Allow me to re-introduce myself, my name is…

Tina… Christina… Chrissie… What?  Were you expecting a Jay Z tribute blog?

Now that I’m three posts in, I figure it’s a good time to introduce myself.  Yes, I know most of you already know me, but I think you might be very surprised at some of the things you read.  Andplusalso, there might be other people reading who just happened upon this blog through their searches on the interwebz, so this is also for them.

In no particular order of importance or chronologicity (that may or may not be an actual word), here is a bunch of stuff about me:

• I became “Tina” when I left home and joined the Army at 17.  My family always called me “Chrissie”, but I wanted something different in my adult life, and that’s what I chose.

• I heart music.  A lot.  Mostly 80s and 90s stuff… new music for the most part is horrible to me, so I don’t really listen to the radio.

• I come from a family of nine children.  I share a father with two… maybe three of them.  Yeah, that’s still up for debate.  Among us, there are at least four different fathers, but there might be more.  Oh, we all have the same mother.

• I have two dogs.  I mainly refer to them as “Flufferella” and “Stinkerbelle”, but those aren’t their actual names.

• I graduate from nursing school in May.  Holy shit, that can’t come quickly enough.

• I met my husband in Iraq while we were both deployed there.

• I never really feel like I fit in.  Maybe it’s because I moved around a lot as a child and never really had a chance to get truly comfortable with people.  I don’t know.  But I tend to feel awkward in large groups, so I usually don’t stay in them for very long.  I’m pretty sure I’m an introvert too.

• I love sleeping to the sound of a box fan.  It’s my favorite white noise in the world.

• I’m thinking about chopping off my hair.  Like, all of it.  Well, not like Britney Spears circa 2007, but… pixie?  Maybe?  I’m just so tired of it.  I haven’t told DJ (my husband).  Are you reading this, DJ?  Hey, I think I want to chop off all my hair.

• I spent a sizable chunk of my childhood in foster care.

• I’m a junk food junkie.  I don’t like most vegetables, and I especially don’t like them if they’re not cooked to the point of being almost soggy.  I was raised on garbage, and it’s the hardest habit I’ve ever tried to break.  It’s why I’m fat.

• I’m not a social justice warrior, I’m just a decent fucking human being.  *Cheeseball alert*  It’s part of the reason I eventually want to work in refugee camps.

• My favorite stations on Pandora are Regina Spektor and Wilson Phillips.  But when I put all my stations on shuffle it’ll play everything from A Tribe Called Quest to Chicago, with some Lindsey Stirling and Metallica thrown in for funsies.

• I once invested in Iraqi Dinar (their currency) because Iraq was supposed to get their shit together and then their money, which was worth zilch when I bought it (in 2005), was supposed to be worth something.  I had millions of dinar.  I offloaded it in 2007 when I was struggling to pay my rent.  It think it’s worth even less now.

• Supposedly if I trace my mother’s blood line back far enough, I’ll end up at King John of England.  The person who told me misspoke and told me King James, and that sent me on a wild goose chase.  I have yet to look into the King John thing.

• Over the last year or two, I think I’ve stopped believing in a god.  I have a really hard time believing that something or someone so powerful and merciful could just stand by and watch while we destroy ourselves and our planet.  That being said, I really believe that as long as I live my life as a genuinely good person, I’ll be ok.

• I’m fairly fluent in Arabic.  Speaking, reading, writing… I also have a thing for the Middle East, and would love to live in Jordan or the UAE.  Y’know… working in the refugee camps or something.

• I don’t have OCD, but I always count stairs in my head when I’m going up or down.  It just happens.

• I’m never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and… desert you.  (HA!  Goteeeeeeeem!)

• I cuss a lot.  Except for the “P” word… I can’t say that word.  No, I won’t tell you which one.

• I had an abortion at 17 so I could join the Army.  No, I don’t think my infertility is a result of that.  During my early miscarriage I beat myself up over it, and I totally blamed karma, but once I calmed down I realized that was absolute bullshit.  I am still very much pro-choice.

• I desperately want to visit Israel.  I’m half Jewish, and though I wasn’t raised Jewish (other than “celebrating” Jewish holidays, which mostly meant eating a lot and getting presents), I do feel a strong connection to those roots for some reason.

• I love to bake… but I’m usually too lazy to do it.

• I’ve been put in handcuffs.  I was 13, and I had run away from home.  When I was found at the bowling alley with my friends, the police escorted me outside, put me in handcuffs, and put me in the back of a police car to take me to Children and Family Services.  Fucking Florida.

• I have cankles.  I have photographic evidence from the ’30s or 40’s that I got them from my dad’s side of the family.  Thanks, great-grandma!

• I have four tattoos.  One of them is of three doves for my angel babies.  Yes, one of the doves is for the previously mentioned abortion.

Do you feel like you know me a little better now?  Or… do you now realize you don’t really know me at all?  I’m sure some of this stuff will be expanded upon in future blogs, but for now this is what you get.