12) I spent almost every August until I was well into my twenties on Martha's Vineyard, and the path to Lambert's Cove Beach will always be my favorite walk in the world.
13) I once had a Diet Coke problem and could drink a two-liter bottle or more every day. I stopped altogether one day years ago for no real reason and switched to coffee, and it is only this year that I have started to enjoy an occasional soda, although I now prefer the fountain version to bottles or cans. I realize this, more so than most of these also picayune items, is of zero interest to anyone, including myself.
14) At one point when I was a teenager and training six days a week I had to decide if I wanted to pursue ballet as a career, to try to become a professional dancer, and I decided against it. I have never regretted this decision, but I often miss ballet and sometimes realize I am standing in first or fifth position when waiting for the subway or standing in line.
15) I am still in touch with my eighth grade French exchange student, who lives in Paris and seems just as glamourous and exciting as she did when we were both fourteen. She took me to my first nightclub in 1984, and I remember that Kool and the Gang was playing on what seemed like an endless loop and her boyfriend, to my shock, was 21.
16) I am defensive about being considered domestic but am expert at the hardcore, old-fashioned domestic arts. I can make jam, can tomatoes, pickle cucmbers, sew by hand and machine, embroider and quilt. I have a sewing basket. I have made many samplers. This item was the hardest to write, and I will regret it later; it gets to the supressed but real part of me that wishes I were a glass-ceiling-breaking CEO.
17) I find organizing, as in linen closets, bookshelves, cabinets, very satisfying, but am a legitimate slob and only mind piles of dust and dog hair because I know they are considered socially unacceptable.
18) Until my 30s I thought my head looked really weird when my hair was in a ponytail, so I never wore one. Since giving birth to my first child, my hair has been pulled back in a loop approximately 95% of the time.
19) I hate buying things in restaurants, bakeries or food stores that I can make better myself. I will spend a lot of money on and time seeking out the best versions of food that I can't or won't ever make, such as croissants, sourdough bread, cheese, toffee, chocolate and crackers.
20) I vividly remember my mother standing at the counter eating crackers and cheese in the evenings with a glass of white wine, and this always did, and still does, seem somehow elegant to me.
21) I hate exercise for the sake of exercise and only do it when I feel I absolutely have to, although I used to love playing team sports and can walk for hours in the city. I only added the last part of that sentence so I wouldn't seem lazy. I hate exercise.
22) My earliest memory is of sitting around a little table in preschool at snack time and feeling mortified that the sound of my chewing--graham crackers--was so loud. Years later I realized that chewing sounds much louder to the chewer than it does to anybody else and felt only somewhat mollified that nobody else could have noticed the sound.
23) When I got married I had to give up down due to my husband's allergies, and when I am at a hotel or a friend's house where the bed is layered in puffy, feather-filled comforters and pillows it now seems a tremendous, blissful luxury. I actively miss my down comforter and pillows.
24) I really wish I could sing and worship those I love who can do so.
25) I adore lists like this, reading them more than writing them, and would be happy if every single person I knew were required to fill one out and send it to me. I would pore over them and remember every line.
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