Obligatory 100 Things About Me. Sex, Drugs, and Satan Detectors.

*If any of the following seems random, most of these "things" are in response to readers' questions for what they wanted me to cover in my 100 Things*


100 Things about Megan's Velveteen Mind

1. I grew up in Southern Illinois, in between a cornfield and a soy bean field or some other such squatty crop.
2. My parents didn't monitor what I watched on TV in the basement, so I watched a lot of HBO.  The results:  deviant elementary school behavior, totally on the down low...
3. My best friend, Natalie, lived across the street and we once killed a frog by throwing it up in the air and catching it in a frisbee until it died.  Horror, I know.
4. Natalie and I also got busted by her mom making Barbie go down on Ken.  Good Lord, right?
5. Later, I prank called Natalie's mom while she was having a party.  I'm not even sure I disguised my voice.  I may have threatened to kidnap Natalie.  Pretty convincing, I'm sure, coming from a seven year old's voice on the other end of the line.  In fact, I may have even been looking out my bedroom window at Natalie's house while making the call.  Yeah, I was totally skilled at covert prank calls.
6. This was back in the 80's when almost every movie on HBO showed lots of boobs, so once, while playing cops and robbers with a neighbor boy, he tackled me to the ground to "cuff me," and I said, "Now you are either supposed to put me under arrest or start kissing me." 
7. I'm not going to let my kids watch HBO unsupervised in our basement.
8. Yet I didn't grow up to be a hooker or a slutty robber.
9. My husband is the only man I've ever slept with.
10. And, no, I've never had sex with a woman, you pervs.
11. But I do still have dreams about old boyfriends.  Gah.
12. Maguire told me that he loved me first.
13. I said it right back.
14. I did not, however, say yes immediately after he proposed marriage.
15. My response was, "Where is your guitar?"
16. He sold his highly prized Taylor acoustic guitar to buy my engagement ring.
17. When we got engaged, I was working in the mental ward of a hospital.
18. My degree is in psychology, English, and sociology.
19. If I had a paid job, I would be a psychologist.
20. The mental ward was right off of the ER and one of my jobs was to strip search the patients that were admitted.
21. That meant lifting up women's floppy boobs and men's stinky balls to check for razor blades and other contraband.
22. I worked in the psych ward of the hospital during the midnight shift of New Year's Eve 1999-2000.  The turn of the Millennium.
23. One of the patients swore she was pregnant with the AntiChrist.
24. One of the other patients swore he had a "Satan detector" in his brain.
25. My job was to keep him from screaming that his Satan detector was going off while standing outside of her door on the ward.
26. I quit that job when our patient population became primarily senior citizens with dementia.
27. I can deal with you if you are crazy, but not if you are sad that your family doesn't visit you anymore because you have dementia and think you are still a schoolteacher and that I'm your 2nd grade student.  It just made me too sad and I couldn't shake it at the end of the day.
28. I've also been a tutor, teaching children and adults how to read, as well as a stationery store manager in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
29. The stationery store I managed was named the top new stationery store in the country by Lucky magazine while I managed it.
30. I have met more celebrities than I can count.
31. The Times Picayune in New Orleans printed a story quoting me as referring to Dustin Hoffman as "my boyfriend."
32. I spent close to four hours with Dustin Hoffman in my store one day.
33. The person I really wanted to spend four hours with was John Cusack.
34. I spent fourteen minutes in a psychic tea shop with John Cusack.
35. John Cusack likes my taste in tea.
36. I met the band Korn in my shop one day.
37. They all told me their names were Pete.
38. I believed them until the third one said, "My name is Pete."
39. I have trouble faking that I know anything about Korn.
40. I also apparently have trouble faking that I like Lisa Loeb's music.
41. I am excellent at pretending that I don't recognize a celebrity.
42. I can spot one a mile away.
43. Even if their only claim to fame is being the kid that played the young Tom Hanks in Big.
44. I am not above stalking.
45. I am above closing a store so your celebrity client can shop undisturbed by fans.
46. Quit that job, too.
47. I usually quit jobs after six months.  A year at the max.
48. The other paid job I would like to have is as a writer for parenting magazines.
49. I would love to write for Parents or Wondertime.
50. My career goals have not really changed since I've had kids.
51. I've always wanted to work in psychology and/ or write.
52. Although I used to want to be a marine biologist.
53. Until I developed a fear of open water.
54. I am convinced something is going to eat me when I'm in the ocean.
55. I also wanted to be a ballerina...  for about five seconds.
56. A ballerina poster on my wall as a kid said, "Dream your dream, then do your best.  Never doubt and never rest, until that dream is yours."
57. I've never forgotten that.
58. I still would like to have a wrecked old pair of pointe shoes.
59. Now my dream is to be on Oprah.
60. Actually, that's my husband's dream for me.
61. I'd like to be on Yo Gabba Gabba!
62. The show topic for my spot on Oprah would have to be about raising confident kids.
63. I consciously think about how to raise my boys to be confident and cool.
64. I think the VH1 show "The Pickup Artist" is awesome.
65. And, yes, I believe it is not so much about picking up girls, but more about building a life.
66. I blame the geeky nature of the guys on that show on their mothers.
67. If I was on Yo Gabba Gabba!, I would either want to do the "dancey dance" segment or a segment about sharing.
68. And I would have my picture taken rubbing on that big red thing because it is hilarious.
69. I've never touched a real dildo.
70. I've also never touched more than one adult penis in my life.
71. I was not, however, a prude.
72. I drank like a fish in high school.
73. I drank like a whale in college.
74. My favorite alcoholic drink is a Tom Collins.
75. Although I used to drink straight vodka in college.
76. I can grind like nobody's fool on the dance floor.
77. Maguire is totally ashamed of my naughty dancing.
78. My favorite non-alcoholic drink is coffee.
79. My friend Laura and I once tried to drink as much coffee as our stomachs could handle in college.
80. My stomach can't take more than a pot of coffee in an hour.
81. My favorite thing to do is hit a bookstore with a cup of coffee and read for hours.
82. But if given the choice, I can think of a handful of old boyfriends that I would still grind on the dance floor with rather than that lame night at the bookstore thing.
83. I occasionally still keep in touch with old boyfriends.
84. My husband knows about it.
85. I married the right man.
86. My husband does not like most of the same things I like.
87. We have very little in common when it comes to entertainment.
88. I've been trying to think of a segue to answer a reader's question pitch of "which comic strip would you like a guest spot in" for a few lines now.
89. I don't read comic strips. 
90. Or newspapers.
91. But I'd say "Calvin and Hobbes."
92. I'm not very politically minded.
93. I've never voted.
94. I'm not registered to vote.
95. I am ashamed of this but, eh.
96. I will, however, post some fairly political things soon.
97. If you think I shouldn't have a voice because I don't vote, I agree with you.
98. "I use my dress to wipe up my drink.  I care less and less what people think."
99. I love Ani Difranco.  Her music.  Not her politics.
100. I love this blog.  And I love comments.  Even if I don't always respond.  I adore every single one of the comments you take the time to write.  You deserve better, but you are stuck with me.  Even when I break the rules and put five extra things in my last "100 things" thing.

*Thanks to my friends Heather and Jarrod for sending me all of these college pictures, as well as the one of me as the ballerina.  I lost all of these in the storm.  Thank the Lord Heather is a ballerina and that I gave her that picture while we were in college, too.  One of my all-time favorites.  Megan the Sassy Ballerina.

**This is a repost.  Read the comments on the original post and witness my having a can of political whoop-ass opened on me.