supermassive black hole

Here's an old meme that I've never done: Compile a list of 100 facts about yourself. Seems to work out well for NaBloPoMo, so here I go...

100 Things About Me (and I throw in the fact that I am not Jennifer Aniston for free):

1. I am a youngest child.
2. I was born in Rochester, NY.
3. I'm an Aquarius. I don't know what, if any, sign is rising. I don't even know what that means.
4. I am just barely a child of the 1970's. By a month and 5 days.
5. My parents separated for good (they separated several times before and during my childhood) when I was 13.
6. My dad died of cancer when I was 18. He had Hodgkin's Disease when I was an infant and did radiation treatment in the early 1970's. The cancer he died of was a result of the radiation treatment. It gave him 18 extra years.
7. I was incredibly shy as a child.
8. My sister and I used to dress the same even though she was 5 years older than me. I think she liked having a Mini Me.
9. We also both got Dorothy Hamel haircuts in the late '70's.
10. My mom bred and showed Newfoundlands when I was a teenager. I was very embarrassed by this fact.
11. My first car was a black, 2-door, 4-speed 1980 VW Rabbit. With a hand-crank sunroof.
12. I was a cheerleader for football and basketball during my sophomore year of high school.
13. My high school was very cliquey. The fact that it had fraternities and sororities turned me off of the idea of those for college too.
14. The only time in my life that I've been hospitalized was my freshman year of college. I had meningitis.
15. When I answered the questions on the patient intake form at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester during that hospitalization, I truthfully answered as follows:

Have you ever been hospitalized? No.
Have you ever been a patient at Strong Memorial Hospital? Yes.

