my first memes :)

i'm new to the meme thing, but all the ones i've read so far have been great, and i'm thrilled that alexa over at cleveland's a plum and just playing pretend gave me my very first ones!

so, without further ado, alexa's questions are in teal and just playin's are in red:

1. so i'm a newish reader of your blog. tell me something fun about yourself that i just simply need to know.
well, i know all the words to all the songs of the high school musical trilogy, and i thoroughly enjoy the entire hannah montana franchise. i don't think i need to elaborate on this, haha.

2. you have to listen to only three CD's for the rest of your life, what are they? you also can only watch three movies for the rest of your life - spill it.
CDs
jack's mannequin: everything in transit
taylor swift: fearless
cities97 sampler, volume 17, 2005

movies
the holiday (i still don't own a copy - i'm too cheap to buy it - but i am THRILLED when i see it on the free ondemand menu)
10 things i hate about you (most quotable movie EVER)
my big fat greek wedding (my sister and i watch this at least twice every time i'm home and usually text quotes back/forth)

3. talk to me about your relationship status. update me please.
well, i've had two long relationships and a few short-lived ones. currently i'm "on a break" with a handsome blond athlete named trevor (i am usually not attracted to blond guys unless they are of the celebrity genre, i.e. paul walker, brad pitt). we started dating about a month after i moved to milwaukee for work. i met him at a flag football game that a colleague (his roommate) invited me to join in on. it was a wonderful four-and-a-half months, and then i heard i was moving to reno. we discussed our options, and seeing as i'm afraid of long distance relationships and am convinced it would fail miserably, the decision to "take a break" (i hate that expression) was mutually agreed upon. we still talk regularly, and we're technically not exclusive but neither of us have seen anyone else. i now wish we had tried the distance thing, and i'm deathly afraid that by the time i get back (mid-april), one of us won't feel the same as we did before.

4. if you could change one thing - either your career, your living location, or your age which one would you change and why?
right now, my living location. i'm loving my twenties - they've been a blast so far! i also love absolutely everything about my job, with the exception of the fact that they have an office here in reno. i was living the dream (as cliche as that sounds) in milwaukee and holding out for the chance to go to boston or seattle for awhile. i'm a city girl through and through, and reno is just not doing it for me. it makes minneapolis seem like a three-times-as-big-new-york-city. you've got the strip, the suburbs, and the desert between the mountains. wahoo.

5. do you have a blogger crush? if so who and why?
i am absolutely in love with the blogs of chris, lilu, and you, alexa. they are the first ones i read and the ones i remember the most. they make me laugh out loud (for real, not just an "lol" type thing) and think at the same time. if you're inquiring as to an actual attraction to another blogger, no, i do not. haha, weird.

1. You have some tattoos you've written about. How many tattoos do you have and what's the meaning behind them?
i have two.

the first one i got because there was a meteor shower the night i was born. my mom was in labor for about 22 hours, and the shower started as soon as the nurses told her to push and lasted until i was out and crying to the world. my dad tears up every time he's reminded of this. (side note: it's hard to draw an actual meteor shower, so i decided to do shooting stars)

the second one i got basically because i knew i wanted another one. it took me two years to figure out what to get. i was debating between my family's creed/motto (i'm 75% italian) and a latin phrase (i took latin in high school and college). i went with the latin option after digging through my old workbooks last fall and came across "she flies with her own wings." that was that and there you have it.

i don't think i'll ever get another one, but if i did, it would probably be behind my ear or on the bottom of my foot.

2. You've discussed some unsatisfaction with your current residence in Reno. So what's the worst and then the best part of living in Reno?
the worst: it's a junky city, which is just something that comes with being a town built on the gambling industry. oh, and there's hookers. lots of them. i think a lot of it also comes from the fact that my life here basically only consists of work and work people. i live with coworkers who are also in the training program, and so i basically only hang out with them, which is a really narrow social circle - something i'm not used to. and now that i've started working nights, i hardly see them (they're on a day schedule now), and my schedule makes it nearly impossible to meet other people (sleep all day, work all night), so i feel like it's just me here alone.

the best: i'm within 12 driving hours of the biggest cities in the western part of the country. two hours from sacramento (home to a beyond-brilliant shopping center with outlets ranging from coach to burberry to banana republic to puma and more!), four hours from san francisco, seven from las vegas, eight from los angeles, ten from portland, twelve from seattle. of course, to get a weekend away to anywhere farther than san fran, i'd likely fly. and flights going in and out of reno are cheap!

3. In your opinion, what is your best personality trait?
i'm someone to trust. i have never, ever divulged a secret told to me, not even in elementary school, and i don't intend to start now. the lone exception would be, obviously, if some sort of action needed to be taken.

4. What's the funniest thing that has happened in your life in the past week?
okay, there's this woman (probably forties) at the gym who has really long hair. i mean, past her ass. it's thick and uneven and sort of comes to a point at the bottom, ya know? she always wears it completely down when she works out. she must get really hot (duh) under that blanket of waves and therefore flips her hair over her shoulder and dabs at her neck with her gym towel in a sort of "look at me! i'm fabulous!"-type way. she also has these wispy bangs that she sort of spikes up when they're sweaty.

so i'm on the climber yesterday, which is on the upper level overlooking the weights area on the main floor, and i see her using one of the shoulder presses. her hair is so long that she's actually sitting on a lot of it in the machine chair. she lifts the machine arms and sets them back down a few times, and when she gets up, she (and i, and others around) realizes her long-ass hair has indeed gotten stuck in the gears of the machine. she became hysterical and started flailing her arms like a bird trying to stay up in the air. i had to get off the climber to breathe because i could barely hold in my laughter.

one of the trainers tried to help her out and couldn't, so he began to yell to the girl at the front desk: "SHANNON! BRING ME THOSE DAMN SCISSORS NOW!!!! BRING THEM TO ME NOW! COME ON! COME ON! NOW!!" it was mass chaos - everyone stopped what they were doing to watch. the woman was still flailing and wailing. one group of college guys actually laid down and rolled on the floor because they were laughing so hard they couldn't stand anymore. shannon and the trainer had to cut her hair out of the gears, leaving the left side about six inches shorter than the right.

i overheard the manager later telling her he was glad she wasn't hurt, but she is from this point forward forever required to wear her hair up and in some sort of bun.

5. A rich old man comes into your life and offers you 500,000 dollars a year to marry him and comply to his every whim. What do you do?

i'd have to weigh many factors, like his level of attractiveness, genetic traits, age.

if he's got the george clooney look going on, daaaaayaaaam.

if he also comes from a healthy line of smart, solid people, perhaps.

if he also has the energetic, vibrant life thing going on and was good in bed, yes.

of course, if he's really old, he hopefully probably wouldn't have the energy to want to do anything sexual. i mean, hugh hefner is a one of a kind in that regard.

if i was really desperate for moolah, i'd get a lawyer to write up a contract saying if we happen to divorce i don't have to pay him back, and then i'd marry him, stay for a year, divorce the dude, and get on with my life.

okay folks, there you have it. that was fun - thank you alexa and just playing! :) if you'd like to be interviewed, email me at cavfc.blog at gmail dot com. thinking of questions will certainly be as enjoyable as answering them.