We have a connection! After a week with no internet, I am once again online. You never realize how much you do online until you can't do it anymore. From getting work done to paying bills to looking up word origins to staying connected with friends. Oh, yes, and Mafia Wars--can't forget that. A lot of my time is spent online. And because my roommate is still visiting her family, I have felt totally cut off from the world. I can go hours without talking to anyone and have watched a lot of movies in the past week just so there are some voices in the apartment.

Speaking of the apartment, I moved again. Yes, again. But I promise this will be the last time for at least a year, hopefully more. I used to love moving. It gave me the chance to purge unwanted stuff, meet new people and get a fresh perspective. But after being in six places in the past two years, I am really ready for some consistency in my life.

Wow, I never though I would say that.

I was tagged by my old friend Stephanie (déjà vu) and thought I would post something back. I have already tagged 10 people with this on facebook, so my list at the end only has 15 people on it.

Here are the rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.
 

1. I tend to think I'm really witty and funny even though I'm really not. This makes for so very awkward moments in conversations when I think people should be laughing but really they're just very uncomfortable.

2. I am an obsessive reader. This might not seem like something random about me, but it is when the things I’m reading are ads on the Metro, the backs of cereal boxes, books in other people’s hands…

3. I hate driving or riding in cars in general. I hate the way stupid drivers make me so angry, I don’t trust my own driving and I can't stand having to park in teeny-tiny spaces. I would prefer to ride public transportation any day, even if it is unreliable and smells like pee.

4. I have always wanted to be a writer even though I’m not particularly funny, smart or good at spelling. I just get stories stuck in my head that drive me crazy with the talking and moving about that I have to get them out of there so other people don’t begin to think I’m a schizophrenic.

5. When I was in middle school, I met a boy online who started stalking me. He became obsessed with meeting me and even ran away from home when his mother told him he couldn’t fly out and meet me. His mom finally got my email address and told me I had to tell her son to back off and stop emailing me. It was the one and only time I broke someone’s heart.

6. I am embarrassed by the fact that I’m in love with Bon Jovi and Sugar Ray. I love music—especially good music—and have no idea how these two groups became a part of my otherwise non-conformist musical taste.

7. I’m having a hard time thinking of 10 random things let alone 25 of them. I have such a big mouth that nothing really seems random.

8. I am obsessed with the etymology and grammatical structure. I love looking up word origins and having discussions about why phrases are put together in particular ways and how language is used in general. The only problem is, I never remember what I read or the conclusions I come to, so my vocabulary and spelling never improve.

9. In elementary school I was obsessed with the name Sammy. In second grade I had a mealworm I named Sammy. In third grade I had a guppy named Sammy. In fourth grade I wanted to name the class pet Sammy. I think this might have been because I was a little bit in love with Sammy Davis Junior at the time, but it could also be that I was just as crazy then as I am now.

10. I have a tendency to come across sick people/accident victims on the road. I once helped a mother get to her three year old who had locked herself in the car. I gave a woman rescue breathing at a gas station in Wyoming. I was the first responder to a T-bone accident where a woman was hit on the way to her father’s funeral. I helped a family on the highway in Utah whose son was having a massive seizure.

11. I can’t stand the sight of blood, and the thought of visiting a sick person in the hospital gives me panic attaches. When I was thirteen, I had to sit on my dad’s lap when I had to get a tetanus shot, and once when I saw a woman with a broken finger that had gotten infected, I passed out.

12. I get peed on by dogs all the time. This has made me not like dogs or animals in general. When I tried to explain this to a friend of mine, she didn’t believe me until we saw two dogs in one day and they both peed on me.

13. I have the worst red-light luck of anyone I know. I have to leave ten minutes early for anything because I know I will hit 90 percent of the traffic lights red. But some of that time is made up when I park—I can get rock-star parking just about anywhere I go.

14. I love to move. I am a natural pack-rat, and moving helps me control the clutter. I always do one purge while packing and another while unpacking. It helps me know what’s really important.

15. I cannot help but buy books. While every once in awhile I buy books I have never read, the majority of the books I invest in are books that I love and want to share with others. Often times that means I loan out a book and never see it again, but I figure if I get one person to read a book I love, it’s worth the cost.

16. I hate swimming in the ocean, but I love the beach. I’m always afraid I’ll get salmonella or step on a stingray. I end up going into the water up to my waist, but I spend more time messing around in the sand. I’m okay with rivers, lakes, pools, ponds and streams, but I can’t do the ocean.

17. I have all kinds of plans to travel around the world, but I’ve never left the United States (Tijuana doesn’t count). I read about other cultures, have shelves full of travel books and talk about traveling all the time. But I never seem to have the money, time or energy to follow through on those plans. I always seem to get caught up by school, a move, a family emergency or a wedding and end up flying somewhere in the States instead.

18. I’d kind of like to try out for American Idol. I can’t sing, I’m not a bombshell and I don’t even watch the show, but I’d still like to go and audition just to see what Simon says to me.

