(About Maria Melee)
- I don’t put any vegetables on my sandwiches and subs. The only exception to this rule is a BLT—I skip the L but go with thin sliced T.
- I was raised Catholic. Complete with First Communion, masturbation guilt, etc.
- Sleep and I have a tenuous relationship. Generally can’t sleep without a fan or some sort of white noise going on unless I’m absolutely exhausted or under the influence of something sleepy-making. I’m also a very light sleeper and I generally get up 1-2 times a night to pee.
- I actually enjoy folding laundry, but I HATE putting it away. Incidentally, so does my husband, so his dresser frequently features a huge stack of impeccably folded laundry.
- Animal movies make me cry. Andre the Seal? Total sob-fest.
- I had a daughter, I’d name her Charlotte Suellen. And I would call her Lola.
- I took a series of poetry workshops in college. They were my favorite classes. My most popular poems were about a nude beach and a murdered catfish. My most popular poem included the phrase, “lick my wet balls.”
- Did the whole sex-in-pseudo-public-outdoors thing once. We didn’t get caught, and it was awesome, but I still feel weird about the various wildlife creatures that were probably watching us. Sorry turtles. We were just…wrestling. Honest.
- I’m pretty sure I was a groupie in another life. Live music turns me into a flailing, weepy, aroused spaz. Add a few margaritas and I’d probably molest aging rockstars.
- I adore raw oysters. They’ve only made me sick once. I eat them with saltines and super-horseradish-alicious cocktail sauce. I’m not hardcore enough to just slurp them out of their shells. I did try an oyster shooter once though. The beer grossed me out more than the oyster.
- Noah Wylie signed my softball glove. And I continued to play softball (badly) with it. The signature offered me no luck. Like eight years later I ended up breaking my thumb while catching a fastball thrown by (sigh) a girl. Also Noah Wylie isn’t even hot anymore. (Double sigh.)
- I don’t think Brad Pitt is all that attractive.
- When I was a kid—no joke—I never wanted to get married because I was afraid having to sleep with a man would mean I wouldn’t be able to masturbate before falling asleep. The whole thing totally stressed me out for years. Thanks, Catholicism!
- Financial issues are my biggest source of stress and sleeplessness.
- I can tear up some Dance Dance Revolution. But my husband is way better.
- From 2002-2006 George and I attended over eight anime conventions, always in full homemade costume.
- I watch a lot of television, but not too many movies. Currently, Gossip Girl, Battlestar Gallactica, Entourage and American Idol are my favorite shows.
- I think Ari Gold has the best dialogue on the planet. I secretly want to pepper every other sentence with profanity and insults.
- Halo 3 on Xbox Live is one of my favorite tension-relieving activities. I play with friends who live in Atlanta, and I yell a lot. It pretty much rules.
- My gaming handle is Kitten. George’s ranges from Dickjuice to Snowjob. Snowjob is a reference to a GI Joe, not frosty fellatio.
- I took piano lessons for about three years as a kid and got vaguely good. I can’t remember any of it now.
- Whenever possible, I choose the toilet stall closest to the wall because I read an article that those are the least used. I’m aware that this is ridiculous.
- I have to know where the nearest bathroom is at all times.
- I have a small tattoo of a compass star (yeah, the punk rock star cliché tattoo) on my lower back (yeah the cliché tattoo spot.) I got it with my brother. Our father is a captain.
- I want more/visible tattoos but my grandfather is so violently opposed to them that I feel obligated (after all he’s done for us and out of respect and love) to wait to get them until I’m older.
- About an hour after the end of the Tampa Bay Lightning’s last season in the Thunderdome my best friend and I jumped onto the ice and ran across it and hung out in the penalty box and didn’t get caught. Then we snuck back to the locker room where the families wait and got a gazillion autographs. I guess highly dorky 16-year-old girls are non-threatening.
- I was salutatorian in my high school class of a whopping twenty-two kids.
- When I was a kid, I used to pray in church for god to give me a good voice.
- I’ve seen the musical Rent over 16 times, mostly by camping out outside the theater the night before shows to get $20 front row tickets. The first time I saw it was in 1996 on Broadway with the original cast.
- I’ve only been to New York City twice but I know I’ll go again. I absolutely adore it there.
- My husband is the only man I’ve had sex with.
