50 bites

Well, this is awkward. Errr. I inadvertently created the Streisand Effect.

What kind of diet is this?

After a week of posting stuff regularly on this thing, I saw that there were actual views on it that were more in the double digits. 

It's probably friends, I thought. So I asked my friends, and they were like, "No, I didn't even know you had a blog. Let me go check it out." 

To which I'm like, "Nooo! It's okay. That wasn't me asking you to check me out." 

"But I want to." 

Awkward pause. "Well...okay, if you want to." 

I mean, who am I to say no? I'm the one putting this out in public.

I told a friend of mine that this blog is reading the mess that is in my mind. She lol'ed. But I was kind a serious. Maybe she didn't know just how many things I keep bottled up. I feel shy now that I know people I actually know are reading versus strangers I've never met. Being rejected by nameless strangers is easier than people I've laughed with. 

Okay, shaking it off. Moving on. 

I guess this post is going to be my official introduction to everyone. 50 little details, each a delightful (ha!) chew about me. 

1- Lainey Marshall is my pen name. I'm flirting with the idea of making it my real name.

2- I'm writing a contemporary romance novel, a YA, a memoir, and an erotica.

3- Yes, I have ADD. I have a lot of discipline but I struggle with focus. Hence, so many open projects. 

4- I'm happily married to the love of my life. 

5- I have an adoring dog (Max) and a clingy cat (Abby) and a cat who hates everyone but hubby (Pandora).

6- I live in the South. Near Atlanta. 

7- I'm an introvert. I spend a lot of time by myself on purpose. 

8- Sometimes too much time. I have to force myself to go outside every few days. 

9- My social skills are rusty and I find idle chit chat irritating.

10- I'm very sensitive to auras. That sounds New Age-y, I know, but when I first meet people, my gut is super loud about whether I will be friends with them or not. 

11- It's rare for me to make friends easily. I'm very cautious who I let in, I never really learned to trust. But once we're friends, I'm emotionally 100% invested. My friends don't see Shy me. They see Hyper me. 

12- It takes a lot for me to stop being friends with someone. Distance will not stop me from getting to you. 

13- I really do like fungus. I like seeing them grow. I like those little boxes of mushrooms they sell. I like to poke weird fungal masses on trees. I think opening up leftovers and seeing the fuzz on top is kinda cool. I think they're really pretty under a microscope. They have pretty patterns. Yes, I know this is weird. My husband teases me all the time.  

14- I have 3 younger brothers. 

15- You wouldn't know it, because they are all taller than me by a foot or more.

16- I love to read.

17- I have a super power. I read really fast. More books per day than normal people typically do.

18- Probably because I don't have cable 

19- Because I watch everything on YouTube or Netflix these days

20- I would be lost without Google, it is my oracle, my map, my encyclopedia, my gossip, my news. I love me some Google. 

21- ....This is harder than I thought it would be....

22- I think I might be boring. Yes, I'm barely half way through and I'm struggling here. What else is something worth knowing about me?

23- Oh! It's hard to make me cry but if you tell me some kind of elephant story (be it a good one or a bad one where some evil poachers killed a mom elephant and her orphan baby is left wandering the land crying for her...oh shit, there I go. I'm for real crying now). 

24- If I ever won the lottery, I would donate like 90% of it to the Elephant Fund. Elephants won't be here in 20 years. They hunt like 96 of them a day. It's so sad. I wish China would get it's shit together and ban ivory already. It's because of that demand that there's even such high poaching lately. 

25- I find it easier to handle news of other humans being tortured than an animal being tortured. You know Edison used to effing electrocute animals trying to disprove the alternating current Tesla had created? Mother effer. Go ahead, look. 

He electrocuted them to death: dogs, cats, and yeah, even an elephant. If he was here, I'd kick him in the balls. Can you imagine the pain those little creatures went through? And for what? B/c some greedy asshole didn't want the Serbian genius to give the world free power? Yeah, free power. You wouldn't be paying an electricity bill if Edison hadn't bullied Tesla. 

26- Err...I like history. I especially like the history that hasn't been filtered and diluted into what's in school text books. So biographies? Memoirs? Yeah. I'll eat all that up. 

27- I wish I knew code. I would like to learn Java, CSS, HTML. All that shit. I don't know any of that and I feel like I'm missing something big. And fun. Like hacking into North Korea's defense and freeing everyone there. 

28- I like to paint. Some nice friends have even said that they look nice. I don't know. I never had lessons. I struggle more often than not. 

29- I don't know how to drive my husband's car. It's a stick. He tried to teach me but I melted his tires and kept choking on the clutch.

30- I used to have a really bad shopping addiction. It was a symptom of deep dissatisfaction and unhappiness with the way my life was going. 

31- I have to check w hubby before I send of emails a lot of the time. I'm effortlessly snarky without meaning to. For some one who has sensitive feelings, I'm cruel without effort. It's something I'm working on.

31- People say I'm funny. I've contemplated the idea of doing stand up. But I'd rather not put myself through that much anxiety. 

32- I wish I played the violin.

33- I learned how to play the flute.

34- Also the piano, but I forgot how to do that.

35- Music medicates me. When I was younger, it was an escape. 

36- If I really want to escape, I watch a K drama. If you've never tried, thank me later. They're AH-maze-balls. Love them.

37- Or a Bollywood movie. They're super dramatic but I like all the pretty colors and dresses. 

38- But most often, I binge read. 

39- I was surprised by how much I liked Tokyo. It almost beat out Paris. Almost. But lately with the Anti-Antisemitism feeling in France, maybe that might be true soon.

40- My skin drinks lotion. I don't know what it is but I have the driest skin ever. My hands will peel in the blink of an eye if they've not been lotioned. I live with Aveeno Eczema cream with me at all times. 

41- I stumbled onto makeup recently. Like 5 years ago. I didn't really wear it that often before. I don't think I really knew what I was doing. But thanks to beauty vlogs, now I do. I'm amassed a collection. I mean, I've trimmed it down to essentials, but it's still a lot of makeup. 

42- I've never eaten a pomegranate. I have no idea how one even eats it. And from what I've read, there's too many steps. 

43- I have scars on my face from a motorcycle accident as a kid. They've healed and faded a bit but the nerve damage to my lower lip remained. When I smile, my left lower lip collapses. 

44- I'm 50% Punjab Indian, 25% Filipino, 12.5% Chinese, and 12.5% Spanish. I honestly don't know what to tell people when they ask what I am. A hybrid, I guess?

45- I learned English at 8. I mean, we learned it in school but I didn't speak it. Not till I moved to the States. 

46- I feel sorry for people who haven't read Harry Potter. I think they're missing out on so much happiness that it's so sad.

47- I don't trust people who don't curse or laugh at themselves. 

48- Ugh....3 more....umm....I'm addicted to sweet plantain chips. Maduritos by Ocho Rios? Yum!

49- I don't really care if my car gets dinged up. I saw a friend of mine freak out b/c hers got a scratch in the parking lot once and I didn't get it. Its a car. A piece of plastic that takes you places. So what? It's a scratch on the polymer. It still works. Get over it. It's not that big a deal to me. This appalls my brothers.

50- Yay!!! Finish line. What's the one last thing you need to know about me? I will never do this again b/c I overestimated that there were that many interesting facts about me.