19. I like to blog-stalk people. I read blogs compulsively and then tend to think I’m friends with people whose blogs I’ve read yet never actually met. I am well aware this makes me sound crazy, but I really do know the difference between a friend and stranger. I do, however, have a few legitimate friends whom I have met through blogging, so maybe this is just my way of hoping I can be friends with everyone I meet.

20. I have an aversion to contractions. I have to force myself to use them and often have to go back and re-write something so it flows more conversationally.

21. Sometimes I miss watching commercials on live TV. Because I watch everything online, I never hear about new movies or laugh at clever ads anymore.

22. I am always cold. Seriously, it can be 90 degrees in the shade and I’ll be cold. Sometimes I wonder if this is a sign of a rare medical condition that will bring me to my death bed and lead the writers of House to feature my story on prime-time television.

23. I like being alone in a crowd. I like living in the city and being all alone yet never being alone. I think this is also why I like the internet so much—you can stay connected to people without ever having to be with people.

24. I spent years studying journalism but I still can’t write a concise piece to save my life.

idaho_laurie tagged me on this survey, so I guess I'll post the answers. While it says that I should in turn tag eight other people, I'm not big on passing along surveys, so I'll just say it's an open invitation.

Here are the rules:
A) People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs & replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.

B) Tag 8 people to do this quiz.

1. What are your nicknames?
The most common nickname I have is Gags, shortened from Gaglione by sports team members to make it easier to get my attention. I've also been called Bookworm, Boog, Kate or Kat, Katarenebell and many others, but I wouldn't recommend you using any of these nicknames--I like my name just the way it is.

2. What do you do before bedtime?
Reading and brushing my teeth puts me in the mood for sleep. But I also have a habit of falling asleep in moving cars--I'm like a six-month-old baby in that way.

3. What fandom(s) are you most into at the moment?
If you'd ask me this in high school I'd say Harry Potter, but I kind of out grew that. Now I'm all about the YA lit.

4. What is your favorite scent?
I LOVE the smell of Sweet Olive Trees. I once made my roommate drive around an exit three times in Washington, D.C., so I could find the tree that I could smell from the Beltway.

5. What videogames are you playing at the moment? Replaced by: Why did you replace this question if you couldn't think of anything better?
I am obsessed with Rock Band. I stink at Guitar Hero, but I can get in to the vocals and drums on Rock Band.

6. What is your theme song?
"Wrapped Up in Books" by Bell and Sebastian

7. Do you trust easily?
Yes and no, I think everyone deserves a chance, but I try not to be stupid and making myself vulnerable along the way.

8. Do you generally think before you act, or act before you think?
I am very much a planner. I like lists and calendars, but I also like to have fun and get things done.

9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?
I am totally bummed about not having a job at the moment, so I can't think of much else.

10. Do you have a good body-image?
Ha! No way!

11. Is being tagged fun?
Sure, I could take it of leave it.

12. What websites do you visit daily?
LiveJournal, GoodReads, Yahoo, The Chicago Tribune

13. What have you been seriously addicted to lately?
My iPod, the Internet and chocolate, always chocolate

14. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
I've never met idaho_laurie, but I love that she loves to read, is into her family and history and really thinks about what makes other people happy. Those are some really amazing qualities.

15. What’s the last song that got stuck in your head?
I ALWAYS have a song suck in my head. My "default" song is "Going Courting" from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers--don't ask my way. The last song I had really badly stuck in my head was "Enter Sandman" by Metallica because I heard the opening bars on a talk radio show but they never finished the song. And now it's stuck again, thanks a lot.

16. What’s your favorite item of clothing?
Jeans, I love wearing jeans. But I love buying shoes. And then there's this really cute white wrap-around shirt I just got from Old Navy...

17. Do you think Rice Crispies are yummy?
No, I can't stand even thinking about marshmallows after a Chubby Bunny game gone bad where I threw up in the camp fire.

18. What would you do if you see saw $100 lying on the ground?
I actually have found $100 lying on the ground twice, once at a laundry mat and once at the school where I used to work. I gave it to the attendant at the laundry mat (I was maybe nine at the time), and she said I could come back the next day and have it if no one came to claim it. The other time I kept it at my desk and a frantic student came looking for it within the hour.

19. What items could you not go without during the day?
Books, the internet and people

20. What should you be doing right now?
Reviewing some freelance material that I need to prepare for a Monday meeting. Isn't the internet wonderful?

I really need to stop moving in to apartments with no internet. This is killing my. I also feel like a dork because I have to drive over to my parents' house to connect and check my email. I feel like a college student who comes home for the holidays with a big duffle bag full of dirty clothes. Even when I was a college student going home for the holidays I hated traveling with dirty clothes so I would always do my laundry the night before leaving. There is just something comforting knowing that if your plane crashes somewhere in the Pacifica Isles you will have clean clothes to use until you are rescued or until you find a hatch with a 70s model washer and dryer you can use until some crazy guy with an affinity for knives doesn't feel like pushing a button and too many people end up dead or hard of hearing or without a way to do laundry again. That would really stink.