Enquiring minds want to know- Part deux

It's time to bust out the hideous tacky metaphors and hop on the train back to Princess-land!

(Damn, how epically lame was that? I am almost embarrassed enough to delete it. Almost.)

Anyways, if you folks remember way wayyyy back, you asked me a few questions. I made one stellar attempt to answer them... and now it's on to Round Two!

Valerie asked "What's your best physical feature?"

My personal favourite is my dimple. 

Yes, that's dimple, singular.

I have a single prominent dimple at the top of my left cheek. I think it accentuates my smile rather nicely, if I do say so myself.

My mother actually theorizes that, since I have no birth mark to be seen, my dimple serves as a bit of a replacement.

Autobiography of my feet asked "What do you like most about yourself?"

Wow, so much egotism in one post!!

I like the fact that I am a reasonably well-balanced person.

I am generally social, but I am comfortable with alone time.

I work hard and play hard.

I know when to be serious and when to be playful.

Etc, etc...

Distracted Spunk wondered "What's your favourite stuffed animal and do you sleep with it?"

Uh-oh. Busted.

Meet Jenny!

And, what do you know, another long-winded anecdote coming your way...

The Jenny you see is in fact Jenny #2. Jenny #1 was my constant companion as a young child. I have vivid memories of playing Winnie the Pooh with her as rabbit in the elaborate legs of my mom's antique rocking chair (specifically, the one where Pooh eats too much honey and can't get out of the front of Rabbit's burrow).

When I was only around 5 or 6, we met to a local festival. Of course, I brought my Best Bunny along for the trip. 

Of course, Jenny had to come along when I went to the washroom. She heard all the mean teenagers (they could have been 8, for all I know-- they sounded dangerous) pounding on the door for me to hurry up.

And, silly Jenny, perhaps feeling a little confrontational, decided to stay behind in the washroom.

I got to the outside of the restaurant before I realized my floppy eared friend was oddly not clasped in my arms. My father and I frantically dashed up the stairs-- but the bathroom was officially Jenny-free. The door pounding jerks had abducted her.

I mourned the loss of Jenny with all the fervour a 5-year old could muster.

And promptly found a new best friend when my Great Uncle surprised me with Jenny #2.

One more fact about Jenny #2?

She was one hell of a pop star.

In fact, she was the lead singer of my sister and I's stuffed animal band, the Bunny Rabbits (the name was a bit of a lie... there was an elephant on drums).

She even cut an album with the band.

(Okay, really, it was my sister and I crooning our self-penned songs, such as "The Bunny Hop", into the ubiquitous 80s Fisher Price tape recorders.)

Jenny sleeps on the little ledge beside my bed, usually. Although I feel the need to conceal her eyes whenever the bed is used for purposes other than sleeping. It feels a little dirty otherwise.

Libby asked "Why do you think the word lurking has such a creepy/criminal in a dark alley connotation?"

It really is an unfortunate term. It seems a little unfair to equate reading someone's public blog without commenting with ominously sneaking behind telephone poles and slashing tires.

I think it is the visceral "urk" sound in it. Can you think of anything pleasant that ends in "urk"? It sounds like you just swallowed something lumpy.

Eric1313 asked "What is the wildest thing anyone ever googled to find your page? More importantly, would you be interested in writing a story to match that query?"

Okay, now, this is going to sounds odd, especially given all the people who thrive on reciting the weird searches that some end up linking to their page... but I've actually disabled google searches from finding my page.

Reason being? Plain ol' paranoia. With a dash of wish for freedom.

After I noticed someone in my city searching for a picture of the costume I had coincidentally just worn a day or two prior (my killer homemade Paperbag Princess costume!), I kind of panicked, and used Yoda's tips to rid searches from reaching to your blog. 

Though I still keep my content pretty non-identity revealing, I like the notion that I can say "I'm a Canadian psychology graduate student" and not have to worry about someone who knows me finding me that way (there is not a huge mass of us, really).

