100 things about Eva

1. I love making lists like this! Dan and I had a great time on Monday night together brainstorming these lists, and even though our fourth anniversary is upon us, we still learn about each other.
2. I had always thought I would marry someone I'd been friends with for a while. With Dan, it was love at first sight. Now I'm a believer.
3. My favorite colors are red and pink--mostly red, because I am particular about pink...it has to be light, never hot or neon.
4. I am an Oregonian through and through. That's right, I love the rain--it turns everything silver.
5. When I was in elementary school I wanted to be an artist--and sometimes a famous violinist, dancer, doctor, or astronaut.
6. One of the hardest lessons of adulthood for me was that I cannot continue to cultivate and improve on all the things I love to do.
7. I still fancy myself an advanced violinist and harpist. But it is increasingly difficult to keep them up, especially since my sister Joni is studying viola at music school. I still think I could get in to music school if I tried, but maybe I'm just dreaming.
8. My whole family is musical, thanks to my untiring mother. In my house, we had a nasty little saying: "no reading for fun until practicing's done." What kind of family is that, where we all love to read so much that it had to be a reward for practicing? I am grateful to her efforts, because making music is one of the loves of my life.
9. I have a competitive streak, and I'm territorial. I don't like it when other people copy what I am doing.
10. I'm ABD! (right now that is About to Begin the Dissertation.) I'm the first person in my family to pursue a Ph.D, though my brother is about to start a program in biology and I have a cousin studying linguistics. I think that's great--but I do want to finish first. That competitive streak helps keep me going. Plus, Dan's family oozes academics.
11. I love art history for many reasons. For one, all of the books I read are full of pictures.
12. I've always liked going to art museums. I love that now it is part of my job.
13. I went to Swarthmore College and majored in music and art history. I loved my years at Swarthmore.
14. Thanks to its Quaker traditions and to Wilfred Owen and Benjamin Britten, I have embraced pacifism.
15. I didn't know that art historians existed until I went to college. Luckily, I thought I wanted to be a professor and get my Ph.D since high school, so I've been gearing up for this for a while.
16. I love dancing--all sorts--but at Swarthmore my harp shared a room with the Gamelan and I ended up dancing with the group for three years. Balinese dance is my favorite--the flowers, the mannerisms, the costumes, the narratives...
17. I also love ballroom dancing with a good lead. Dan and I had a great time taking ballroom and salsa together, even though Dan had never taken a dance class before.
18. I swore when I was ten that I hated cooking and my future husband would just have to do it. I think this is because of several cooking-related mishaps that my family never let me forget, such as the time I burned peas in a microwave. I'm now tolerable at cooking (especially since I stick to just vegetarian dishes), but lucky for me, Dan is a better chef than I am.
19. I do like baking muffins and pies, however.
20. I only like to clean the house when playing music really loud at the same time. Pink Martini, Cuban music, or big band jazz works well.
21. In general, however, I prefer Classical music--and Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, and 20th century. I consider myself to be hard-core about this. Telemann, 12-tone, Takemitsu, I can take it.
22. I love music history and theory.
23. I have a really really hard time choosing favorites. I was about to list my favorite composers, and the list included Schubert, Brahms, Bach, Britten, Prokovieff, Ravel, Beethoven, Josquin, but it was hard to stop. I also can't pick a favorite author, poet, movie, let alone artist. It just depends on the occasion. I like too many!
24. I could also never choose between violin and harp. Though perhaps because I have no memory in which I was not a violinist, it is closer to my personality than is the harp.
25. I played the lute in college, thanks to my friend Samantha, whose birthday is today and to whom I owe so much. (I could write 100 things I like about Samantha. Maybe I will try.) I want to take it up again. Perhaps Santa will bring me one.
26. I have always been a cat person.
24. I am very loyal to my opinions. Because cats are my favorite animal, I thought (at age 9) that Garfield had to be my favorite comic, even though it is pretty stupid. Luckily Calvin and Hobbes came along. Tigers are pretty close.
25. I am a huge Muppet fan. Any pop culture I may know came from the Muppets.
26. My favorite cult movie is Cold Comfort Farm. I'm engorgingly in love with it.
27. I like 1930's design. Fashion, architecture, cars, silverware.
28. My favorite season is summer. Maybe because my birhtday is in August; but I love going out without a coat, wearing sandals and skirts, picknicking, lounging...
29. Also, my favorite foods are summer berries--from strawberries to raspberries to blueberries to blackberries.
30. That said, here in CT, the most beautiful months are May and October.
31. I like making crepes on my birthday, and Angel food cake is my traditional gateau.
32. While I'm talking about food, my favorite ice cream is black cherry, sometimes strawberry, but in Oregon, it is Tillamook's Marionberry Pie ice cream (almost as good as the real thing)!
33. I can roll tortellini, gnocchi, and orecchiette.
34. I like to eat seasonally. Like wintry stews and cornbread in winter, delicate greens in spring, etc.
35. I gave up read meat from age 12-20, and still eat mostly vegetarian.
36. I love spicy food--Indian, Thai...but I can also, like Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, have bread and milk and blackberries for supper.
37. OK, now I need to exercise. My favorite sport is Ultimate (frisbee). I jog only reluctantly, to improve my game.
38. I am a sprinter. My shortlived nickname in middle school was "speedy gonzales."
39. My Dad taught me to play chess when I was 5 or 6. At that age, I would make up narratives and interpersonal relationships between the characters, for fun but also to win. I lost the bishop of my Dad's good set in the bushes when I played with it outside. We found it later, much faded.
