One of my new favorite blogs, A Funny Thing Happened When I was Learning Myself, asked that I participate in a challenge listing ten things I love and then things I hate.  I love lists, and am so excited to participate; thanks for the opportunity.  Without further ado, here is my list.

1. Hate kale, love iceberg lettuce – I hate trendy vegetables and I hate kale the most of them all.  Who really likes that slimy bitter leaf?  I was at a party a couple of years ago and immediately defriended the people who exclaimed, “Oh yay, kale salad” when it arrived late with someone I’m no longer friends with.  Yuck.  Also, kale will give you thallium poisoning so I’m avoiding it.  Iceberg lettuce though?   I’ll eat that stuff any day:  plain, on a sandwich, or in a salad.  It’s crispy, refreshing, uncool, lacking nutrition, and doesn’t taste like weeds.  (I also hate dressing, which  makes iceberg that much better and kale that much worse.)
2. Hate movies, love books – I’ll almost never see a movie if there is a book option.  I love getting the whole story with the pictures in my own head.  I’ve been known to see movies made from books (notably the whole Harry Potter series and Schindler’s List) but mostly I steer clear from the movie version.   Time Traveler’s Wife?  That’s a forever book to me and I’ll cry every time I read or listen to it.   I don’t need some director and actors to ruin it for me.
3. Hate nonfiction, love fiction – The only nonfiction in my bookshelf are cookbooks and knitting books and parenting books that make me a better parent by sitting on my shelf.  Otherwise I can’t really take nonfiction.  Even if it’s compelling, the story will degrade into minutia I really don’t care about at some point and I feel obligated to read all the details.  My one exception is Sarah Vowell’s A Partly Cloudy Patriot.
4. Hate Lord of the Rings, love Harry Potter – I gotta admit, I love fantasy books.  However, that third Lord of the Rings book is deadly to me.  About the fourth time Aragorn changed his name and all those dead kings showed up I stopped caring.  I loved the Ents, but other than that I can leave that series.  However, muggles, snitches, wizards, and Hogworts?  Well that’s pure bliss.  So much that I collect the books in many languages and formats.
5. Hate dogs, love cats – I’m unamerican but I’ve always loved cats  and found dogs to be a bit smelly, drooly and destructive.
6. Hate scrapbooking, love knitting – Scrapbooking is tedious, time consuming, and boring.  However, turning tiny loops of yarn into hats, scarves, mittens, and sweaters is amazing.
7. Hate cycling, love running – Before the small Afthead turned up I actually used to do triathlons.  I will probably never do one again because my road bike got stolen, and I really don’t want to replace it because then I’d have to ride the damn thing:  stupid butt hurting two wheeled torture device that made me dig gravel out of my flesh.  That said, I will do another marathon someday.  I love running.
8. Hate quinoa, love white rice – Okay another food thing here.  I’m against eating a grain that is indigenous to poverty stricken South America so I can have protein and they cannot have protein.  I can get protein any which-way in my diet.  I don’t need to steal it from people who don’t have a grocery store within walking distance.  White rice is delicious though, especially covered with protein laden sesame chicken.
9. Hate school food debates, love energy usage debates – My career is focused around energy usage and how to minimize how much petroleum we use, energy we use, and greenhouse gasses we emit by using energy.  I’m happy to talk to you about what car you should buy, what fuel you should use in it, and what kind of windows you should get.  I’ll bore you to tears on the topic and eventually point out lots of ways you can feel bad about your lifestyle and energy usage if you hang out with me long enough.  However, I do not care what is in school lunches.  (See 8 and 1 for examples of my lack of food coolness.)  My kid will eat hot lunch when it is chicken nuggets, pizza, hot dogs or quesadillas so bring on those options and I won’t have to make lunch!  Jamie Oliver is annoying and I don’t care what he says.
10. Hate coffee, love Diet Dr Pepper.  My whole life people have been telling me to “wait until high school,” “wait until college,” or “wait until you start working” and coffee will no longer taste like swill.  All those people are wrong.  Coffee smells amazing and tastes terrible.  It always will.  Diet Dr Pepper though?  That’s the nectar of the gods.  And when the damn Jamie-Oliver-loving creep from work asks me if I want to know how my drink of choice is going to kill me I will continue to tell him “NO!”  I have one vice, and it is a fizzy chemical bottle of joy.

Now, I invite the following blogs to participate in this super fun challenge.  Tell me ten things you love and hate.

https://kwoted.wordpress.com/

https://amiewrites74.wordpress.com/

https://adaisink.wordpress.com/

http://aroundzuzusbarn.com/ 

http://notthatkindofteacher.com/

http://ateachingparent.com/