. Probably because we share the same sick sense of humor.
174. I convinced the RSL to play Century Club with me.
     
175. That was my last act of wild childlessness.
176. In February 2006, I found out I was pregnant.
177. The pregnancy SUCKED. I swore I would never ever get pregnant again.
178. Now I can't wait to have more kids.
179. The brave RSL moved in with us despite the impending newborn.
180. Eva was born November 8th, 2006.
     
181. I was in labor for 20 hours.
182. I intended to have a natural childbirth, ended up getting drugs about 10 hours in and an epidural 18 hours in.
183. Whoops.
184. She was born in the middle of my 3rd semester of library school.
185. I was able to get all my work done, though.
     
186. I am an awesome multi-tasker.
187. I blew through my comprehensive exams no problem and graduated on time.
188. Of course, that meant the end of my graduate assistantship so I was no longer a librarian.
189. Which was a huge bummer.
190. But I was offered a job teaching college English, which I took.
191. I was pretty psyched to be teaching English again.
     
192. I had a fantastic class over the summer.
193. The fall class was less than fantastic.
194. But still pretty good.
195. I ended up leaving that job because I was too overwhelmed with work.
196. I started a PhD program this past September for the pay, the health insurance, and the chance to continue taking classes.
197. I love classes.
     
198. And I am a serious perfectionist when it comes to my grades.
199. That didn't start until grad school.
     
200. Oh look, we've reached the present.
201. Let me spend the next 102 bullets telling you 102 things about myself.
202. Randomly and in no particular order.
203. I am a big eater.
204. I exercise primarily so I can eat more.
205. I love ice cream.
206. Even though I am lactose intolerant.
207. I really really like listening to the American Top 40 with Ryan Secrest.
208. I learn the words of shitty pop songs very quickly.
209. Then I sing them in a loud voice to Eva in the car.
210. She finds Top 40 very soothing.
     
211. I am not being sarcastic. It totally calms her down.
     
212. My true musical loves are less trivial.
213. Modest Mouse
214. Death Cab
215. And my all time favorite since I first heard of them when I was 8: R.E.M.
216. I was in the 4th row at an R.E.M. concert and it was the greatest thing EVER.
217. Second best concert ever? Bon Jovi.
     
218. I didn't actually want to go, but it was super fun to have 40 thousand people singing hott 80s rock together.
219. Ever since the first Real World premiered, I have been madly in love with reality television.
220. I also really enjoy Marury Povich.
221. But only when it's a "Who's the Daddy" episode.
222. Which it is 90% of the time.
223. I love The Price is Right.
224. I really enjoy Deal or No Deal.
225. I also LOVE The Biggest Loser.
226. It always makes me weepy.
227. Except it annoys the crap out of me when they have these blatantly obvious product plugs.
228. Sorry, I'm watching The Biggest Loser as I type this.
229. I was insanely skinny when I started college.
230. I had gained 20 pounds by Thanksgiving.
231. Thank you beer and Papa Johns!
232. I still love Papa Johns.
233. We had it for dinner tonight.
234. It is one of my very few guilty pleasures for food.
     
235. I usually cook myself and eat very healthy food.
236. Vegetables are delicious.
237. I love going to the gym.
     
238. I try to go every day, but I get distracted.
239. My favorite song is "Within Your Reach" by The Replacements.
240. I was never very girly until recently.
     
241. I never wore makeup or dressed up.
242. Now I try to do both to fight the mom frump.
243. It helps with the depression too.
244. I have been diagnosed as clinically depressed.
245. With a side of generalized anxiety disorder.
246. I have been on about a million medications.
247. I am currently not taking anything.
248. I feel fine, thanks.
249. If I stop feeling fine, I will deny it for a while, but then I'll go back on the meds.
250. Prozac, by the way, is the one that finally worked for me.
     
251. I really enjoy watching movies.
     
252. I could watch Saved and Little Miss Sunshine over and over again.
253. I watched Best in Show and Elf while I was in labor.
254. I used to love going to movies, but not so much anymore since there is no dollar theater in this town.
255. I don't really like living in Missouri.
256. If I could live anywhere it would be Richmond, VA.
257. We have friends (with kids!) there, and it is about 90 minutes from my parents.
258. I really like my parents.
259. They are so much fun.
260. Both my parents are fantastic cooks.
261. I hope I'm as good a cook as they are, because I really like to cook.
262. I prefer to follow recipes.
263. That is pretty typical of me - I like order and direction and am not great with creativity.
264. I think I am too uptight to be creative.
265. Because I am extremely high strung.
     
266. About everything except parenting.
267. Which is bizarre, but I'll take it.
268. And that's the reason I want more kids.
269. The chaos keeps me calm.
270. I would like 4, but Husband says 2.
271. Of course, he saw Idiocracy and wants like 6 now.
     
272. We are definitely planning on having a second child. After that, we'll see.
273. I look forward to Husband getting a job that will allow me to stay home with my kids.
274. However, once they are in school I would like to find library work again.
     
275. I specialized in academic libraries in school, but now I think I'd like to be a public librarian.
276. Even just a shelver.
277. I love to read, but I have a short attention span.
278. That's part of the reason I enjoy children's and YA books.
279. I hesitate to watch movies that are more than 90 minutes long.
280. I have a hard time sitting still.
281. We canceled our cable a couple years ago because we were watching too much TV.
282. Actually the reason, the reason that I told the cable company, is that "we know too much about Paris Hilton."
283. I enjoy walking my dogs.
284. Husband wants me to tell you about the time that my mom came to visit me at college, and she took me, J-Money, (not yet) Husband and my then-boyfriend to one of those Hibachi grill places where they prepare food at your table.
     
285. My mom LOVES Husband and knew that we were destined long before he and I knew.
286. My favorite color is pink.
287. But it might be blue or green.
288. My eyes were blue when I was a kid. Then they turned sort of grey. Then green. Now I don't know what color they are.
289. When I was a baby, I had 3 loveys - a blankie, a pillow, AND a doll.
     
290. On one of our moves 2 out of 3 mysteriously disappeared.
291. I enjoy a good glass of wine.
292. I enjoy a cheap glass of wine too.
293. I wish I were a better writer.
294. I wish I were more creative.
295. I wish a million people would read my blog.
296. I wish my daughter is happy and healthy and fulfilled for her entire life.
297. I wish everything I do makes my parents proud.
298. I wish that Husband can find a job that makes him happy despite my nagging about living closer to our families.
     
299. I hate Christmas carols.
300. I love my husband.
301. Are you seriously still reading?
302. Or did you just skip to the end?
     

About Me

Hi there.

I decided to create an about me page.

If anything really super importantly life-changing happens, I'll update it.

So here we go...

I am the Hot Librarian. I am 29 years old. I am married to The Bird Man, but I just refer to him as Husband here. I have one daughter, who we'll call Eva. She just turned one.

I work out of home two days a week, as a coordinator for a class on library research and its teaching assistants. I am pursuing a PhD in Information Science. But I'll never finish it. Seriously. I am NOT writing a dissertation. I just like school.

I have two master's degrees. One is in English, and I've been known to teach college level English composition. The other in in Library Science, and I've been known to do library work. Career-wise, I like to think of myself as a librarian. If you didn't already figure that out from my name.

Yes, I am superhot.

I have lived lots and lots of places. I am currently residing in a landlocked midwestern state which I am eager to escape. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

I've been blogging for 7 years. My original blog was taken over by the Bird Man awhile back. Then there were a couple other ones that sort of fizzled out... and now I'm here. And I think I'll stay awhile.

I like blogging. I like writing. I like reading. I like getting comments. Thanks for stopping by.