Red Pen Mama

Here is the first installment of 100 Things about Me.

I have number 51 written, too. But I am saving it for installment 2. I do not have #52 yet.

Once I get all 100, I will turn them into a page (i.e. “About”).

Thanks! Have fun.

N, you may leave suggestions in the comments.

1. I grew up in Erie, PA.
2. I moved to Pittsburgh when I was 19 years old, in 1990.
3. I lived on the South Side for 15 years before moving to the suburbs.
4. I stopped eating red meat in 1989.
5. I have been a complete vegetarian since 1991.
6. I am raising my two daughters as vegetarians.
7. Yes, I know they will probably eat meat someday.
8. I still smoke cigarettes — when the weather is good, usually one a night.
9. I have quit several times.
10. Although I found it very easy to quit each time I got pregnant, I used to dream about smoking cigarettes and drinking beer.
11. My parents have been married for 38 years. I was a honeymoon baby. Several family members counted the months between my parents’ wedding, and my birth (it’s more than nine, so my mother’s reputation is sterling).
12. I have two younger siblings, one sister, one brother. She is finishing chiropractic school; he is a dermatologist, married, with three sons.
13. I have four nephews and one niece; I have four god-children (only two of which to whom I am blood-related, my oldest nephew and my niece).
14. I am Catholic, and I love my faith. (I still have problems with the Church, per se, but I do truly love my faith. I don’t think this is contradictory at all.)
15. I have wanted to be a writer since I was in fourth grade. My career success varies, but all things considered, aside from being a mom and wife, I consider myself a writer foremost.
16. I am an Aquarius, and I think this is the best star sign.
17. I dabbled in astrology for awhile, and thus I know my moon is in Aries (which explains why I get on so well with N) and my ascendent is in Gemini.
18. I have known my best friend N for 37 years — give or take two months (she is exactly two months younger than I. And she never lets me forget it.)
19. I have known my best friend M since seventh grade.
20. I also have two other friends, A and H, whom I have known since high school.
21. I am still in touch with all of these friends. I wish I saw them all more often. A and I live in the same city — er, near the same city — and it’s still a minor miracle (or, depending how you look at it, a major feat) when we manage to get together.
22. I’m a published poet, nationally even.
23. It all started in sixth grade, when I won a poetry contest for a poem called “Scary Night”. I was, like, 54 out of 100, or something. The weird thing about this poem: It rhymed.
24. I have been published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, City Paper, 5A.M., and The Pittsburgh Quarterly. Among others.
25. For a long while, I was “the” erotic poet of the Pittsburgh poetry scene.
26. I even hosted, with a good friend of mine, The Erotic Salon, a series of discussions about sex and the body in art. It was very cool.
27. It’s been a long time since I wrote what I would consider to be a poem. Sigh.
28. I would like to get an MFA in writing, either poetry or creative non-fiction.
29. I have traveled to Italy (Florence, some villages in Abruzzo, and Rome) and France (Paris). Well, and Canada: Toronto a couple of times, Montreal, and Niagara. My next international trip will be to Ireland — yet to be booked.
30. I took piano lessons for something like 12 years. I recently discovered that although technically I can still read music, I don’t remember the left hand very well. At all.
31. The only song I ever managed to memorize to play on piano was “Send in the Clowns”.
32. I am tone deaf.
33. I used to play the flute, too.
34. I played basketball in 8th grade. We went to the state finals that year. I had very little to do with that, believe me.
35. I played soccer for about 8 years. I was on my high school team my freshman year.
36. Then I discovered my school newspaper.
37. I helped launch the literary magazine at my high school. We called it “she says…”
38. Oh, yeah, I went to an all-girl Catholic high school. The school is no longer all girls.
39. I went to Catholic school for nearly 16 years, counting my education at Duquesne.
40. I was managing editor of my high school newspaper my senior year. My friend A was editor in chief — she beat me out! The faculty advisor explained that while I was a better writer, A was a much better people person. (She still is. Hence, I am a writer, she is a psychologist.)
41. I received the Founder’s Award, a merit-based scholarship to Duquesne University.
42. I had really wanted to go to Boston University, and I was accepted into their journalism program. But they were an expensive school in an expensive city, and I didn’t get any money from them.
44. I was editor in chief of The Duquesne Duke, the student newspaper, in my junior year. It was a pretty big deal.
45. I lived on campus the first three years of my college education.
46. Except in the summers, when I lived on the South Side.
47. I didn’t buy my first car until I was 25 years old. It was a black, 2-door Nissan Sentra. I miss that little car.
48. My first two full-time roommates (i.e. not in an apartment I was subletting for the summer, but one I had actually signed a lease for) were men, Joe and Steve. It was a three bedroom apartment. My mother was still scandalized.
49. I lost my virginity when I was 18 years old.
50. I lived with a boyfriend (the one I drove across the country with; see #51) for about nine months. I walked out on him, although the relationship limped along for another few months. We broke up for good at the hotel after my brother’s wedding.