100 Random Things About Us

BACK IN FEBRUARY, the four TSP bloggers passed around the infamous internet meme “25 Random Things about Me.” Months later, we’re still laughing at some of the random tidbits shared in that exercise. Get to know us better, or brush up on your TSP sister trivia with this roundup of all 100 Random Things About Us.

From Margaret of “She Said, She Said:”

1. The prefix Mar- has been a persistent, insistent sound in my life. I am named for a grandma I never met, Margaret; am granddaughter to another I revered, Marion; I am sister to a Marion, too; best friend to a Marco; ex-aide to a Martha. I am regularly called all of those names (except Marco, owing to gender realities), and answer to them by reflex. If you utter that first critical syllable, I will turn my head or come running before you form the next.

2. That is not to say I am obedient. I was taught very good manners, but they fail when something strikes me as wrong. Then I have trouble stifling myself about it—especially around family. In dysfunctional-family-speak, I was The Confronter.

3. My parents were liberals, though Daddy (also known as Podners) retained his Republican-party registration. One afternoon on a beach in the Florida Keys, when we were very small, my mother pointed to someone in the distance. “That’s Richard Nixon, and he’s a very bad man,” she said, sternly. He was Eisenhower’s VP at the time, I suppose.

4. These two very smart, very charismatic, very mismatched people surrounded us with books and exposed us to travel, music, museums, the theater. Our regular after-theater dinner place was the legendary Toots Shor, and we called the bigger-than-life New York City saloonkeeper Uncle Toots. I don’t think this was a place many people took their kids.

5. My (very loosely speaking) “godfather” was a famous trainer of race horses. Many things were “very loosely speaking” in our upbringing and in their marriage, actually: My mother wore blue, not a wedding gown, and they had lunch, not a reception; Marion has no godfather; and neither of us has a middle name. We were not baptized until Grandma Marion finally won out when I was 4 and Marion 2.

6. My parents didn’t belong to churches. Then the guilt of raising two heathens set in. Off we went.

7. One Sunday morning before church, around age 15, I fell off the stool in front of my bedroom “dressing table” while curling my eyelashes, pulling out all the top ones on one eye. (They grow back. God is forgiving, even to non-believers.)

8. I was sent away various summers to various places: Girl Scout Camp (where I fell out of a platform tent, rolled down a hill and broke my wrist); private girls’ camp in New Hampshire; to Cape Cod with our parents’ most bohemian friends, whose one girl among their five kids was my best friend.

9. On Cape Cod, I learned the word phosphorescent (owing to jellyfish you could see at night); danced in an Indian-print Nehru jacket to Jimi Hendrix; and painted my friend’s mother’s aging refrigerator yellow with flower-power flourishes.  We were perhaps 13 years old.

10. My sister (aka, Not the Confronter) never went to camp (or Cape Cod). She stayed home and played sports all summer long with Mommy, or so I imagine since I was not present to witness it.

11. My father was a sports editor, with access to Mickey Mantle and Muhammad Ali and all manner of box seat, every boychild’s dream. His first marriage, at age 45 to my mother (then 24), resulted in two girls, me first. I don’t think he minded one bit, and a lot of neighborhood boys got great perks.

12. Girl Scouts, Barbie dolls and trolls played a probably alarming but critical role until well into my teens, though not Marion’s. (I later horrified my sister by bringing a pink Barbie van as a gift to my niece’s third birthday. I was the most popular adult at the party among the kids as a result, but apparently my sister hadn’t intended to raise a Barbie-playing daughter. Oops.)

13. My mother got rid of all my dolls of both kinds without asking, but I still have my sash from Troop 4-334. The embroidered badges on it include ones for sports and sewing. Even today, this strikes me as funny. (No, I do not wear the sash; I keep it folded with my table linens in the sideboard.)

14. Re: sports: I do not participate in sports contests of any kind, since falling face down on a tennis court as the boy I loved watched on. “Poetry in motion,” he yelled through the fence. Love-15, and no match.

15. Re: sewing: When I stood up at the bell signaling the end of sewing shop one afternoon in junior high, the project we were making was stitched to my skirt. I had to wear it, collage-like, to my next class.

16. I did not drink until I was 40, or at least didn’t except once, at a “boy-girl party” where I sipped several kinds of wine that kids had smuggled in (think Thunderbird and Mateus Rose). I promptly became dizzy, and threw up on the shoes of the boy I loved then (the one before the boy I Ioved in the tennis incident; see Number 14).

