25 Things About Me (forgive me, school is now in session):

1. I ate peanut butter and strawberry jam on whole wheat for breakfast the morning I composed this list.

2. I was born way too early and way too small and my first meaningful relationship was with a lightbulb.

3. In thinking about this list of things, I had a hard time not being sarcastic or just silly.

4. I don't like Mondays.

5. I understand now what my father meant when he said there wasn't a day he didn't think about his grandfather and father.

6. Just writing that made me weep.

7. I also cry like crazy at the Smithsonian looking at Lindberg's plane, touching the rock from the moon, etc. ... let's not even talk about the Lincoln Memorial. I looked at stuff like this as if it was my religion when I was very young through my viewmaster, and never imagined I would ever see them.

8. My favorite book when I was little was My Donkey, Benjamin. It was a lot of kids' favorite book, apparently... it is very rare and expensive when you can manage to find it.

9. In it, a toddler runs through her village naked looking for her runaway donkey. The illustrations are black and white photographs. Wonder what that tells you about me?

10. My husband got me a copy of the book for Chiristmas 2007.

11. Another year he made me a guitar.

12. He also took me to the Smithsonian.

13. He teased me that he would never take me there again everytime he found me crying someplace.

14. I have worked in the same school at the same job since I got out of college, and still love it.

15. One day, one of my old students visited me. One of the things he said was "You know who died? (pause)... John Updike." I teach mentally retarded, emotionally disturbed, learning disabled 14-21 year olds in the South Bronx. We read a lot of poetry. This particular student loved Whitman and Updike. First I smiled, and later , thinking of it made me cry.

16. I still love poetry --- it helps me make them love it , too.

17. My favorite color is still blue

18. My favorite food is eggplant when it is not lobster. Bean sprouts run a close third.

19. Re: politics, I have been jaded from years of disappointment.

20. I have an amazing memory by anyone's standards. It's a little less amazing than it used to be, but still makes people's jaws drop.

21. I still have dreams about my dog, who died in on Ash Wednesday of 1985... at the time I was seemingly the only Catholic at a Presbyterian college. People were fascinated with the idea of Lenten sacrifice. I started answering their "what did you give up" query by saying that I gave up my dog.

22. I also still have dreams that I am trying to make it to the campus post office to receive or send letters AND that I have not attended some History and/or Math class and will not be allowed to graduate.

23. I briefly did a stint of graduate school in the United Kingdom, and felt like I was home in Scotland, which would make my ancestors smile.

24. My mother was an extreme Catholic, my father was essentially a Transcendental Pantheist. That cracks me up.

25. My plants all need watering.