100 Things

  1. My sister has been married four times, I have been married none. I think this evens things up.
  2. I can't dive.   I've tried, but I have some weird block against going head first into water.
  3. I once took Bob Barker's order when I worked at a J.Crew call center in college.
  4. I like chicken and I like peanuts, but I hate the two cooked together.   Same thing with ham and pineapple.
  5. I once spent an entire afternoon shopping with an English accent, trying to convince people I was from England.
  6. I have a recurring dream that I left something in my childhood home. I sneak back to get it, terrified the new owners will catch me
  7. I hate when people don't smile back.
  8. The fastest way to make me angry is to criticize my family.   Sure, they're all a little crazy, but only I get to say that.
  9. I always think sweet potato casserole is going to taste better than it actually does
  10. I plowed my mother's Subaru into our back deck when I was learning to drive
  11. I have to stop and think before I can tell left from right.
  12. Favorite flower - Gladiolus
  13. In the movie The Color Purple, when Shug bursts into the church and hugs her preacher father and says "See Daddy?   Sinners have soul, too," I cry uncontrollably.   Every single time.   One of the greatest movie scenes ever.
  14. I secretly think people who say I'm hard to buy for aren't paying close enough attention.
  15. Believe it or not, my first published work was a Harlequin romance. Tried and True, written under the pen name Katie Gallagher.
  16. I wrote my first novel when I was 16, just to prove I could. It's so horrible it will never see the light of day.
  17. I'm a classic emotional overeater. I always think food is going to make everything better. It never does.
  18. I love the color orange but, for some reason, when asked, I always say my favorite color is green.
  19. Every time it snows, I still feel a tight happiness in my stomach and think, "No school today!"
  20. I once worked for an antique appraiser. Spent a lot of time in old homes. Probably why old homes are so prominent in my books.
  21. When I'm alone in my car, I sing without moving my lips so people won't think I'm talking to myself.
  22. Favorite sweet - caramel.
  23. I get bored brushing my teeth. I walk around while brushing, watch TV, check e-mail, anything but stand in front of the sink.
  24. My great-aunt was F. Scott Fitzgerald's nurse when he was once hospitalized with gout.
  25. I met my best friend when we were both 8 years old.
  26. I frequently forget what day it is.
  27. I was obsessed with the Griffin and Sabine books when they were first released.
  28. I still have and occasionally wear a vintage embroidered men's dinner jacket from my Pretty in Pink punk phase in 9th grade.
  29. I thought Yul Brynner was fantastically sexy in The King and I. Oh, come on. Admit it. He was.
  30. I have been known to comically dart out of aisles in stores when I see someone I don't want to talk to.
  31. I eat the pie filling but not the crust.
  32. I love finding the hollow malted milk balls in a box of Whoppers.
  33. It took twelve years of writing as close to full time as I could manage to finally make a living from it.
  34. And every day for twelve years my dad asked when I was going to get a real job.
  35. I have a lot of eye floaters. I see them all the time
  36. I was a good student and had good friends, but still hated every single second of high school. It was like going to a bad job.
  37. My dad was in a folk trio called The Highlanders in the early 1960s.
  38. I'm easily overwhelmed by e-mail.
  39. Actually, I'm easily overwhelmed by just about everything.
  40. I get embarrassed when I see my car windshield wipers are going faster than everyone else's. Like I'm overreacting to rain.
  41. I've always thought my sister Sydney got the better name.
  42. I don't drink coffee but, mysteriously, I have dozens of latte bowls.
  43. I act like I know what I'm doing, but most of the time I really have no clue.
  44. I used to loftily claim I read 100 Years of Solitude, but truthfully, I couldn't get past the first few pages.
  45. I never set my alarm clock to a regular :00 or :30. It's always some odd hour/minute combo like 6:16 or 7:37.
  46. I hate my 6th grade photo.   Seriously, who schedules class photos right after P.E.?
  47. There are close and tragic histories of addiction in my family. It terrifies me into clean living.
  48. My signature perfume is Giardini di Montecatini VI, which hasn't been produced in years, so I hoard it when I find it on Ebay.
  49. I still sometimes put my digital camera to my eye before I remember it has a view screen.
  50. My house is named Charlotte's Rose.
  51. I have accidentally maced myself.
  52. First kiss: James Patton, 3rd grade. First boyfriend: James Gross, 3rd grade. Apparently, I was something of a 3rd grade tramp.
