Ocho!

You know that your Princess-related curiousity has gotten the better of you and you want some more...

#17 - I'm a noted sleeptalker. Thankfully, this primarily displays itself in muffled mumblings-- though, in high school, I apparently once spoke of feeding a crush fruit. While sleeping in a room with his ex-girlfriend.

#18 - Fitting with the sleeptalking, I also have been known to enact particularly vivid dreams. One time when dreaming I was trying to avoid getting thrown out of a wrestling ring, my friend reported that I was reaching above my head and shouting no, which fit with my memories of frantically grasping the top rope.

Once, when dreaming about driving down a dark street, I awoke to find myself crouched at the end of my bed, hands grasping at the frame, and feet stuck through the slats. It took me some time to overcome the panic of the disappearance of the back of my seat and the gas and brake pedals.

I don't have it as bad as the rest of my family, however. It is now family legend how my aunt, while asleep, locked herself in a closet and pounded on the door while screaming for Kraft Dinner.

#19 - Speaking of family... one of my father's most prominent quirks, which I now find endearing, but was especially embarassing when I was younger, was his propensity to offer my friends (or, in one case, my brand new boyfriend) prime pickings from a plate of edible flowers.

#20 - When it comes to things of great importance, I am incredibly responsible. In my many years of school, I have never missed a deadline or asked for an extension on a project. I am also notorious for remembering friend's birthdays. However, when it comes to the little things, I am shamefully scatterbrained. I cannot ever seem to prepare fully for a regular day's work, leaving behind my water bottle, chap stick, that day's notes, a crucial article, or even my lunch as I dash for the door. Just today, I strolled over to a nearby coffee shop to work on a manuscript. I ordered a latte, sat down, set up my laptop... then realized that I had left my USB stick with the entire paper on it in another purse. I had to ask the barista to keep my latte behind the counter as I dashed back home. (Unfortunately, the redheaded construction worker who resembled CarrotTop by my house seemed to think that my passing him three times in fifteen minutes was my subtle way of scoping him out.)

#21 - One of my earlier goals, wedged between my goals of being a writer and being an actress, was to become the first woman hockey player in the NHL. I practiced taking slapshots agaisnt the wall of my house and prattled off hockey stats with my father. While that may sound endearing, it becomes substantially more ridiculous when you take into consideration that I could barely stay afoot on a pair of ice skates.
Besides, Manon Rheaume quickly beat me to the punch.

#22 - To what was likely the massive chagrin of my parents, I completed the transition from gawky girl to full-on teenager in the period of one summer month before entering Grade 9. Up until that point, I'd been fairly awkward, wore enormous t-shirts tucked into my jeans, didn't have the slightest clue how to wear make-up, style my hair, or how to interact with the opposite sex. I was always the geeky sidekick to my more experienced and stylish friends, some of whom were particularly invested in keeping me in that role.

And such it came, that when one such friend left town for a week, I quickly engaged in all the beauty routines I had only heard of. I shaved my legs, plucked my eyebrows, learned to apply mascara, dyed my hair, and began buying clothes that actually fit. It was though with this change of appearance, understanding of how to interact with boys developed naturally. Overwhelmed by my sudden power, I frolicked in my newfound "boyfriends", and embarked in a number of two week long "relationships", which would inevitably end when one of them would try to grope me in some surprising manner.

#23 - Foreshadowing my current caffeine addiction, in my early teenage years, I kept a jar of instant coffee in the same drawer as other secret items, such as my diary and overdramatic attempts at poetry. When my parents were away, my girl friends and I would secretely boil water and chug back the foul brew, and then run amock in our perceived caffeine buzz, ever vigilent to the sound of my parents car returning that would signal the time to dump the rest of our cup down the drain.

#24 - As the result of seven years of university tuition paid solely on my own, I still have yet to own my first car. I no longer have the teenage dreams of the wind flowing through my hair as I cruise in my brand new convertible. I've accepted that I will likely be Dr. Princess before I am Car Owner Princess, and by that point my first car will probably be something boringly practical-- though hopefully I will not quite be in station wagon territory.

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An aside... I'm headed on holiday with the guy for a little over a week on Saturday. Updates from my escape from the city to come!