- The coolest place I’ve ever lived was a 1920’s era house in Gainesville that had been a frat house in the 50’s. I lived upstairs and had windows with roof access. I painted the walls muted green, rust, and blue.
- My high school graduation gift was tickets to the Fleetwood Mac reunion tour—and they were exactly what I wanted.
- I generally like going to strip clubs. Tina Fey would be so disappointed in me.
- In college, my friend and I took tasteful nude pictures of each other in the Santa Fe river as Valentine’s Day gifts for our boyfriends. Then we got them developed at Eckerd. So I’m sure someone out there has tasteful nude pictures of me. I can never run for office.
- In my early 20’s, my favorite drink was the Captain Sunscreen, a mixture of orange juice, Malibu, and Captain Morgan’s spiced rum. Yikes.
- I used to go to a drag show in Gainesville every Thursday night for years. I really miss it, even though every week I’d be terrified that the emcee would pick on me.
- I love buying makeup but rarely wear it. I’m sure this will change soon since I’m starting to realize that my under eye circles are becoming sort of permanent.
- I participated in the fiction exchange at yuletidetreasure.org for five years straight. I’m super annoyed I couldn’t do it this year and I plan on writing again next holiday season.
- I was prom queen. (The chances were 1 in 11.) (And it was kind of a joke.) (But it’s funny to be able to say that.)
- My eyelashes are really, really long. When I was little I’d get a stray one stuck in my eye somewhat frequently, and every time I would FREAK OUT about it. It took me years to get the courage to wear contacts because of that.
- I wore braces for three years.
- I’ve worn glasses/contact since I was eight and a half.
- I’m 5’8” and a half. For some reason, the half is important to me. I have 5’9” envy I guess.
- When I was in 11th grade I broke my pinkie toe running to answer the phone. I kicked the door frame, answered the phone, told the caller I was fine, then hung up and looked down and saw my super broken toe. This was before my family had cell phones so I had to hobble to the neighbor’s house for adult assistance. My dad laughed at me when he came home and saw it.
- Until I had my first kid, I was too scared to give blood. Now I try to give regularly. It helped when the Blood Mobile was parked outside of my old job. I’d totally give blood to get out of half an hour of work.
- I have two extra nipples, one under each boob. They’re not huge, maybe the size of large moles. When my milk came in with both boys, they got very swollen and lactated a little. It was freaky. My mom thought it was hilarious.
- I have a tan-colored birthmark on my stomach. It’s sort of the shape of Africa except turned on its side.
- I’m kind of disappointed that neither of my kids has my birthmark/ridiculous spare nipples. But Chipmunk is starting to get spots/freckles/moles which is cool. I’m very spotted.
- I wear a lot of green because my eyes are brown and green (mostly brown) and since I was little I wanted to play up the green and it just stuck.
- My first car was a black 2005 Honda Civic. I drove it until 2006 when some dumbass girl blew through a stop sign and broadsided it while my husband was driving. I cried when I visited it in the impound to say goodbye.
- I’ve only seen snow twice.
- I love eating cottage cheese with honey and cantaloupe.
- My best friend Kara and I snuck into Interview with the Vampire for like 10 minutes when it came out in theaters. Scandal! Now I’m like dude, why didn’t I appreciate the hot dude makeouts more? Oh maybe because Tom Cruise is gross.
- I can’t touch my toes bending over.
- I took Japanese in college.
- Worms World Party is my favorite game, but I never get to play it anymore. “I lost me mango, mon!”
- I have seen Jesus Christ Superstar like 600 times, and almost always under the influence of at least half a bottle of champagne and Lauren.
- I haven’t been back to Gainesville since the day I drove away in 2005. Sometimes I miss it terribly, but most of the places I loved are gone now.
- I played a “lady of the night” aka “hooker” in my high school’s production of Little Shop of Horrors. Don’t remember any hookers in Little Shop? That’s cause there aren’t supposed to be any. I just like fishnets.
- I like tequila a lot. But I hate sour-mix margaritas. They’re best with fresh lime and powdered sugar! Also, salt. And never frozen.
- I gave my cats up for adoption last year. Still really sad about it when I think about them. Don’t be judge-y, I had good reasons and they went to a no-kill shelter and got adopted.
- I’m an almost-certified Aromatherapist.
