A Solstice-ish Tiz List

I know that it's been a while since I've written a Tiz List, so here's the explanation of what one of those is: It's a list of semi-random things which you may or may not know about me. 

I got the idea (and the name) from a blog by a very good friend of mine, which you can find at http://tizandass.blogspot.com/ - if you go there this month, she is doing a full 25 Days of TiZMaS thing and writing 25 of these lists. I'm only brave enough to do one every so often. 

So, tonight, I offer you 25 Random Things You May Not (or May) Know About Me: 

1) Although my beard is going massively gray, my hair is not. So I guess I won't be playing Santa any time soon.

2) I'm gradually realizing that shorter hair is my best option, even though I've always really liked my hair. 

3) There was a time, in Grad School, when my hair was so long in the back that I could reach my hand behind my back and grab hold of it between my shoulderblades. And I am not overly bendy, so that's saying a lot. 

4) The last time I went in for a haircut was the first time in a long time that a male stylist cut my hair. It was also the first time in a long time when the stylist didn't make me second guess getting my hair cut really short. We went shorter than I have in... well... probably ever. 

5) Part of me wants to get it cut even shorter the next time. 

6) Part of me wants to Rogaine the heck out of it and grow it out long just one more time.

7) I believe that there comes a time when you get an age stuck in your head and that's kind of what you always think you are. There are people who are 80 who still act 18. There are people who are 30 who act like they're in their 60s. It's not so much one of those "age is a state of mind" things, it's just what you expect to see when you look into the mirror each day. 

8) The age that I am in my mind is 25. 

9) The age that I am in my body is much older than that.

10) The age that I am when there are really good things going on, according to Christopher, is 5.

11) I still cover my eyes when there are gross things being shown on TV or in the movies. 

12) I really don't understand the apparent need to show torture as part of TV dramas, lately. 

13) I've been missing a certain amount of TV dramas this season because my eyes have been covered. 

14) Sometimes I prefer telling a good story over a completely correct story. 

15) The more memoirs I read at my job, the more I believe that telling the whole truth can, at times, be incredibly overrated. 

16) I firmly believe that sometimes a correct story and a truthful story are two completely different things. 

17) I worked on a novel, recently, where the final scene is written truthfully (as in, written in such a way that - although it's fiction - it follows what would normally be done in real life), and I think that changing it to be more of a story would have made it better.

18) The author disagreed. 

19) If you ask me what novel and go out and read it, I'll happily discuss the final scene with you after you're done. But I won't talk about it in advance, because I won't give out any spoilers. 

20) I am a believer in the ritual and tradition of the Holidays. 

21) I bake cookies using the same recipes that I grew up with, because I can't imagine doing it any other way.

22) I used to spend a lot of time on the phone around the Holidays. Now I tend to text Christmas greetings. 

23) It's not quite as fulfilling, but it does kind of serve the "I'm thinking of you" purpose without interrupting whatever the person on the other end is doing. 

24) Sometimes I miss being interrupted by phonecalls from friends just checking in. And, yes, I know that's a two-way street. 

25) I have a list of movies that I need to watch between now and Christmas, which includes (but is not limited to): The Muppet Christmas Carol, A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and A Muppet Family Christmas (which includes the Muppets, the Sesame Street gang, and the Fraggles). The last of those is on VHS.

**Sidenote: When I spellchecked this post, one of the words that was flagged was "Muppets" - but "Muppet" was fine. Does that strike anyone else as odd?

And there you have it. My almost-Solstice-2013 Tiz List. I hope it finds you warm, cozy, and snuggled in as we light the Christmas tree and hope to push past these darkest days of the year and start looking for some extra light - though preferably not in the form of any more grey appearing in my beard... at least not this week.