Firsts

Okay, I'm giving in. I debated about not doing this list for days, because it was just too embarrassing. Cha made me do it.

First best friend: Linda. She could make me do anything. I never got into Barbies growing up, but because of her, there was one year that I actually begged my mom for a Barbie. I would take my sorry looking permed-hair Barbie to play with Linda's whole Barbie family in the Barbie dream house with the pink corvette and all. She even got me to join the swim team one summer with her and I didn't even know how to swim. At all. I did a lot of swim clinics and came out "most improved" at the end of the season. Yeah... cause I could barely keep my head above water when I started.

First Car: Gray '84 Oldsmobile Delta 88 with maroon velvet interior. Sweet. It wasn't so sweet at the time. It was a BOAT. The only thing it was good for was packing in people, especially with its bench seats. I think we fit as many people in that car as we can now with our minivan. It did have amazing power and I could steer it with my pinky. There were about 3 months during its life with me that the reverse didn't work. I had to come up with clever ways to park so I would never have to use the reverse. Only once did my friends have to help push the car out for me, but it wasn't my fault. TIM! When the time came to let it go, my dad sold it for almost the same price he bought it for. Even now, if you mention that car, he will brag about how that car cost him practically nothing.

First kiss: Some random boy in my neighborhood when I was 5. After that, I went around chasing boys and trying to kiss them. I was incorrigible. That was for a very brief time, but really, most of my childhood and adolescence, I couldn't even look a boy in the eyes or hold his hand.

First big trip: The summer before junior year in HS, I went to 6 countries in less than a month with about 15 others as a High School Student Ambassador. The countries we toured were the USSR, Poland, Germany, France, Netherlands and England. This was only 1 year after the reunification of E & W Germany and the Berlin wall came down, so it was a pretty amazing experience. We were hell-raisers - can you imagine 15 pubescent teenagers in foreign countries with basically no legal drinking age and only 2 chaperones? Not good.

First flight: On New Year's Eve when I was only 2, from Seoul to somewhere in Hawaii. We landed in Houston on the first of the year and that's where we settled. Why Houston? I still ask myself that today.

First time skiing/snowboarding: I don't know why this is on the list of significant events, but the first time I went skiiing was in high school. I think I was 15 and we went on a weeklong trip to New Mexico. I got pretty good by the end of the week, while my little brother who was in 2nd grade would whiz around me by the end of the first day. I have yet to go snowboarding and can't wait to go.

First Alcoholic Drink: A beer, of course, when I was a freshman in high school. That was when I discovered I had a tolerance for alcohol.

First ticket violation: (age 16) I was on a date and cruising at a moderate speed down to Galveston and didn't realize the speed limit changed outside the Houston city limits (I was only 8 miles over the limit - damn you, Texas troopers! The officer's name was Castro, which I thought was very befitting). I was in my nicest duds on the way to the new Rainforest Pyramid and afterwards, a very fancy dinner. That was the first time I had sorbet between courses and it wasn't for dessert. Also, a huge tropical bird shat on my head at the Rainforest Pyramid and I had to wash my nicely coiffed bangs with sani-fresh.

First job: Sonic, during winter break, freshman year of college, for 3 weeks. The manager that hired me couldn't understand why an ivy-league college student wanted to work there, but I had to because my mom wouldn't get off my back until I got a job, any job. I was too good for Micky D's. I was the pleasant voice at the drive thru window. "Hello, welcome to Sonic, may I take your order?" You must try the SuperSonic jalapeno double cheeseburger, which I think I ate almost every day I worked there. Speaking of jobs, one summer while I was in college, I decided to look for a job and landed 4. I decided to accept all 4 simultaneously. I scooped ice cream for Haagen Daz, was a waitress/hostess/cook for a Korean restaurant (where I vowed never to work for Koreans ever again), handled community affairs for an Assemblyman in NY, and did office work for the Provost of my university.

First date: With the aforementioned guy I got my first ticket with. I was 16. He came and picked me up in his dad's flashy Pontiac limited edition something or other (Texas white boy car). While I was upstairs primping, my parents let him in, but only to the front foyer. They decided at that moment that he was not the boy for me and was not to be trusted.

First memory: (age 2 or 3) I have 2 early vivid memories and I'm not sure which happened first. The first one is of me being dropped off at nursery school for the first time and crapping in my pants. The other is of some neighborhood boys I wanted to impress coming down the alley and me running in the house to put every hair pin I owned (at least 10 hair accessories of varying colors and styles) in my hair to look pretty.

First True Love: My husband. Even though I have loved before, I never knew love like this before [Stephanie Mills singing in the background].