17. Our mother was quite athletic, a lifetime sailor and tennis player, as is my sister, who also excels in just about anything with a bat, ball, racquet or net involved.

18. Re: sailing: Though I was a competitive swimmer as a kid, and do not fear the water whatsoever, I am happy on terra firma, and never wanted to sail. Being on, but not in, the water makes no sense to me. Being on land is best of all.

19. “Nonsense,” said my mother, signing me up for sailing lessons at the local dock. The sadistic young instructor paired me with Jane, the other terrified pupil, and hoisted our mainsail then cast the two of us adrift from our mooring, when we refused to do so ourselves. Learn by doing? No chance; we lay on the floorboards, crying, as the boat bobbed around the bay, the big sail slack and flapping to punctuate our sobs.

20. Apparently someone ran up the hill to the tennis club and got my mother, but my memory remains fixed on the being-cast-adrift part, so I do not know what happened next.  Ask Marion.

21. People say I am a picky eater.

22. My father cooked from Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey, even the giant brown encyclopedia Larousse Gastronomique. My mother relied on her aluminum Mirro electric frypan as an all-purpose vessel in which to create weekly installments of chicken cacciatore, meatballs (served with spaghetti that was thankfully not cooked in the frypan), and banana pancakes. A modern WASP housewife.

23. The secret ingredient in “Mommy’s” rosemary chicken (Marion’s list, Number 5) was crumbled potato chips. There are few things that don’t taste good to kids “breaded” in potato chips; even our family dinner-table scene brightened on such nights. (The recipe is actually our grandmother Marion’s.)

24. My sister and I rinsed off most of our entrees en route from stovetop to table (not said rosemary chicken). We feared coming into contact with what we called “juice spots,” those bits of coagulated meat drippings of an unusual texture that make good starter for gravy. In what is perhaps a related development: I have been a vegetarian for more than 30 years.

25. I am not crazy about ice cream (my partial explanation can be found at this link, thanks to Marion’s sharing it with you first, here).

From Marion of “She Said, She Said:”

1.    Our mother always tipped gas-station attendants.
2.    There were stereo speakers in our kitchen.
3.    Our close friends had an uncle who worked in the kitchen at the Waldorf. Their income always unsteady, supplies were sparse, but colorful; the kids ate caviar sandwiches on Wonder Bread.
4.    Our English grandfather, who lived with us, played the short-rib bones between his fingers as percussion instruments.
5.    Our mother had only one dependable recipe: baked rosemary chicken. It was perfect every time.
6.    We grew up in Douglaston, New York, four blocks from John McEnroe, with whom I took group tennis lessons when we were little.
7.    The people across the street from us raised Great Danes who they named for Greek gods. The mother wore a crash helmet in the kitchen because she was short and exactly the height of the bottom corners of the open cabinet doors.
8.    One wall of our parents’ bedroom was a tromp l’oeil bookcase, the books of which were cut from wallpaper and laid evenly on thin molding spaced to look like shelving.
9.    Our mother had an affair that lasted 20 years.
10.     I didn’t know.
11.     Our father didn’t know.
12.     Margaret knew.
13.     The doctor across the street kept everybody’s secrets, including ours. After she climbed the ladder one night to our parent’s second-story bedroom window, looked in, exchanged a few words with our mother, climbed down, she reported only that no, our mother would not be unlocking the bedroom door anytime soon.
14.     A sportswriter, our father worked Saturdays.
15.     Our mother was always said to have the best legs in town.
16.      We took ballroom-dancing lessons to which we wore white gloves.
17.      There was a lock on our liquor cabinet, but the key was always in it.
18.      On the landing of our staircase leading upstairs was an eight-foot-tall stained-glass window of St. George slaying the dragon.
19.      In the dining room were stained-glass windows of ships under sail and a full-length
portrait of a seated boy whom no one could identify.
20.      We served homemade cranberry ice at Thanksgiving.
21.      One year we didn’t throw out our Christmas tree until Easter.
22.      The phrase our maternal grandmother always used to straighten up our manners was, “Girls, let’s be Emily Post-ish.” When she said “girls,” she was referring to Margaret, our mother, and me; the last two of us always laughed.
23.      The house we lived in had been built by a Finnish beer baron for his mistress; he built an exact replica across the bay for his wife.
24.      Our mother had grown up in the neighborhood, always coveting that house.
25.      I loved it, too.

