100 facts about me.

1.       Autumn is my favourite season. I also have a deep love of snow.

(Taken by my house this week)

2.       I frequently wake up and don’t know when I am. Because I don’t know when I am, I also obviously don’t know where I am. I then have to work through my life chronologically until it all clicks back into place for me. It can be very pesky.

3.       My first labour lasted only 7 minutes.

4.       I can’t scream. That’s not a metaphor.

5.       If I lived alone I would very happily live without a TV.

6.       My jobs have included, gallery assistant, writer of various things for various people, market trader, waitress, barmaid, sign writer, publicity officer, operations manager for a transport company, creator of painted wooden furniture and various other items of this nature, college lecturer, hostess for Mongolian restaurant, researcher, artists model, running an educational outreach programme for adults, outdoor pursuits instructor (rock climbing mostly), tea & coffee merchant, working in various shops, maker of puddings for a high end restaurant, prison librarian, maker of jewellery…… and lots of other stuff (including some significant ones). I choose to see myself as diverse.

7.       My love for the ‘christmas’ season knows no bounds. Yo ho ho.

8.       Deer in the forest are rarely scared of me even though they run from other people.

9.       Early on in our relationship N once told me that if he ever succeeded in turning me submissive he’d give me the internet username Fucked Fairy, as apparently I look fairylike when he’s banged my brains out.

10.   For years I never ever slept properly. I was always partly awake and could reply to a conversation at any point. For the first time ever this is abating. It's nice. Restful.

11.   My best friends are a deeply diverse bunch of people but I love them all.

12.   I am a very extroverted Myers Briggs type ENTJ, which explains a lot. I fit the profile extremely tightly, which rather clashes with my desire to believe I’m a glorious snowflake.

13. I wasn't always camp. I just woke up one day and it happened. Be afraid, it could happen to you too.
14.   Greek food is my favourite kind. Dolmades, hoummus, and haloumi oh my. With retsina preferably.

15.   My most prevalent spelling mistake is to muddle up the homophones ‘affect’ and ’effect’. I find this embarrassing but still use them interchangeably all the time.

16.   My passport in not in my real name (it’s complicated, but legal). I am hoping to try to get it changed now though which is why it popped into my head.

17.   My sense of humour is very coarse at times. You're shocked I know.

18.   My sitting rooms are always purple, my bedrooms are always red, and my kitchens are generally duck egg blue. I nest.

19.   Nearly every time I eat I say thankyou to the Universe in my head.

20.   I am crap at learning languages.

21.   I am improbably fond of camping and can put tents up very speedily.

22.   I am named after my Great Grandmother. My middle name is the name of the Polish woman who sold my Mother Polish cheesecake when she was pregnant (really). Unfortunately the names sounded horrendous together in a weird, rhymey way so thankfully my Mother was persuaded to change the cheesecake woman’s name to the English version. Though I really dislike this name, at least it doesn't rhyme with my first name, which is something.

23.   I am overtly safety conscious in some ways. I’m a room scanner and I pretty much always have a weapon about my person.

24.   I am hyper orgasmic.

25.   I am very Pollyanna-ish, yet somehow very pragmatic and cynical at the same time. It is generally considered a unique blend - and I choose to believe charming.

26.   I am very poorly travelled.  

27.   I blame my tragic love of make up on the fact that I desperately longed for a Girl’s World when I was a kid and never had one.  Actually, this may also partially account for my morbid horror regarding decapitations too.

28.   I cannot ride a horse, drive a car (though I’ve owned several), play Scrabble on a board without getting very freaked out (this is new information), or juggle. I also quite often can't work my DVD player but I'm sure that's normal.

29.    I currently have three small canvases drying on the TV stand.

30.   I don’t have any pets of the non-human variety.

31.   I get high doing all kinds of physical stuff and I crave it like a junkie craves a fix when I can’t do it.

32.   I find it incredibly hard that my hands are no longer able to do what they used to. I still know in my head how to paint (or whatever) to produce what I want to, but there’s a system failure. It makes me sad and frustrated.

33.   I had a huge crush on James Marsters once. I must have been in my late twenties. There was a poster, ‘ironically’ on my loo door.

34.   I make awesome cocktails.

35.   I had incredibly vivid flying dreams for my whole life until a few years ago when they just suddenly stopped. I miss them very much and have not been as happy since they went away. They were problematic at times though, as for years I would occasionally forget that I couldn’t fly when I was awake and would just step off things. I had numerous accidents like this as a kid. The last time I remember doing it I was twenty eight and stepped off a bank/ ledge in the grounds of Cambridge University.