  53. I feel contractually obligated to eat the whole cupcake, when all I really like is the frosting.
  54. I used to write (mercifully never published) futuristic romances. The highlight: a Beauty & the Beast meets X-Men trilogy. Oh yeah.
  55. The Vicar of Dibley is my DVD equivalent of comfort food.
  56. I was half-asleep and fifteen, but I'm pretty sure I've seen a ghost.
  57. I irrationally fear I'll be secretly filmed from the neck down for some news story on overweight America.
  58. Yes, I am the person who keeps Netflix movies forever, resulting in the 'Very Long Wait' message in your queue.
  59. I like potato chips with milk, peanut butter with sugar sandwiches, and macaroni in my vegetable soup.
  60. When I was 12, I told everyone I was in love with Mark Hamill because it sounded better and more mature than saying I was in love with Luke Skywalker.   But I really was in love with Luke Skywalker.
  61. I have telephonia: The uncontrollable fear that I'm calling people at a bad time.
  62. I never knew any of my grandparents.
  63. I wore braces for 8 years. I was convinced, of course, this was a plot hatched by my parents to make me as miserable as possible.
  64. Long years of braces didn't work, so at 18 I had surgery to correct my underbite. Was no longer a Jay Leno look-alike, tragically.
  65. For some odd reason, all my scars are on the left side of my body.
  66. I am an excellent daydreamer.
  67. I always get a Ferris Bueller's Day Off feeling when I hand my car keys over to the valet attendant
  68. A guy once tried to pick me up in the toilet paper aisle of a grocery store.
  69. According to my ipod, I've listened to The National's "Start a War" 725 times. I had it on repeat while writing my 3rd book.
  70. I hate for people to touch my collarbone.
  71. I so love the preppy plaid pastels of Lilly Pulitzer, but can't carry the look off. I've tried. Photographic evidence destroyed
  72. I have the same birthday as Celine Dion and Vincent van Gogh. There's a joke about singing and not hearing in there somewhere.
  73. I was the Smart One. My sister was the Pretty One. Sometimes I wish it was the other way around.
  74. Make room and watch in awe: When I dance it's like Belinda Carlisle from the Go-Gos circa 1984.
  75. I once wanted to be a fashion designer in my teens, despite the fact that I have no idea how to sew.
  76. I've always wanted to put a pink streak in my hair.
  77. I have every issue of Sassy magazine from 1988-1994. Remember how sexy we thought Neil was? How cool Jane and Christina were?
  78. I wrote my college senior thesis on Alain Robbe-Grillet. I was into the obscure back then.
  79. This isn't very Southern of me, but I hate when people just drop by.
  80. I am, essentially, a big ol' introvert.
  81. And yet I once applied to be on MTV's The Real World.
  82. I'm Swedish, German, English and Scottish. And, according to my father, somehow mysteriously related to Pocahontas.
  83. I can twist my tongue into the shape of a three-leaf clover. Isn't your life somehow richer for knowing this about me?
  84. I played Ms. Pac Man so much as a kid I developed Pac Man elbow.
  85. I love to pack. I hate to travel.
  86. I laughed before I even wrote this: It weirds me out to put my finger in my belly button. Yes, I know it begs the question why.
  87. I have horrible posture. At some point, my motto became: Why sit when you can slouch?
  88. I can't stand the sound or feel of fingernails scraping across ice.
  89. My childhood imaginary friends were named Tonka and Tinka, twin girls with dark bowl cuts. Tinka was nice. Tonka broke my crayons.
  90. I am crazy superstitious.
  91. I changed my name to Rose when I was a little girl.
  92. I think cut grass smells like freshly-sliced cucumbers.
  93. I can name all nine supreme court justices.
  94. Dale and Thomas white chocolate and peanut butter popcorn. I die.
  95. Tie-dye and tiaras (not necessarily together) remind me of my mother.
  96. I cried for three hours after my very first television interview. The worst camera angle in the history of TV. Trust me.
  97. I drove a vintage 1968 Mercedes clunker in my teens and 20s, bought on the cheap from a bluegrass band. The trunk could fit 3 bass fiddles.
  98. When people ask me what I would do if I wasn't a writer, I have no answer.
  99. I lettered in chorus in high school. Had the jacket and everything. I've never claimed to be cool.
  100. People told me the 7 Things About Sarah on my website wasn't enough and they wanted to know more. Bet they're sorry they asked.