Despertar

with a smile and a song

1. Has anybody ever told you that you're too young to be in love?
No. I was already twenty by the time I even had anyone to be in love with, and by that time they were all just glad I wasn't a sociopath.

2. Did you learn anything from the last BIG mistake you made?
Yes, I learned that routinely ditching my hardest class was pure idiocy. Although, given how badly I performed on my Tax exam, I probably wouldn't have gotten an A even if I'd been there early every day. I also learned that plants need both sunlight and water, and that no man is worth the aggravation, except when one sort of is.

3. Do you have a favorite brand of shoes?
I don't know any brands, really. I know I'm not supposed to feel this way, but I think most Louboutin heels look silly.

4. Do you like rollercoasters with big drops?
Literally, no, I don't. Figuratively, I will say, emotional highs aren't worth anything without emotional lows against which to compare them.

5. Do you have any inside jokes with your parents?
A few with my mom. My dad is like a bull in a china shop in the area of social subtlety. Also, here are the only two things that make him laugh: excessive scatological swearing and high-level political satire. Nothing in between.

6. Have you ever thrown a surprise party for somebody?
Not personally, but I've been on informal committees.

7. Did you ever want a pony for a gift as a kid?
I still have no idea why every female child goes through the rite of getting all hot for horses. I seriously don't see what about a smelly, knobby-kneed labor animal evokes beauty and fantasy. That said, I went through a Misty of Chincoteague phase and begged my mom to look into horses for sale. She actually indulged me by collecting price quotes and looking into stable rentals, but by the time she determined it was a stupid idea, I had moved on to something else.

8. Do you know who your mom's favorite singer is?
I know every single artist she ever listens to, due to her refusal to learn how to load her own iPod.

9. What year were you born in?
The Year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and eighty-five.

10. The last time you got dressed up--where were you going?
Justin's. It was last night, my first time ever wearing this really pretty purple velvet skirt with gold threading that I've never successfully paired with anything else. As it turned out, the magic partner piece turned out to be a magenta cami from Target. Nine dollars. As Stacy says, style comes at all price points.

11. Have you ever gone to a school that made you wear uniforms?
Public schools only, baby.

12. What is your favorite card game?
Spades, but graduating from college left me disillusioned--apparently only black people ever play cards. Except for, like, canasta.

13. Have you ever tried to surf? Do you want to learn?
No, and not so much. I feel very meh about the open ocean.

14. Honestly, have you ever mooned anybody?
I really think I could come up with a better show of disrespect than that.

15. Have you ever had a song dedicated to you? What was it?
Various shit Marcus used to play on his guitar, don't remember which, exactly. Probably Dave Matthews Band's "Grey Street," my hatred for which Marcus never seemed to quite process. Song dedications don't mean anything, anyway. Kai claimed to have written a love song for Imani, and then I heard her performing it for her new girlfriend a year later.

16. What accent do you like the most?
A Yankee accent. And that's the God's honest truth.

17. What color eyes does your best friend have?
One has brown, one has, I think, blue? But I'm not good with non-brown eye colors.

18. When was the last time you fought with a friend?
Two days ago, apparently, but I didn't even realize it till she generously called to apologize.

19. Did you pick out the furniture in your bedroom?
The bed is a hand-me-down from my parents, but everything else I chose, coordinated and assembled myself. God bless Ikea.

20. Yes or no: Apple pie?
Should I have capitalized Apple? I only just learned the rule about capitalizing or not capitalizing a clause after a colon, and I'm trying really hard to cement this new information by putting it into frequent practice.

21. Are you a heavy sleeper?
I'm a terrible sleeper. Damn near dysfunctionally so.

22. Do you know how to make those paper fortune tellers?
Of course. My ability to do basically any girly craft (gimp, friendship bracelets, all sorts of crazy things with paper) is the main thing I took away from my summer-camp-filled childhood.

23. Honestly, have you ever regifted something? What was it?
Honestly, no. I really like giving gifts.

24. How many months away is your birthday?
Twoish.

25. Have you ever been on a blind date?
Heh.

26. Is the closet in your bedroom a walk-in closet?
It's pretty much the smallest possible space that can still call itself a walk-in, yes. I didn't realize till we had already moved in that Valerie's bathroom and closet are like three times as big as mine. My closet is a tiny little triangle; it shares a diagonal border with the hallway that leads from our front door to our closet. Val's closet runs behind the entire length of our kitchen and is big enough to inflate an air mattress in. But she has to share her bathroom with company, so.

27. Do you enjoy cooking?
More and more, now that I'm broke.

28. Which one of your family members do you wish you could see more often?
My Aunt Susan.

29. What room in your house is the messiest?
Tie: my bedroom, the kitchen. Because of, you know, exams.

30. Do you know any sign language?
The whole alphabet, the Pledge of Allegiance, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," a few assorted cusses and the word toilet.

31. Have you ever requested a song on the radio?
I've probably spent a total of four hours even listening to the radio, my entire life.

32. Are you proud of your parents?
Most of the time.

33. What was the last amusement park you went to? Who were you with?
The Six Flags in Springfield, Massachusetts, with the other staff members and campers at the camp where I was a counselor that year.

34. Have you ever (accidentally or not) set off a car alarm?
Yes to both.

35. Do you call it sitting "criss-cross" or "Indian-style"?
I only ever have cause to refer to it either way when I'm working with children, and I feel like there are strong policy arguments against calling it "Indian-style." But I can't imagine I've ever used the term "criss-cross," either. There's some other option, isn't there?

36. Do you like pudding?
Who doesn't?

37. Have you ever used a "puppy face" to get your way?
Cross-legged, that's what I call it.

38. Do you have dimples when you smile?
My seventh-grade science teacher said I did, but I've never seen them in the mirror, and no one else has ever said anything about it. Miss Wong liked me a lot, and I never figured out why. I was a total flake in her class.

39. Do you find graveyards scary?
Kind of, but only because I read so many Mary Downing Hahn books in a past life.

40. Honestly--have you ever written something on a bathroom stall?
Who spends long enough in a public bathroom to do that?

41. Have you ever carved anything into a tree?
No.

42. Do you read those celebrity gossip magazines?
Only when I'm at the airport, but I do read celebrity baby blogs pretty religiously. They are the third and fourth websites I check every morning when I turn on the computer.