36.   I have a huge aversion to even thinking about The Lord Of The Rings books.

37.   I have a lot of framed photographs dotted around my house.

38.   I have a teddy bear called Fluffy Bear. He was given to me the day I was born and I have kept him. He has been on adventures with me and had to be hidden in a paper towel dispenser for a long time once (This did not appear to traumatise him, thankfully. Though he has never spoken about it so maybe he’s just repressing the horror).  Aside: The irony of the fact that as a young child I looked at this bear and said ‘I own this bear and it’s fluffy – I’ll call him Fluffy Bear’ and thirty plus years later I looked at N and said ‘I need an internet username for him. He’s a boy and he’s mine – I’ll call him Tiaras_boy’’ is not lost on me. I am at least consistent, yes?

39.   I have an excellent memory for song words. I often hear a song once and find I know all the words next time I hear it.

40.   I have a lot of qualifications but many are not particularly useful. Unless they are relevant I leave the vast majority off my CV on purpose to avoid sounding like too much of a twat.

41.    I have an extreme aversion to cherry pie filling. I was fed it in vast quantities for several months once and over twenty years later it still appals me. Just typing about it has made me shudder. 

42.   In a similar manner I once had to live on mashed potato sandwiches every day for six months. To this day I could write the definitive word on mashed potato sandwiches (and detest instant mashed potato).

43.   I have an obsession with notebooks, lists and charts that is the subject of much mocking. Apart from a couple of friends who I have converted. I’m working on the rest.

44.   When I was about 14 or 15 I decided to tattoo the legend ‘FUCK THE SYSTEM’ in block capitals on my right thigh. As you do. Having completed the first round of cutting and inking I suddenly had a flash of clarity on round two and managed to stop, sadly depriving the world of this radical political statement, and  my no doubt wondrous artwork, forever. I’m sure we all agree that it was a sad loss. To this day however I have what looks like a very odd broken vein on my thigh where the beginning of round two took. Not wishing to feel thwarted in my Statement Of Whatever The Fuck I Was Stating I pierced my nose instead.  That showed ‘em.

45.   I have some reasonable ink too, but not a vast amount. It’s all pretty discreet. My favourite is a labrys (axe).

46.   When I was young I wanted lots of children but no partner. Also to possibly live on a commune.  And to wander the Earth global citizen stylee.

47.   I have been vegetarian since I was thirteen or fourteen, for reasons far too lengthy to explain here.

48.   Yesterday I was thinking how much I’d like to sell the house and open a small gallery. I haven’t mentioned this to N.

49.   I have successfully brought two babies into the world.  

50.   I have lived in all sorts of places including a library, brothel, car, beach hut, garage, caravan, kid’s homes, squats, a caravan, a pool hall….. even a few houses.

51.   I have only three photos of me as a child. One is when I was a toddler and I have the most crazy red hair and am carrying a doll I called Hamble (after the Playschool doll) but who was named 'Black Dolly' by my Mother as the doll was indeed black, which was unusual in Britain in the early seventies.  The later two photos are aged six or seven and my hair is blonde.

52.   I have raised several kids in addition to my own.

53.   I have thousands of books.

54.   I had to have surgery on my jaw a couple of years ago. Before this it was constant awful pain and I could hardly open my mouth at all. The surgery was eventually successful, and nowadays I still feel an excited thrill every time I bite into an apple - it feels like an achievement.

55.   I have what is colloquially called a ‘patterning brain’. This explains a great deal about me.

56.   I left school shortly after I turned 13.

57.   I like the TV show Judging Amy and refuse to be ashamed of this despite the fact I clearly should be. Maxine rocks.

58.   I loathe housework. It sucks. I am therefore extremely glad to have a slave.

59.   I love cathedrals and intend to eventually visit every one in the UK.

60.   I love cities. I have lived out of Cambridge for four years now & I still pine for it. It still feels like home.

61.   I like Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers. If I get fucked up it helps because for all it’s ‘Wow, Life, and flowers and sunshine and love!’ stuff, it basically says ‘Get off your arse and get on with things and it will be better than doing nothing’ which appeals to my core nature.

62.   I love my house to reek of essential oils and herbs and incense and candles, but it torments N’s sinuses so I contain myself, but pine for my home to be saturated with scent again.