From Paige of “Hey Little Sister:”

1. I tend to feel overwhelmed by my life a lot of the time.
2. I know that it’s ridiculous for me to be overwhelmed by my life, which is fun, and cushy, and healthy and full of love. But I am.
3. I love old dishes, silverware and crystal. This used to get me into trouble on eBay.
4. I recently started spinning (bike, not wool) and I’m a little obsessed with it. We’ll see if it lasts.
5. When I was 7 years old, I wore bifocals.
6. I once had sex in a tree. (Sorry, Mom.)
7. I took Mandarin Chinese for a while in high school, and I loved drawing the characters.
8. When I was a little girl, I had penpals around the world: England, Japan, France, Vermont…
9. My first pet was a black and white rabbit named Scrambley. When she died, a mean kid in my eighth grade class made a crack about “the rabbit dying” (you know, the old school pregnancy test) and I neither understood it nor found it funny.
10. One of my gross habits that I don’t want anyone to know about is that I love to pick at my toenails.
11. I met my husband at an Ethiopian restaurant. He was with his girlfriend.
12. I have several first cousins I have never met.
13. I have lived in four countries and thirteen cities.
14. When I was three, I loved a statue in the Cincinnati Museum of Art called “Eve Disconsolate.” I always thought that would be a good name for a band.
15. My favorite slow-dance song in high school was Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones.
16. My favorite Rolling Stones cover is Beast of Burden by Bette Midler.
17. I often have insomnia. I’m writing this at 2:20 a.m.
18. I am infinitely better at starting things than at finishing them.
19. Some of my favorite works of fiction are all of Robertson Davies’ books, but I cannot remember the plot of any of them.
20. The best experience I’ve ever had in a museum was a Rothko retrospective at the Whitney about ten years ago.
21. My favorite flowers are bachelors buttons and pansies.
22. I always think I might see a plane fall out of the sky, or drive off the edge of a bridge. Maybe that’s why I don’t travel much.
23. One of my earliest memories is walking in the woods with my mother. I must have been three.
24. One of my biggest regrets is that my father never got to know my kids, and vice versa.
25. I have always loved poetry, and write a lot of it in my head.

From Anastasia of “Claiming Sisterhood:”

1.    I have a birthmark on my right hip in the shape of Afghanistan.

2.    Once my brother told me that he bit off my pinkie finger at birth and that the one I had was a fake, and I believed him.

3.    Sometimes I feel like I’m in an abusive long-term relationship with the entire country of France.

4.    I am named after the midwife who delivered me.

5.    My favorite toy as a child was a little box of rocks that I pretended was a family.

6.    I like to binge on television shows and then never watch them again.

7.    I wish I was better at sewing.

8.    In middle school I had to make a speech in front of the whole school as president of the student council and I got my period through my jeans during it. That might be my most embarrassing moment.

9.    Another embarrassing moment happened when I walked straight into the lake at summer camp during a silent candlelit ceremony.

10.    When I’m bored, I draw the cursive alphabet in my head.

11.     In awkward situations I like to picture myself from aerial view. Sometimes it makes me feel less awkward.

12.    I am in awe of the fact that I took AP calculus in high school, and that I actually did pretty well.

13.    Another game I liked to play as a child was stuffing my whole head into the tiny rooms of my dollhouse.

14.    After the first snow of winter, my brother and I used to run around our house once barefoot. In hindsight, I can’t believe our parents watched us do that.

15.    We once witnessed some of our parents’ friends walking across burning coals, so maybe that’s what inspired us.

16.    I used to buy bridal magazines with my allowance money.

17.    Most of the things that I used to be obsessed with as a child–brides, 1950s domesticity, Bill Clinton, teen pregnancy–I now think are absolutely crazy.

18.    I wrote a letter to Bill Clinton in second grade and started it, “Dear Bill,” like we were real chummy or something.

19.    When I lived in Montpellier, France, I had to walk through a scary wooded area to get back to my house late at night. And I would make myself sing Buttercup out loud to keep my mind from wandering to all the drug addicts and wild boars that were probably hiding in the trees.

20.    I also like to sing a song every year that I learned in preschool called Spring is Coming! when I see the first signs of spring.

21.    I am not a talented singer.

22.    Paradise exists on the shores of the Mediterranean, I am sure of it.

23.    I once saw someone smoke crack on Metro line 2, between la Chapelle and Stalingrad.

24.    I wish I could have been exposed to more diverse cultures and identities while I was growing up.

25.    I hope that I get to be a mother someday.

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