The problem is, then, that I don't have a list of all the crazy search terms that led to me before. Pretty much everything I wrote about with the term "naked", "sex" or "sluts" added to it (e.g., yoga sluts). A lot of narwhals, for some reason. And salt-water onions??

Oh yeah! Now I remember! "Porn star with a PhD"!

Apparently some guys really do like smart girls! (although it may only be in a very specific, um, context)

But, really, Eric, do you want to hear some tragic tale of a woman with a PhD in Philosophy ended up getting more recognition for her straight-to-DVD endeavours rather than her dissertation?

Princess Polly asked "What celebrity do you hate the most?"

Shaquille O'Neal.

Hate him.

So much.

I actually wrote of my hate for him back in my days of empty comment boxes.

A sample of my rant?

4) [reason I hate Shaq] The "rap" career. You thought Shaq-Fu was bad??

There is actually a best of Shaquille O'Neal album in existence!

Brilliant lyrics of his include:

Who the hell is Shaq Attack? You'd better catch a vapor

I've got mad props so why would you exploit

Punch you in your face like that kid from Detroit

Really yo you'd better ask MC Hammer 'bout this bad mama jama

Tall kid with the hoopa hypa lipta-gramma

Hoopa hypa lipta-gramma? I will ask MC Hammer, because he could school your ass in a rap-off!

A close second? Dr. Phil.

Who I have more academic publications than, by the way.

Brandy wanted to know my favourite type of cookies...

White chocolate macadamia nut. Mmmmm.

... Reason you most often give for canceling plans

I'm mad busy with grad school stuff.

(I love how vague you can be with what that "stuff" may be).

... Best memory with your sister.

I'm going to go with our cross-Canada trip when I was 18 and she was 15. Though it was on the Greyhound (for which my hatred is epic),  who conveniently lost our bags, there were a lot of amazing stops along the way, such as staying in a hostel that used to be a prison in Ottawa, gallavanting around Vieux Montreal, and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. It was probably both of our first real touches of unstructured freedom. It was also the last summer before I moved away.

Love-ly-sa asked about my favourite holiday treat, any holiday, any treat.

I can't just pick one, so you get one for each the three greatest holidays for someone with a sweet tooth.

Valentine's Day- Hershey's Hugs

Hallowe'en- Candy corn

Christmas- Butter tarts

Sheila wanted to know about my first concert.

First off, I'm gonna' assume that Charlotte Diamond doesn't count. Though she totally rocked my pre-school once. It was pretty awesome.

My first *real* concert was none other than the queen of teen angst herself, Alanis Morisette. 

This was when I was 14, and rabidly obsessed with her.

When my 3-week boyfriend dumped me, I listened to "You Oughta Know" on my cassette walkman as I watched him walk down the hall.

(Side note-- I had no idea about the real meaning of "go down on you in a theatre" at that point)

I grew up in a small town, though, with Wide Mouth Mason being the only band you'd ever might have heard of who came there (what? You haven't heard of them? Their homeland of Saskatchewan frowns upon you.)

As such, seeing her live was never even a considered possibility to me. 

And I didn't think anything of it when my parents were on the phone all day once to supposedly secure tickets for an out-of-town show by Bob "Night Moves" Seger.

You can imagine how shocked I was when they surprised me, my little sis and my foster sister with tickets for my idol, Miss Alanis.

And, thus, my dad had the good luck (and grace) to take us on a summer weekend camping trip down to the States for the show. And somehow managed not to snap while having Jagged Little Pill on repeat the entire ride down.

I can't testify to the musical quality of the show, in hindsight. I was just so thrilled to be in the same venue as her, and to be actually singing along with her voice. 

My dad was probably a very happy man when we lost our voices on the way back.

***

I know, I know, I still haven't answered all your burning questions. 

But, without sounding terribly cliched, it is best to stop when you're ahead, as I'm unsure of how many people have even gotten passed the eyestrain to read this far.

Only one more installment on its ways!