In the Swedish blogosphere there there are a ton of lists gong around right now. It started with somebody saying that we as women need more bad role models. You know, the ones that aren’t doctors or lawyers or politicians before the age of thirty, those that aren’t bosses or supervisors or super mothers managing to be shiny all the while. Role models that dare to admit that they get too drunk, laugh at their own jokes and are bad at stuff. And good at stuff. All that.

And as an answer to the original post on this there has been a veritable mountain of lists posted, where women admit what they are really bad at, and what they are awesome at. And since I have been pondering what my next List of 30 should be about… here goes. Fifteen things I’m bad atand another fifteen pretty damn awesome. Likely with lengthy explanations, beause that’s just the way I am.

This is, by the way, by no means a comprehensive list. Just off the top of my head.

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NOT SO GOOD THINGS ABOUT ME:

1. I can’t accessorise, coordinate my clothing or even match the items to each other. I never notice stains and/or wrinkles until it’s too late. In short, I always look like I just fell out of bed, and a lot of the time I actually did.

2. I’m really bad at wearing make-up. I’m decent at applying it, if I want to, because I had a phase of emo-ten-pounds-black-eye-shadow-a-day when I was in my late teens, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. And if I had my way I’d wear make-up maybe once or twice a year. At most.

3. I am really annoying when I’m drunk and start behaving like I’m sixteen all over again. I get drunk from four beers, six and I’m on the floor giggling at my own jokes. I don’t drink wine. I can’t even smell wine without wanting to throw up, hard liquour makes me want to die and the only beer I like is Heiniken.

4. I hate politics. Seriously. I find it excruciatingly boring, can’t get myself to read up on it because I’d rather feed my own limbs to a bear, and usually I vote on the party that sounded the smartest just as I headed out the door to go to the polling station. Sometimes I vote on the candidate my favourite bloggers recommend. Because I believe in the importance of voting, but have no idea what I’m doing.

5. I have the attention span of a toddler on a sugar high. This means that I can’t listen to the radio, watch TV or movies. Sometimes I inhale seasons of TV all at once, because I have an interesting knitting project to keep me occupied, but I can’t follow a show for an entire season, week to week. This means that I have never seen Buffy, Veronica Mars, 30 Rock, Merlin, Fringe (two episodes, before I spaced out), Glee or any of the other shows you people are always talking about. In short, I live in a bubble. It’s probably really annoying.

6. Like most people with depression and anxiety issues I can be REALLY selfish. Half the time I live inside my own head, and if I have a bad day I will most likely cancel any plans we may have, no matter how much you may look forward to them.

7. I can’t speak on the phone. Seriously. I don’t know what people like me did before e-mail and text messages.

8. I tend to lose people I actually care about. I have very little contact with my friends from high school, I fall out of touch with anyone I’m not related to, and it’s not because I don’t care, it’s just because I at times feel so shitty that I can’t think about anyone but myself.

9. Being pregnant, giving birth and raising kids really freak me out. Actually, children in general makes me nervous, because they ask questions grown ups know not to, they look at you and they always just know.

10. I am painfully shy, stare at people rather than talk to them, couldn’t flirt if my life depended on it and have never had a one-night-stand. People usually think I hate them because I act like I’m So Much Better than them. In reality I am absolutely terrified.

11. I won’t ask for directions.

12. I’m a really bad vegetarian. I was a vegan for three years, an vegetarian for seven and now I eat meat 2-3 times a month. I have no good reason for it, either. I won’t cook with meat, fish or eggs, and use vegan eggreplacer whenever I can, but if somebody else cooks I’ll eat it, occasionally. I haven’t eaten a whole egg since I was eight years old and learned that eggs are unfertilised chickens.

13. I have been on sick leave four times in the last ten years. I haven’t held down a job since I was twenty-one. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to.

14. I am extremely clumsy. In the last two days I have fallen down the stairs twice. Once my laptop got the worst of it, and I’m not sure it is going to survive that fall. *crosses fingers that it will stay alive*

15. I am seriously addicted to Diet Coke.

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AWESOME THINGS ABOUT ME:

1. I care. About everyone. Even if I can’t always articulate it.

2. If I could I would adopt every stray kitten that came along, and cuddle them to death. I am aspiring to become a crazy cat lady, and I’m well on my way! (On the other hand I hate dogs. And small children are, as we’ve established, pretty freaky.)

3. I’m awesome at vegan cooking. It was being a vegan that taught me how to cook in the first place, and I can make a killer roux, amazing cupcakes, tofu stuffed manicotti and a chocolate cake that nobody can tell is vegan. My favourite thing to bake is lemon chocolate chip cookies.

4. I am creative. I know how to sew, knit, crochet, spin and weave, and do so often and happily. I’m really good at following knitting patterns, but less so at writing them myself. I’m a newbie at crocheting, spinning and weaving, but love doing all of them. They make me calm.

5. I think in colour, and when I weave a rug I don’t just weave a rug. I make art. Some people find this odd, but I love expressing myself in these ways.

6. I am a decent writer. I used to beat myself up for not being able to write in Swedish, anymore, but once I embraced writing in English and started using it to my advantage I think I became a better writer.

7. I’m loyal. I mean, REALLY loyal. This is a good thing for the most part, but sometimes I hurt people because I in the attempt of being loyal to one person somehow manage to make another person sad. I try to get better at this, and I think I am somewhat successful.

8. I am a Nice Person. Sometimes too nice, but in all it’s a good thing, because I always have time to talk and try to share what I have with those that I like.

9. Like everyone in my family I have quite the dramatic thing going for me. It means that I over react, am convinced I am doomed, which I never am, and can tell a good story.

10. My imagination is a force of nature.

11. I have experienced enough drama to be able to write a BOOK about it. Maybe one day I will.

12. I am sentimental and save little silly things, and when I find them again years later they make me very happy. Sometimes I upload them to Facebook and make other people happy as well.

13. I have no problem travelling alone. When I was twenty-two I travelled across the world just to see if I liked a person. I did.

14. I’m bilingual.

15. I refuse to define my self worth by a number on a scale, and I’m learning (it’s a work in progress!) to find my body-as-a-woman way hotter than my body-as-a-girl. It goes up and down, but at the end of the day I am grateful for each one of my curves and that I can eat whatever I want because I say so.

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There you go. What are your things? Tell tell tell!