Who Am I

My sister sent me her list of likes and dislikes, and asked me to send her my own list. So I started composing a list, and then couldn't think of what I liked and didn't like, so I looked at a document I made titled "Things to put on my blog." I wrote it when I was trying to come up with a name for my blog, and could think of things to say but no name. It's kind of fun, so here are the fun and still pertinent parts. A don't know what they are pertinent to, but here they are, in the "who am I, and what do I do, and what do I like" category. Don't ask for structure.

1. I like a lot of things, but I like them in my mind. Just because I like something doesn’t mean that I learn everything there is to know about it. I like jazz, but I don’t even try to get all the great jazz albums (though it would be nice), partly because I have a great jazz station so don’t need to get all the albums myself. I am not a nerd, it turns out. What a revelation. Maybe that should be my title. “Yes, I like all sorts of non-cool things, but I am not a nerd about them. Too bad, really.” I dream a lot, and what I like is in my dreams, so I don’t necessarily need to have it all in real life. Well, that’s really depressing.

2. Choir music. Mostly to sing. I prefer to sing it than to listen to it. If everyone felt this way, we would have no audience. Wait, we do have trouble getting audience members... hmm.

3. Music in general. But I don’t often have it just playing in the background, unless it is on my iPod on the ferry. Is that because I haven’t found the right music yet, or because I am so into it that I can’t think about anything else when it is on? I prefer to think that it is the latter. Probably it is more that I get distracted, and that I haven’t found the right music yet. There is nothing wrong with silence. And if I need ambient music, I am more likely to make it myself than to put on music. So I don't listen to most of my CD's.

4. Singing. I love to sing, but I don’t have good breath support and I can’t memorize to save my life. Those two difficulties ended my stage career early on.

5. Hummer – that’s me. I hum. If I make that the title of my blog, then people will think I like big huge gas-guzzling vehicles and am an idiot, when only part of that is true.

What if someone I work with or want to work with finds this blog and figures out that it is me, and realizes that I am just a humming, dreaming fool who hasn’t even listed statistics and fish yet? Yeah, I like statistics, and fish are okay, too.

6. Math – I like math. I love pure math – it’s pure, it’s beautiful, it’s godly. Really. But I do statistics. Applied statistics. And I like it. Especially the theory parts. If you want to use mathematics in a practical way, you have to do statistics. I say that, but I am practical only when I want to be.

7. Perfectionist. I never finish anything. Not quite true, but almost. Sigh – can’t even be perfect in my record of never finishing anything.

8. I kind of like philosophy. I kind of like cooking. I kind of like gardening. I really like baking. I am learning to like poetry, of sorts. W.H. Auden and my cousin and I share a birthday – cool!

9. A blog is supposed to be spontaneous, right? Won’t writing things out like this to put on my blog later lack the necessary spontaneity that a blog should have? The first post will just be me catching up with all my thoughts, and who will want to read that?

10. I hate Microsoft.

11. I like newts. And birds. And dogs.

12. I like my sister. I sent her an email asking for help. :-)