43. I like classic children's toys--jump rope, blocks, hopscotch, marbles.
44. I love brio trains.
45. I collect lullabies.
46. I am grateful for my Scandinavian heritage. The design, the culture (maypoles, sagas, vikings) and history, the people...this justifies my addiction to IKEA.
47. I am 1/8 Icelandic. I've been to Iceland twice. The first time I saw my great-grandmother's village, and hiked the volcano that (much later) destroyed her house. Ha!
48. My favorite cities are Reykjavik, Venice, Modena, Portland, OR. I also like L'Aquila, San Francisco, Boston, Paris, Antwerp...
49. The best hiking is found in Southern Utah. That landscape is part of my blood.
50. I don't much like camping, however.
51. I am God's gift to mosquitos.
52. I learned this during my childhood years in the Philippines. My Dad joined the Air Force to pay off med school. For me, it was eternal summer, the greenest green rice-paddies, the juciest mangoes, typhoon days from school, earthquakes, geckoes, terrorist scares, baskets galore. For my mother, I bet it was rough. I remember lots.
53. I went to six different elementary schools. Well, one of them was a middle school (5th grade) then we moved and I went to an elementary school for 6th grade, then back to middle school for 7th.
54. Middle school was horrible but defining. I had crooked teeth, thick glasses, straight A's, and therefore few friends.
55. High School was just a long recovery from middle school--braces, contacts, growing out the perm...
56. In HS I was co-editor of the Avatar, a literary and arts magazine.
57. Once I skipped class (or more likely an assembly) to pursuade a local business that in exchange for a few Avatar magazines, I could prune their overladen rose bushes for an Avatar-related event. I then proceeded to decorate the school library with hundreds (OK maybe 150) pink roses.
58. Wearing flowers in my hair is one of my trademarks. For HS graduation, I wore long pigtails with daisies; for a concerto I performed I wore little cream-colored roses; perhaps someday I'll wear fruit like Carmen Miranda.
59. I have donated 10 inches of my hair to Locks of Love, twice.
60. My favorite item of clothing is a skirt I made when I was 14. I still wear it and am in denial if it is wearing out.
61. I am intimidated by sports coaches, weight machines, tax forms, and cafeterias.
62. I hate having anything go bad in the refridgerator. It is a matter of respect. If I let the vegetable go uneaten, its life it gave for me was in vain.
63. I attended the 6th World Harp Congress.
64. I have gone skinny dipping. Multiple times.
65. I like to play games based on personality...like everybody born in May stand up. (This list could be an incriminating tool for such games.)
66. I hate long complicated riddles. Just tell me the answer, and be done with it.
68. I am not ticklish. (Dan is. Bwah ha ha! Actually we have a non-tickling marriage agreement.)
69. I cannot whistle--OK I can make a few notes. Not much.
70. I like singing harmony with a small group.
71. Caroling is my favorite Christmas tradition.
72. I also liked dressing as though for St. Lucia's day, and bringing my family Swedish Cinnamon Twists.
73. I like long white nightgowns.
74. I like waking up before everyone and eating berries in my nightgown on a porch or balcony.
75. I am a morning person. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day; I work best before lunch.
76. I don't stay up late very easily. I and everyone around me finds it horrid when I must.
77. I am a weepy person, always have been. When I'm tired, grumpy, angry, overjoyed, inspired, moved, I cry. It's very strange.
78. I wear my heart on my sleeve. Therefore, I am a terrible actress. (or liar. or surprise-keeper.)
79. I like formal dinners with good conversation.
80. I also like being silly with Daniel. We've shared many laughs over the silliest things.
81. I have always wanted to attend a masquerade ball. I once went to a masked party for carnevale in Modena, dressed as "la Primavera". It was disappointing, but I had fun dressing up.
82. I like Halloween. This year I was the dead Cleopatra (complete with asp) and last year I was a sea cucumber.
83. My interest in prints goes back to an art camp I attended at age 12. Who knew I would write/begin my dissertation on Renaissance prints?
84. I was voted "most likely to become a mad scientist" in fifth grade. I've always liked science, and I'm glad I married a scientist so I could continue to learn without actually spending much time at it.
85. I took a semester off between MA and Ph.D to fix up a fixer-upper house. It was a great break from academia, and I am now a handiwoman who likes electric drills, new paintbrushes, and spackle.
86. On my first project my sister (and her now-husband) came to help me paint the patry. We used oil-based paint and tried to clean up with soap. (I didn't know what mineral spirits were.) Panic and chaos ensued. I've learned tons while working on this old house.
87. Such as, do you know how much atrocious wallpaper there is in this world?
88. I love mythology. I could name the exploits of the Greek gods (at one time) like other kids knew dinosaurs or basketball stats.
89. I think Miss Manners should be declared a national treasure.
90. I like celebrating holidays, including those not of my culture or religious tradition. I'm an "additive" celebrater of Passover. Pass the matzoh-ball soup.
91. I know how to row a gondola. Actually, the boat I learned on was called a Sandolo.
92. When Dan insisted that we go on a gondola ride (I was going to take him the very next day) I knew he was going to propose. The ring was a huge surprise, however.
93. I like it when my cat Calamity sleeps at my feet. I don't like it when she sits on my face when I am asleep.
94. I talk to strange cats in Italian.
95. I love to attend (and help plan) weddings.
97. Two of the best compliments I've ever been given: after a talent show in which I played the violin and everyone else lip-synched, my violin teacher told me that I was courageous.
98. Another was a neighborhood kid who said recently, "you know what I like about you, Eva? You're just like a kid."
99. I never really wanted to grow up. Really, I'm pretty much the same person that I was when I was three.
100. I am grateful to learn and live surrounded by a wonderful world!