I Never…

…know how to start a list-y entry like this one.

…stop being amazed by seasons. When I moved from Miami to Southern California everyone laughed at me because I was all stunned that some parts of the year were colder than others. People from cold horrible places would tell me that they missed real seasons. People tell me that here too, while I’m all excited about wind and rain and sun and cherry trees.

…want to get up early in the morning to go to the gym but I almost always make it. I did this morning, I’m happy to report. My goal for the week is to make it a five-days-of-exercise-week. Monday I went to bellydance for the first time in several weeks and now my whole body hurts. Bellydance, she is a cruel mistress. She does not want you to take a week off, ever.

…really stop missing my various friends and family in far-flung places.

…have had to pay taxes before, but I do this year, and I double-checked TurboTax, and I still have to pay, and I don’t quite understand it. Everyone I know who makes way more money than me is getting a return. I resent this very much.

…have been scuba diving, or parasailing, or jetskiing, or any of the other things that you’d think I’d have picked up growing up on an island full of tourists every winter.

…enjoy shopping for clothes, ever ever ever ever.

…have dyed my hair.

…get tired of Jane Austen.

…go to the yarn store prepared. I went on Sunday with big grandiose ideas in my head about baby blankets and maybe a hat for Carl and then realized I couldn’t find the book that had the patterns I wanted and I didn’t like any of the patterns in the store and I spent almost two hours dithering about and annoying the yarn ladies and finally gave up and bought two skeins of pink and two of orange and I’m making myself a hat and scarf in plain old garter stitch and yesterday when I got home I finally found the book that has the patterns in it but I’m going to give myself this weekend off from yarn shopping anyway.

…live up to my various expectations for myself, be they very profound (“By age thirty, I will totally have my shit together and also will have discovered the meaning of my life”) or very ridiculous (“I should be able to sing ‘Careless Whisper” in a convincing manner the next time I do karaoke”) or very mundane (“I should really clean this bathtub sometime soon”).

…did study abroad when I was in college. It’s one of my biggest regrets and I have to stop talking about it right now before the tears begin to fall.

…got all the things out of the house that I was supposed to get out of the house this morning. I had all my library books in a bag next to the shower curtain from Target (hate you, Swell Collection!) that I have to take back, all ready to go so that I could drive by the library and then stop at Target to exchange the shower curtain for one that will actually deflect water from the bathroom floor instead of cascading it merrily about in great puddles. Where are those bags now? Those bags are still on my living room floor, waiting patiently for me to get off work, get on the bus, go home, take all my stuff upstairs, look longingly at the couch and at my French CDs I was planning to listen to tonight, get the bags, get back in the car, go to Target, go to the library, and finally get home and make dinner and maybe hang up the new shower curtain, if in fact I even get a new shower curtain.

…have been drunk.

…exactly understand the whys and wherefores of Daylight Savings time, although usually I keep pretty quiet about that.

…have taken a Spanish class, although I can fake spoken Spanish sometimes and can usually suss out written Spanish.

…use phrases like “suss out” in my day-to-day speech. I also never use the words “frightful” or “dreadful” but I plan to remedy that immediately.

…have been out dancing at a real club, you know, like the kind Ludacris keeps singing about. Most of my dancing experience, I regret to inform you, has been in my living room and in dorms. I think I’m actually afraid to dance in front of strangers. I don’t count stuff like salsa dancing because technically that happens in a ballroom and while people do go clubbing I don’t think anyone goes ballrooming.

…have successfully worn high heels.

…have wished my parents would get back together or that they hadn’t divorced.

…have been to Africa or Asia or Australia or South America.

…have taken tap dancing, even though I really want to.

…stop wishing that I had better fashion sense. Or that I had a better body that didn’t need a fashion sense, that just looked great in whatever I happened to throw on that day. These days I play it pretty safe and wear jeans and tee shirts a lot.

…went to my prom. Hard to believe, right? Yeah. I’m fine with it, except every now and then I get this feeling that…something is missing. I check my keys and my kids and then I realize…nothing is missing. I’ve decided it’s side affects of missing my prom.

…like sleeping in a sleeping bag when I’m camping. I am not, usually, a feet-sticker-outer when I’m in my bed, but there’s something about the sleeping bag…which is a very nice sleeping bag, oddly enough…that makes me totally want to stick my feet out and then get all freaked out and claustrophobic when I can’t.

…realized that the relatively clear skin I have enjoyed for the past ten years was basically just a very nice side effect of taking the pill, and that my real skin was lurking underneath, waiting for the price of the pill to go up far enough for me to finally throw my hands up and refuse to pay it anymore, so that it could show itself for the blotchy, pimply mess it truly is. I feel like I’m fifteen up in here, with my terrible terrible skin. This is difficult for me because I’ve never…

…worn makeup except for when I’ve been in plays, and I don’t have much of a beauty regimen as such, and now, apparently, I need one, and it’s driving me mad. I don’t think I’ll start wearing makeup though. It seems too hard.

…have as much fun as I do at the ABL party every year. Although JournalCon 2003 was a very very very very strong contender.

…have been successful with trying to grow anything, ever, including basil in a pot. I water and give sun and everything but they always all die. This is very sad as my mom is a great plant lover and has a beautiful garden and sometimes I fear I have disappointed her terribly.

…can imagine what a piece of furniture or a picture or a rug or a shower curtain will look like in my house. Going to IKEA is thus quite fraught with peril for me.

…can think of myself as a real grown-up, even though I know it’s sort of precious and even though I have many of the accoutrements of grown-up-ness, like taxes and a car and…uh, well, that’s it. Oh, FiestaWare, I have some old FiestaWare, that’s grown up, right?

…stop thinking about the trip. This time in May…well, actually, this time in May I will have just returned and will be all jet-lagged. Probably I will be procrastinating posting my pictures up.

…thought that when the twins showed up at my door that they would want to [CENSORED] instead of taking charitable donations for the Society Of Scantily Dressed Japanese Schoolgirls Gone Wild like they said they were, and that all of a sudden I would be [CENSORED] when the cable repair guy walked in and without much warning we’d be all [CENSORED] and that I’d be experiencing [CENSORED] while [CENSORED] and finished things up with a little [CENSORED] in a very surprising place.

…know how to end these list-y type entries.