20 Things You May Not Know About Me (Even If You Think You Do)

I decided that my other list of 20 things was starting to get old and crusty, so I’ve decided to create another one. How exciting.

The List

1. I know this may be hard to believe (if you follow me at all), but there was a time (not that long ago) when I didn’t drink or even like coffee.

2. So, I still don’t have that driver’s license. I do, however, have a driving permit. That means that whenever I’m in the state of Florida, I’m allowed to drive a car. As long as there is a responsible adult sitting next to me. And it’s not past 10PM at night.

3. I truly believe that light brown M&Ms taste better than the others. A lot of people have tried (and failed) to convince me that this is irrational.

4. My first girlfriend once made a list called 100 Weird Things About Ingrid. When she got to 100, she kept going.

5. Back when I was 14, I wrote a song called “Birth of a Chicken.” When I was 19, my friends convinced me to record it so they could hear it/make fun of me. Yes, you may listen to it. Yes, I was slightly demented as a teenager. Yes, I know I sound twelve. No, I don’t hate chickens. Also, I’m looking for someone with singing/musical talent to record themselves singing this song so that I can stop having to link to my own crappy recording. So if you’re that bored, feel free to go nuts with it. Here are the lyrics. Do whatever you want with it. I will not sue you. Just send me a link.

6. I appeared in Kodak commercials (in Puerto Rico) when I was about four. It was for their “kids of the Olympics” series. In one, I was supposed to dive into a pool and swim across. I remember staring down at this small pool filled with shallow water, held down by what seemed to me like big black rocks. At the other end of this death trap, my parents stood next to the director. They were all shouting and waving their hands.“Dive, Ingrid! Jump!” I couldn’t. I was certain that I would crack my skull open on the floor of the so-called “pool” and DIE. This went on for quite a long time, which in retrospect I assume was costing people a lot of money. Eventually someone pushed me in. I have no idea what that ended up looking like on film. But I remember swallowing a lot of water/coughing/crying and being generally distrustful of adults from then on.

7. My favorite name as a kid was “Alex” because Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars was the first video game I ever beat.

8. I went to Kindergarten twice. I was apparently too smart for pre-school, so I started Kindergarten a year early. I’m told I went back to Kindergarten the second time around because my parents didn’t want me to be ahead of kids my age … but I strongly suspect I just failed nap time.

9. I was almost not named Ingrid. My mom wanted to name me Mafalda after her favorite comic strip character. She settled for simply hoping I’d turn out like Mafalda instead. “The strip features a 6-year-old girl named Mafalda, who is deeply concerned about humanity and world peace and rebels against the current state of the world.” Close enough. But Mafalda hates soup and I love soup.

10. My middle name is Raquel. Coincidentally, that’s Mafalda’s mother’s name.

11. I’m the sort of girl who prefers receiving video games to flowers and gadgets to jewelry. In my dream home there would be a giant game room with a big screen TV, gaming consoles, arcade games, a pool table, an air hockey table, and a ping pong table. I’ll probably have to sell a lot of books to make this happen.

12. For my quinceañera, when other girls were getting big parties, all I asked for was a basketball hoop.

13. I own a cloak. It was handmade for me by a TBSOL-reader named Kat, who is awesomeness personified. She sent it to me a several years ago when I posted to my LJ that I really wanted to prance around in a cloak.

14. I used to believe that opening a soda can as little as possible made the drink taste better. I still believe it. I have since outgrown such silly notions.

15. My #1 pet peeve is dish sponges left in the sink. It causes me great, psychological iffyness. Iffyness is the official, scientific term.

16. I have trouble pronouncing words like “precision” and “decision.” It’s usually hit and miss whether I pronounce either correctly.

17. At 31, I still enjoy small pleasures like popping bubble wrap and blowing bubbles into milk/milkshakes. The best thing about being an adult is that no one stops you from doing these things.

18. When I first moved to FL, I didn’t know what to do with the sparkly new desk my parents had gotten for my room. I hadn’t had a desk back in PR. So the first thing I did with it was turn it into a spaceship. It was awesome.

19. The first time someone asked me for my autograph (back when I was 23), I spelled my name incorrectly. I wrote something like “Ingod Diz.” My hand was shaking so badly and I was really confused as to why anyone would want my autograph in the first place. I’ve since made up a signature that looks like a mess of squiggly lines that does not actually contain my name.

20. The first time I went to Disney, I was so excited about meeting all the Disney characters that I begged my parents to buy me one of those autograph books. Unfortunately, I was too intimidated/shy to approach any of them. I was then deeply embarrassed that I’d gone to Disney and had nothing to show for it when I returned to school. So I forged all the signatures. I filled the whole notebook with cartoon character autographs. I think I even included Bugs Bunny. Then I stressed out that people would find out I’d forged Mickey’s signature and I’d get arrested. So I never told anyone.

Me, During My Most Recent Trip to Disney

Tagged as: factoids, things about me