63.   I love the ballet.

64.   I have technically had a ‘stroke’, having sustained a head injury that caused a brain bleed and made various abilities misfire. The most obvious sign is that I occasionally still muddle up words, but it’s mostly ok now. For years I made the words ‘dog’ and ‘radio’ interchangeable – ‘that radio is barking very loudly’. ‘Can you turn the dog up, I like this song’. My friends consider this freaking hilarious.

65.   I met two of my best friends because they taught me. I choose to believe this proves I am an exemplary student despite the vast amount of evidence to the contrary.

66.   I never drink ‘hot drinks’ hot, I have to leave them to go lukewarm first as it hurts otherwise.

67.   I newly fancy the woman from the Farrow and Ball shop in Cambridge.

68.   I often non consciously say ‘I want to go home’ in my sleep or when I’m distressed. I have always done this. I don’t know why.

69.   I once narrowly avoided getting arrested for using a crossbow on the land next to a hotel car park in Blackpool. The police officer let it drop after I threw a hot girl in a PVC and cat ears in his direction.

70.   I once tried to hang myself and the bar I had attached my noose (a dressing gown belt, such a cliché) to collapsed. I got the crap kicked out of me for breaking the bar, but overall I’m still counting this as a result. It could have been worse.

71.   I take photographs obsessively.

72.   I talk in my sleep. I sing too actually.

73.   I think I may have stumbled upon my half sister online, but I have never told her. And I could be wrong anyway. But aside from the hard stuff like names and dates, the similarities are so freaky you couldn’t make it up.

74.   I voluntarily went to church as a child. I liked it, but after taking confirmation classes I declined at the last minute finding some of the stuff objectionable. I like the Prayer of St. Francis though.

75.   I want a camper van

76.   I want to be legally called Katy Von Carnage. I think it suits me.

77.   I Want To Be The Girl With The Most Cake

78.   I was a Ring Master (replete with a top hat and fishnet tights) in a school play when I was eight. It involved faux ‘sexy’ posing like a ‘glamorous assistant’, introducing the acts, and wielding a whip.

79.   I was conceived on a notoriously dangerous cliff edge. This seems oddly fitting.

(This one)

80.   I was born on an island.

81.   I was once signed off work for two weeks with a really horrible bacterial throat infection,  was pumped full of antibiotics and ordered to rest. I was exhausted as I was working such extremely long hours so I left the Doctors, walked into a travel agent and booked a holiday to Tunisia leaving the next day.  I figured I could rest and recover in the sun as I so desperately needed a break. Then I got to the very hot country and developed a huge fever. I still remember being delirious and unsure if camels really existed.

82.   I won a country wide art competition when I was five. Talent baby.

83.   I’m a serious party girl when drunk. Give me enough booze and I decide that everyone I’m with needs more fun in their lives. There are whole years of my life that when I think back on them are from a physically lofty perspective despite my 5’4 stature, simply because I was so often busy dancing around on a table/ bar/ roof.

84.   If I was a Whedon character I would be a hybrid of Darla and Dru. And Tara, who is like the nice bits of me.

85.   A teeny part of me would really love to try heroin. Given my love of the highs of life I know I’d get hooked though so I won’t.

86.   Once, aged about twenty two, I sequestered myself in a caravan in the pouring rain, and read the complete works of Forster. I now have no bloody idea why.

87.   Compared to most people I drink loads of fluids.

88.   The best gig I ever attended was Skunk Anansie in about 1997-ish. And not just because Skin is one of the most shag worthy women ever either.

89.   The way crocodiles walk freaks me the fuck out.

90.   There are loads of things I don’t know about doing because I didn’t do them at the normal time, and then everyone expects you to know them because ‘everybody knows how to X’.  This makes me really uncomfortable.

91.   More than one of my ex partners have believed I was a supernatural being.  Snort.

92.   Today I am wearing my special Halloween knickers.

93.   When I urgently needed money while pregnant a few years ago I sold my piano, most of my valuable books, and loads of other things.  I therefore own very little that’s worth anything financially (other than my house and a few books)
94.   I have dreams about drowning that make me feel weirdly blissful and calm  – which is particularly odd as I especially detest drowning.

95.   There’s a work file on me with the legend ‘UXB’ scrawled on the front in marker pen.

96.   I like opals and moonstones.

97.   I detest the sudden Americanisation of British spelling.

98.   I play Tori Amos more than any other artist.

99.   I wanted to be a midwife once upon a time.

100.  The most interesting facts about me are not going on this list. You get the random stuff, you lucky lucky people.