I borrowed this from Sally Swift and Gus Sanchez--apparently the polarity meme (as it is apparently called) is making its way around OS.  The lists I've read so far are delightful to read, this was fun to write, and do send a PM if you decide to do one--I look forward to reading yours!

10 Things I Hate 

1) Narrow-mindedness.  Teendoc wrote an excellent post a while back about people who think that if they made a choice that didn't work out for them, then when you make that choice, you'll regret it, too.  Or, since they feel a certain way about something, there is simply no other legitimate way for any other individual to feel.  She treats this subject in much greater depth and with much more wisdom than I can do here, so if you wanna know more about that, just go read her post.

2)  My hair.  Okay.  Maybe this could go in the "love" section, too.  I think I love the idea of my hair, and the way it looks when I take the time to make it look okay, just am not too crazy about the day-to-day reality of it.  It's probably my best feature when I take the time to condition, unsnarl, usually condition more, and spray the shit out of it.  The only problem is, that's a lot of work.  So usually it gets thrown up in a bun (which makes it more snarly) or straightened, although I've stopped doing that so much since it's bad.  So yeah, yay pretty hair, boo high-maintenance hair.

3) Improper use of apostrophe-esses.  An apostrophe is used to denote possession (Sally Swift's meme is awesome!) or a contraction (Sally Swift's meme's awesome!).  NO PLURALITY.  One cannot buy five lamp's or see three doctor's.  

4) Anyone who thinks this asshat is funny.  If you like Jeff Dunham, please do the gene pool a favor and go jump off a bridge. 

5) Beets.  Stems or roots, sauteed or steamed or boiled or baked or raw or even deep-fried.  Nasty, nasty, nasty, no matter what.  I think on the eighth day, G-d took a dump and these are what came out.

6) Serial killers.  (Real controversial, right?)  Actually, hatred isn't exactly the right term.  Irrational fear mixed with intense fascination is more like it.  Especially the smart ones, the ones who when you look at them you think, "What a mensch!" and not "I bet he's completely disconnected from reality and eats brains."  The latter aren't even all that scary, because you know not to talk to them or if you talk to them to have your finger on the pepper spray bottle.  And if anyone sees you talking to them and then you disappear, they're like, "Well, she was talking to this guy who looked pretty unkempt and like he maybe eats brains.  He lives in that shack over there."  And then the crazy unkempt serial killer gets caught and you maybe even get rescued.  The Ted Bundys and all the other smart charming ones who haven't even been caught and are roaming the earth right now are the ones you gotta watch out for.  They're inconspicuous to start with, AND they're smart enough to know how to stalk you and lure you into their car and kill you and remain inconspicuous.     

I just completely gave myself the willies.

7) The fact that we don't have single-payer health insurance in this country, and the fact that the way private insurance works is back-ass-wards.  The people who have an illness or condition, or had a previous illness, are the ones who are most likely to get dumped or unable to even find someone to insure them--what the fuck kind of sense does that make?? 

8) People who text while driving, or drive when they're drunk, or don't buckle their children when they drive.

9) Teenagers who have children.  This may draw some ire on OS, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.  Obviously, I don't hate the teen parents themselves, I just think the decision they made to raise a child (as opposed to having an abortion, doing an adoption, or using birth control) was a stupid one.  I'm not a fascist--I never want to see abortions or adoptions mandatory.  But I spent three years working in a daycare, and the teen parents I knew ranged from god-awful to sort of inadequate; their children ranged from fabulously fucked up to slightly under-nurtured.  If you wanna slag on me for having an abortion, bring it--we have the right to disapprove of, even hate, each other's choices, just not the right to keep each other from making them.  My opinion, reached by considering both scientific and anecdotal evidence, is that teenagers who have kids are doing a great disservice to themselves and their children.

10) (Stolen from Gus) Political punditry.  It's stupid, it's completely unproductive, and it gets us absolutely nowhere.

10 Things I Love

1) My parents.  They're the most kind, intelligent, fun, and well-rounded people I've ever met, and pretty much every good thing I've done with my life so far is due in part to their encouragement, support, and inspiration.

2) My cat, George.  He adopted me.  He used to hang outside of our apartment in Montreal and go, "Maaaaaooowww-aaaooowww, ooowww" until one of us came out and played with him.  He had no collar.  Fall came, and he still hung around maaaaoooooow-ing. 

When it started to get cold and snow, I bought some cat litter and food, lined an old cardboard box with a plastic bag (thank god, he was housetrained already), and brought him inside, where he liked to snuggle in my bed and henceforward became "my" cat.  My roommates and I took pictures and posted them all over the city to no avail.  When no one called, one of my roommates called her sister, who was a veterinarian; she did a checkup and gave him shots for free, just in case.  I bought him a collar and tags, but didn't have a name, and he couldn't be "le chat" for his whole life.  The nametag on the receptionist's shirt read "George," so that's what I wrote down.  And it stuck.  He's still my kitty, and he still likes to burrow in my cello case and walk across my keyboard as I'm working.  He still hates to chase his mouse toy; he prefers to lie on the floor and bat at it, and gives me a disapproving, world-weary scowl if I try to make it scitter across the floor.  And the best part is, he still says maaaaaooooowwwww when he wants some love.

3) Wisconsin beer.  We have the BEST fucking beer here.  Seriously.  And not just one or two decent microbrews, but DOZENS of REALLY FUCKING GOOD ones.  Tyrenena and Ale Asylum and New Glarus and Lake Louie and a bajillion more that I don't even know about.  I don't know what I'm gonna do when I move and there's not Fat Squirrel or Dancing Man or Hopalicious on the menu. 

4) Cooking.  It's like alchemy.  You take some flour and eggs and sugar and cocoa powder and maybe other stuff, mix it together, stick it in an oven, and five-odd things that are inedible by themselves become an oh-so-edible cake.  It's also a good creative outlet, because once you master the basics you can do pretty much anything.  And, it's soothing.  Nothing in the world makes a shitty day better than putting on some music, chopping up some raw food, and throwing it together to see what happens.

5) Occasionally getting real baked and watching really trashy reality TV.  Reality TV (the VH1 crap, never watched Real Housewives or anything because that's just way too much) is so fucked up; this seedy, skanky little alternative Z-list universe where there are reality shows whose contestants are culled from the losers of other reality shows that in turn were based on losers from other reality shows.  People get "famous"--not supermarket-tabloid famous, just thousands-of-hits-on-their-shitty-Myspace-page famous--from being the runner-up on a show that was crap to begin with.  And then they spawn their own crap show, seasons and seasons of it probably.  Seriously.  I don't do it enough to know all the ins and outs and who's who, but the occasional toke combined with the occasional episode of "Who Wants To Schtupp A Washed-Up 'Rock Star'" (aka Rock of Love) is good stuff and makes for some laughs.   

6) Chocolate.  Enough said.

7) Reading.  I'm another one of those people who can't fall asleep unless I read first.  Magazines, fiction, poetry, non-fiction, cookbooks, school stuff--I love it all.

8) Playing cello--another soothing, fun activity.  I love how you can play the same piece over and over and over again and it will never be exactly the same, and how the tiniest change--a slower vibrato, a different position--can produce a radically different sound and feel.  

9) Bill Hicks.  This guy was fucking brilliant, and I'm sad he's gone.