Unfortunately, Nora, I am not at all eloquent enough to avoid the virulent '25 Things' list that's catching Facebook and blogs by storm. I simply hadn't been tagged yet. However, I am going to take your comment as a challenge AND a tag, just so I have an excuse to drop the, um, dressing room curtains of propriety or something, and instead fulfill my weekly writing quota by doing something that takes no organizational thought. Thanks for that, by the way! Organizational thought is my Achilles heel!

1. I love to sleep and look forward to it every night. I rarely have nightmares and often have lucid dreams, so closing my eyes in bed at night is usually the start of some great adventure.

2. Having even moderately acceptable posture is a daily struggle.

3. I haven't yet found my massage tolerance limit. That is, I've been massaged for 2 or 3 hours straight, possibly longer, and never stopped wanting more.

4. In my line of work I often encounter people who just wander out to any old random city bus stop and just start asking the driver about how to get to their desired location. The bus is never the correct bus. And they never ever know the address or cross streets of where they're going. They just wander out and expect Providence and kind people to guide them. I do not understand these people. I can't imagine doing that. I am the kind of person who carries bus schedule printouts and writes the addresses of places on my hand as well as on sheets of paper in my pocket.

5. It's easy for me to handle most types of pain. Broken limbs, ear-stretching, cuts, falls. But I can't handle dentist-related tooth nerve pain.

6. I am the only person in my family to have stayed blond past childhood.

7. Everyone who looks at me thinks I'm Swedish, and barring that, some kind of Scandinavian at least. I am not actually Swedish at all. Mostly, I am Russian. Also German and English. but not Swedish.

8. I have a lot of tiny things wrong with me that I should probably go to the doctor for, but never have. My jaw pops when I eat chewy food. My right ear clogs up when I exercise. I've had a cough for 6 months. Sometimes my heart skips beats. Taken individually, they never seem important enough to get checked out.

9. Sushi has been my favorite food ever since I was old enough to eat solid food.

10. I don't like soda. My favorite things to drink are fruit juices and smoothies; the weirder they're combined, the better. My current bizarre favorite is honeydew/avocado with boba.

11. There's never been a time when I haven't liked school. Not even in middle school.

12. I used to be able to improvise on the piano for hours without interruption. Now I'm too self-conscious about it, and too apt to want to record what I'm playing, to be able to do it anymore.

13. Any space I live or work in is guaranteed to be a total mess.

14. My least favorite household chore is doing dishes. I would rather scrub toilets.

15. I like to think I'm awesome at Scrabble, but any time I get too up on my high horse I go to the near-tournament level practice session by my house on Wednesdays. This one guy I teamed up with once literally looked at his tiles, which read 'IWCSEO_', for about half a second, and went, 'Shall we play 'COWRIES', or 'COWIEST'? I am not at this level and don't understand how one even gets there.

16. I am a terrible swimmer and can barely do two laps without feeling like I'm going to drown. But I love beaches and cavorting around in waves in the ocean.

17. I get sad when I have to be inside during an unseasonably warm day, but sadder when I inexplicably choose to be inside on an unseasonably warm day.

18. I hardly ever wake up feeling like I want to spring out of bed and greet the day, no matter how long I sleep or how sound of sleep I get.

19. No matter how much money I have saved up, I never stop thinking I'm totally bankrupt and on the verge of financial ruin.

20. I value experiences more than possessions, and will spend money on the former but not the latter, so much that others are sometimes offended by the things that I don't own. ("Oh my God, you don't HAVE a HAIRDRYER?" "Seriously, you don't have HIGH HEELS to wear tonight?" "Why don't you CARE about getting a new computer? Yours is SLOW!")

21. I am never quite warm enough when it's cold outside, no matter how many layers I wear. My ideal room temperature is 80. My ideal outdoor temperature is 85-90. If I get into bed cold, I won't warm up, no matter the number of blankets, unless one is electric.

22. Most video games produced after the 2-D era make me dizzy and nauseous to play or watch. So do IMAX theatres.

23. My dream job is a restaurant critic and my nightmare job is a preschool teacher. My dream job is a reclusive singer who makes all her money on CD releases and small gatherings, and my nightmare job is an astronaut.

24. I have bitten my nails all my life and I don't really see any reason to stop.

25. I need to be forced to do most kind of physical activity other than walking and biking to places I need to go. Once I'm forced, I'm glad I did it. But I'll never make the effort myself.