- When I was in middle school, I got certified for scuba giving. Except I never got the actual certification because I chickened out and wouldn’t go on the salt water dive. (I’m terrified of sharks and shipwrecks.)
- I’m sort of a huge gossip. Not proud of this fact.
- Ever few years I try to grow my hair long, get sick of it, and then cut it off. I’m currently in a “short hair” phase which I prefer unless some asshat stylist tries to make me look like a news anchor.
- I’ll watch Yo Gabba Gabba without my kids.
- I got lost in Venice, Italy for an entire morning with George. I consider that one of the best days of my life.
- Food is probably my favorite vice. I hate to say I’m a “foodie” but I guess I am. A foodie in training maybe. A non-snobby foodie? A foodie who can’t actually cook?
- I started blogging in August, 2002. My other blog has over 2,100 entries.
- I had a huge Catholic wedding.
- My gigantic self-esteem issues may contribute to the fact that I act like a supreme goober about people I look up to. For instance, half the blogsophere.
- Every time I write necessary I spell it wrong on the first try.
- I count on my fingers to add. When I do, I remember my third grade teacher warning me that if I didn’t try harder at math I’d end up counting on my fingers and being embarrassed throughout my adult life. He was right. But he was also a shitty teacher.
- Public speaking makes me so nervous I get epic intestinal issues at the mere threat of it.
- I learned to knit in 2007. I’m super proud of this dubious accomplishment.
- My vocabulary and mannerisms were shaped almost entirely by the Wayne’s World movies. So when people tell me I talk/act like Juno I feel like Mike Meyers should be getting royalties.
- I’m so sad that Mike Meyers totally jumped the shark.
- This man blows goats. I have proof.
- If I had to pick one kind of food to eat for the rest of my life I’d be torn between sushi and simple meat/cheese on bread French farmhouse kind stuff.
- My brother knocked my front baby tooth out while we were wrestling in the bath tub. I still feel bad about how bad he felt about it.
- I have overactive empathy issues and/or I’m kind of insane. George has been known to make me feel sad by having a pasta box talk to me all “You don’t want to eat me? Why?!?!”
- George knows how to push all my buttons.
- I love to drive. Love it. Road trips make me happy. But I haven’t attempted one with the kids yet. I bet they’ll kind of screw up my road trip rhythm.
- I love stopping at South of the Border because my mom never let us stop there when we were kids. Alas, it kind of sucks. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to stop.
- I love popping pimples.
- Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern books were my favorite books from 7th to 10th grade.
- I worked at the local Renaissance Festival when I was 17/18. I worked in the sausage booth and yelled “sausages on a stick!” all day.
- During the University of Florida homecoming parade, I broke a board with my elbow in front of a small cheering crowd. (I was marching with my martial arts club.) Even though it wasn’t terribly hard, I felt incredibly badass.
- I ate a piece of raw tuna from a just-deceased fish when I was eight or nine. I think that moment was the foundation for my love of tuna sashimi.
- In college, I used to fill a Big Gulp with crushed ice and an entire bottle of Sutter Home White Zinfandel. Ew.
- George and I went swimming in the Adriatic sea behind the abandoned/bombed hotel Libertas in Dubrovnik, Croatia. We were the only non-locals around. The water was freezing and absolutely cobalt blue. Incredible.
- When I was growing up, we kept a salt water fishtank stocked with the marine life from the canal we lived on. All sorts of colorful fish and sea horses. Now Tampa Bay is practically barren of that kind of sea life. It makes me wonder what it will be like when my kids are my age.
- I’m trying to teach myself photography.
- I got a 5 on the AP English exam in high school. I wrote my essay on Grendel by John Gardner.
- When I was a teenager, I had subscriptions to Entertainment Weekly and Premiere. I’m still fairly obsessed with celebrities and their offspring.
- My favorite movie is The Secret of NIMH.
- I rode a donkey down the cliff steps of Santorini and have never, ever been that terrified in my entire life. I had tears running down my face.
- We used to foster kittens when we lived in an apartment (before the kids.) It was like getting a new shipment of Cute every few days. It also taught me a lot about parenting and patience, since most of the litters were ill and required dropper feeding.
- I used to skate on longboards when I was 16. I totally did it just to impress boys. It didn’t get me a boyfriend.
