I'll be out of town for the next couple of days (assuming the flu situation is under control), so I'm presenting you with a nice big essay to keep you busy.

Fifty Things You May or May Not Know About Me

1. As of Christmas Day I will be 16.4167 years old.
2. The fingers on my left hand are very slightly longer than those on my right.
3. I almost never bother to wear matching socks.
4. I have a crescent-shaped scar on my upper lip.
5. My eyes are "the color of lichen" (not the way I would have put it, but hey).
6. I keep my fingernails short, but I have to trim them all the time. They grow freakishly fast.
7. Sentences that end with prepositions cause me to fly into an embarrassingly horrific rage.
8. I have a thing for comic-book superheroes, especially the Incredible Hulk.
9. The first ‘favorite song’ I ever had was the theme to The Untouchables. I was 18 months old, and much dancing ensued (at least according to my parents).
10. I know all the words to commercial jingles for Oscar Mayer, Hy-Vee, and Fig Newtons.
11. I’m addicted to Diet Dr Pepper.
12. I have a very difficult time getting to sleep, but once I do, I’m out.
13. The last color I painted my toenails was black. I don’t paint my fingernails.
14. I had my Ghost World-type abandonment experience the summer I turned fourteen. The friend was a 13-year-old pageant queen named Jackie (Jessie’s sister, not coincidentally), and I still can’t look the girl in the eye.
15. The first concert I ever saw was Clay Walker at the State Fair (Jackie dragged me there).
16. The last concert I went to was some crappy Christian rock band at a scarily straight-edge club called the U-Turn in Watertown (my friend Katie dragged me there).
17. I adore Swedish Fish.
18. I have four pairs of Levi’s 518s that I keep in constant rotation.
19. The best birthday present I got on my 16th birthday was my pair of checkerboard Vans (thanks, Jessie).
20. Daisies and hibisci are my favorite flowers.
21. I don’t understand the concept of downs in football.
22. I painted a reproduction of Kandinsky’s Winter Landscape for my art project last year.
23. School is easy for me.
24. I have a collection of "disabled elephant" knick-knacks. It's complicated.
25. I keep a list of words my various English teachers have mispronounced.
26. I’ve been told that I do a mean karaoke of “Mickey.”
27. I have smaller-than-average hands.
28. The movie Robocop has scarred me forever. I saw it when I was five years old. That was the same year that my dad made me watch an animated version of Animal Farm and told me it was "like a Disney movie." And that, my friends, is why I'm so screwed up.
29. I rabidly hate clichés, but I use them all the time.
30. I am deathly, deathly shy around people I don’t know. We’re talking Boo Radley levels.
31. For me, dancing is taboo, even though I’ve been told I do it well.
32. I only get one haircut a year.
33. I’ve never met a real celebrity (not counting politicians).
34. When I was four, my parents took me to a political rally to see then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. I couldn’t see, so my dad lifted me up to sit on his shoulders. I was quoted in the paper as shouting, “Now I can see everything!” Nothing like political opportunism.
35. I hate all the Care Bears with a flaming passion, with the notable exception of Grumpy Bear.
36. At the blood drive on December 19, I paid my friend Clint a penny to eat a spoonful of coffee grounds. It was gross and cool at the same time. He’s kind of an idiot.
37. I have no tattoos or piercings, as I am quite afraid of needles. I also don’t understand the appeal of punching holes in one’s head.
38. I have naturally straight teeth.
39. I adore the smell of Play-Doh.
40. Music and art are hard for me, but I love them.
41. I hate memorization in school. I like logic and thinking problems.
42. My favorite numbers are 11, 13, and 19.
43. I’m very good with houseplants.
44. I have no patience for hip-hop, with the notable exception of Outkast.
45. I’ve perfected the art of tying my shoes without using my thumbs.
46. I cannot sculpt. I was the bane of the art class during our unit on clay. My art teacher had a tough time pretending that my clay gargoyle was anything short of abominable.
47. I can coin-walk.
48. I have an inability to tell left from right and have terrible depth perception. I cannot estimate distances, numbers, or amounts at all.
49. I do, however, have an uncanny sense of direction.
50. My toothbrush is magenta with green and white bristles.