(It was the hospital I was born in. They brought out my file from 1970 and I got to see my little baby footprints.)
16. I went to University of Rochester for undergrad because that is where my dad wanted me to go (he had a PhD. in Political Science from U of R).
17. I didn't enjoy my time at U of R very much. I kind of wish I had picked my school myself.
18. I graduated college during a recession (1992) and spent two years working for a restaurant chain before I decided to go to law school.
19. I put very little thought into whether to go to business school or law school and ended up in law school because I took the LSAT first and did very well on it.
20. I scored in the 99th percentile on the LSAT.
21. I went to law school at Georgetown.
22. I had a great time in law school. I was in the section with the reputation for slacking off and partying. We slacked off and partied.
23. Allen Iverson was playing college ball for G'town while I was in school there. He was amazing.
24. I did public interest work during my law school summers instead of working for law firms. I didn't have a job lined up when I graduated.
25. Despite fact 24 above, I've been working for large firms for the past decade.
26. I despise the billable hour model.
27. My first name is Persian and means "deep, dark as night".
28. I have a very fair complexion.
29. I had a patch of skin cancer removed from my left shoulder shortly after I moved to Los Angeles.
30. The dermatologist told me to avoid spending time in the sun from April through September.
31. I've ignored his advice. Though I am a huge user of sunblock.
32. I am happiest when I am outside in the sunshine.
33. I got married when I was 24 and divorced when I was 30.
34. I've been "living in sin" with my current boyfriend for 4 years.
35. My current favorite book is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.
36. My favorite movie is Garden State.
37. I have seen part or all of every season of The Real World. When it started, I was in the target age group. Now... I am not.
38. I know a lot about pop culture.
39. I live three doors down from the apartment where Lauren and Audrina live. If you know who Lauren and Audrina are, you also know a lot about pop culture.
40. I did not do drugs (other than drinking) when I was in high school or college.
41. I was suspended from high school for 2 or 3 days during my junior year for getting drunk at school.
42. I played in a bowling league with my dad when I was in high school. It was our week-night together (Wednesday nights) and the league was my dad's coworkers.
43. I'm not at all a good bowler. But I really enjoy bowling.
44. Some friends and I climbed onto the glass roof of the commons building at college during my senior week and was spotted and chased by campus security. They did not catch us.
45. If I didn't dye my hair, it would be noticeably grey.
46. I've colored my hair in some fashion since college.
47. I was a blonde kid and I do not look good with blonde hair as an adult. Wrong skin tone.
48. I've never liked McDonald's food. Hated it as a kid.
49. I am a huge fan, however, of the Taco Bell Mexican Pizza (no meat) and the Burger King Ham and Cheese Croissanwich (no egg).
50. I was a flexitarian (a vegetarian who ate fish and ate other meat on rare occasions) for about 3 years. I started eating meat again full-time last year.
51. I was raised in a household without religion. My dad was atheist (raised Catholic) and my mom was a lapsed Baptist.
52. I tried out several religions as a kid/young adult. I am now a confirmed Catholic. I do not practice.
53. I consider myself agnostic, yet spiritual.
54. I think that organized religions tend to create more problems throughout the world than they solve.
55. I love to read.
56. I love to travel. I take a lot of beach vacations, but I prefer going to places that I can learn something about/see something new.
57. I am planning to go to Peru this year.
58. I regret that I never got around to learning Spanish.
59. I drink herbal tea every day. Mint and chamomile are generally my favorites.
60. I have never been any good at team sports. I am an ok golfer (would be much better if I could figure out how to get more distance).
61. Until I started taking Zyrtek every day, I used to sneeze all the time. I've sneezed over 20 times consecutively. People used to make fun of my sneezing.
62. I'm not entirely sure what I'm allergic to, but the list definitely includes cats, mold, mildew, some pollens.
63. I did not vote in the primaries. If I had, it would have been for Obama.
64. I prefer dive bars to trendy places. I prefer gay clubs to straight clubs.
65. I will not wait in line anywhere that involves a bouncer or a velvet rope. It is possible to live in LA and avoid such places completely. This surprises some people.
66. I have never (knock on wood) caused a traffic accident. I've been in just a couple.
67. I curse a lot at other drivers. I've been trying to get better about this.
68. I prefer walking to driving.
69. I don't think that caffeine affects me.
70. I sort of feel the same way about pot.
71. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.
72. I don't plan to grow up.
73. I love all puzzles. I'm a game nerd.
74. I am introverted, but I've learned to act like an extrovert.
75. When I'm living with someone, I treasure my time alone. When I live alone, I treasure my time out and about with friends.
76. I have always loved giraffes. My favorite stuffed animal was Gaffey, a light yellow giraffe.
77. I dislike talking on the phone. If you don't use e-mail to communicate, we are unlikely to have a close relationship.
78. Very few people know me very well.
79. I love pickles.
80. My first memory is of my sister and me feeding horses when I was 3.
81. I have a MySpace page and a Facebook page.
82. I prefer to spend my lunch hour by myself reading in the sunshine instead of having lunch with people.
83. I dislike mushrooms.
84. I played the clarinet and the piano when I was young.
85. I had horrible migraine headaches from the age 13 through 19. During 7th grade I was in the nurse's office at least once every couple of weeks with them. Light shows, throwing up, etc. Miserable. I'm very careful to take aspirin at the first sign of vision problems now because of my history with headaches, but I haven't had one in over a decade.
86. When I was a kid, my dad's brothers and sisters (he was one of 10 children) would play sheepshead or pinochle at family gatherings and I was the only niece/nephew who was allowed to play with the adults (there were 40-some-odd cousins) because I knew all the rules and played the games well.
87. I have a namesake.
88. My first (non-babysitting) job was Ice Cream Scooper at Friendly's.
89. I love watching home improvement shows.
90. I almost always have my computer on my lap and multi-task when watching tv.
91. I disagree with Democrats on a lot of fiscal issues but I find it impossible (and possibly immoral) to vote for anyone who adopts the Republicans' platform views with respect to social issues.
92. I was bullied in both middle school and high school.
93. My first crush was on George Harrison. He was always my favorite Beatle.
94. My gramma always used to bring us a bag of Kraft caramels whenever she visited us. She stopped traveling to visit us in 1978 but I still associate those caramel squares with gramma.
95. I dislike scary movies and gratuitous violence.
96. My first concert was David Gilmour at SPAC when I was twelve or thirteen. That was also my first exposure to people smoking pot. Although my dad kept pot seeds in his desk drawer at home.
97. I did study abroad in Rennes, France when I was 19. I did not get along at all with my French family.
98. The only acting I've ever done was playing the part of the narrator in a school play about blood cells when I was in 6th grade. Andrea Armstrong was the lead, Rosie the Red Blood Cell.
99. I was 17 when I had sex for the first time. I just realized while typing this how much I dislike the phrase "lost my virginity".
100. I'm still using my ex's last name. If I could, I would just drop having a last name altogether, but apparently that only works for Cher and Madonna.