101 Things, Part I

The first installment of 101 insights into myself. (So divided because I'm afraid no one can really handle all that Marisa all at once...)

** I work with sperm cells.

** My high school graduation ceremony was held in front of the Giza Pyramids in Egypt.

** I love that I was raised moving all around overseas.

** I danced in a hula show.

** I've had to be rescued from a pool twice - once by a lifeguard and once by my fully-clothed mother.

** I worked as a lifeguard and a swim coach. The only kid I ever "saved" was a boy who got smacked in the face with a water polo ball. He got a bloody nose and freaked out. He was even in the shallow end.

** I came 13th in backstroke at the ISST Swim Championships in Brussels, Belgium.

** I met Dan Quayle when I was young and impressionable. Instead of just shaking his hand, I gave him a hug. He picked me up and put my on his shoulder.

** I played "I'll show you mine if you'll show my yours" with Dexter. He went first and I thought it was ugly so I ran away without fulfilling my end of the bargain. (Turns out it was just uncircumcised.)

** I have the perfect grandma. Her house smells like cookies and good food. She keeps a blanket on the back of the couch and back issues of Reader's Digest on the coffee table.

** I am a candle nazi.

** In my opinion, reality TV has never never surpassed the initial drama of Temptation Island.

** I had surgery in March. The resident anesthesiologist was really, really, really hot. Really. I hope I didn't say anything to that effect when I was drugged up.

** The hottest guy I have ever seen was a firefighter responding to an alarm in my lab in full SCBA gear.

** I jumped into the Red Sea at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve 1993 and again in 1994.

** I am most at peace when I am by or in a body of water.

** Whenever I hear the word "spelunking", I think about the time at the beach that I was jumping up and down excitedly and I knocked my Dad's contact out of his eye.

** I had a crush on Nick P. in 9th grade, and I actually felt a little bad when I beat him in one of the tournaments at the Guatemala Arts Festival that year. I knew he wanted to win, and I'd have settled for second place.

** I'm a giver.

** I developed a crush on almost all of my middle and high school science teachers.

** ...Except for Mr. Cundiff. I hated that bastard!

** I have a chronic and weird condition, Erythema nodosum, in which I develop red nodes of inflammation on the fronts of my calves. My first outbreak was in middle school, and ever since then, a few will spontaneously appear and disappear every now and then.

** I wore braces for three years. I think I still have my retainers in a box in the attic.

** When I babysat for Genny, her mother dropped me off at my dorm and said "I'm sorry, I forgot your money on the table." When I said, "that's OK," (thinking I could just swing by and pick it up later) she thought I meant that's OK, you don't have to pay me. I didn't correct her.

** The first cassette tape I bought myself was Sinead O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. The first VHS was Undercover Blues.