This is my first thursday thirteen and I see that my friend, the junk drawer, does hers by alphabet, and that seemed like a pretty good idea to me, so this week’s thursday thirteen will feature the letter “A” (for apple, anomaly, and alcohol)

1.  Well if you haven’t heard, I’m an avid reader. Seriously, I’ve read 31 books so far this year (since January) and still have loads and loads more books on my list of “to read” – I’m an addict you could say.

2.  I have become recently obsessed with the ABC’s when I realized that somehow my son had learned almost all the letters by. his. self. Seriously, I didn’t even teach him, at least not initially, but when I realized how quickly he picked it up and how well, I’ve become an ABC-holic, introducing it everywhere in every form I can think of.

3. Speaking of apples, I don’t really like them – I like the sugary syrupy kind found in apple pie or apple tart, but eating an actual apple? I’m incredibly picky. For one thing – I won’t eat it whole, it has to be cored and cut in manageable pieces. And I don’t like red apples at all, unless they are in a pie. I prefer granny smith or golden delicious. And if it starts to brown, I will lose interest. Which all seems like a waste of a perfectly good apple, and thus I don’t really eat them.

4. I don’t really like alcohol either. I kind of like drinking, but never really enjoy the drink which seems retarded. There are a few small exceptions that I do sometimes enjoy like a white russian, buttershots or a Mike’s or Smirnoff of some variety, but sometimes I think even then I’m only drinking as an act of quiet rebellion – I am allowed to drink now being a grown up and so i do, because it’s more interesting than simply having a coke.

5. I think I will always be an academic. I love to learn and dreadfully miss college not for the drinking or dating or silliness, but for the homework, projects, papers and lessons learned constantly. I can’t wait for MLM to start school so I can be privy to all his classes and homework and projects and papers…

6. I am only recently learning to accept who I am and who I’m not. I am not thin, I am not graceful, I am not crafty. I am honest, and moody and obsessive with things like books, jobs, and friends. I grow attachments easily and let go of things just as easily, to flitter on to something else. But some of those bigger attachments are harder to break and often break me in the process. It’s who I am.

7. I’ve learned to adjust quickly to change due to the fact that I have moved a lot. My father and I seemed to move every two years or so and even in college and beyond I have always seemed to move around a lot. I lived in 5 different places during my 4 years of college and since graduating in 2005 I have moved three times. And I know I’m not done. My son also adjusts remarkably well to change and new locations, which I’m very proud of but I hope that we can stay in one basic place while he’s in school. I think stability is just as important and it’s something I never had much of growing up in the way of a permanent landscape and a home to call my own.

8. I love to accessorize – I can never have too many shoes, hats, handbags, and layers. I do not however wear a lot of jewelry – just my wedding rings and a watch, which I feel naked without.

9. I have frequently worried that I am not affectionate enough and then sometimes worry that I might be too affectionate, trying to make up for that fact. I grew up without a mother and so I’ve had to define motherly ways for myself as I grew up without a good example (although I grew up with great examples of grandmothers and aunts to give them credit, they were wonderful). I have a tendency to push things away and then pull them back with all my might.

10. I could never be an activist, but I do have a lot of ideals that my heart strives for. My problem is that I see things too broadly to narrow my field of vision to small causes. I want world peace, not just the immediate relief of one area, and I’d end up giving myself to everything until there was nothing left.

11. I am terrified of abandonment – I worry constantly that people will learn something they don’t like about me and book it, as far away as possible. I know why I have these fears but it doesn’t seem to make them go away. All I can really do is keep those fears safely at bay and try to live my life. But I know that I worry way too much what others think of me because of that and I’m a bit of a doormat sometimes because of it. And then I sometimes go out of my way to be the opposite, giving my life more of a yin yang effect – more of the pushing and pulling you could say.

12. I accumulate a lot stuff. I love stuff and like to keep lots of it around.That may be why my bedroom is the disaster that it is, along with the rest of my sloppy life.

13. I’m not really sure how to act my age. At 25 it seems most people my age are maybe just beginning to think about settling down and many are still swinging the high life that is their twenties. Yet in my set of friends, we’ve been thinking about marriage and family for years and most of us have a little 2 year old we call our son or daughter. We have children from the ages of 6 to weeks old, which I think is weird for our age, but to us only feels normal and natural.