…by my agent, Deidre Knight, to share five little-known facts about myself. But I’m an open book! What facts have I failed to share? Okay:

UPDATED TO ADD: Robin has shamed me with her confessions. Way to up the game, Brande! What kind of confessional-series writer am I, anyway? Time to get personal.

1. My favorite flowers are tulips. Yesterday, someone told me that tulips have no scent, but I disagree. In fact, one of the reasons I decided that tulips were my favorite flowers is because I remember a bouquet of tulips I got many years ago that smelled just like a loaf of fresh-baked bread. My editor gave me a bunch of tulips this week, and you can only detect a faint aroma if you stick your nose right into the bloom, so I suppose the scene is dependent on the type of tulip you’re looking at. I wasn’t kissed until I was 16. It only happened once. Then I hit a long dry spell. Like…. long. After that I learned not to wait around for the kisses.

2. I’m a huge slob. Actually, that fact isn’t little known at all to anyone who knows me in person. The only time in my life when I avoided being a huge slob is when I was living out of whatever could fit in my backpack in Australia. Yeah, this one is embarrassing enough.

3. I studied Latin for seven years. I even had a Latin class with the Man-Who-Would-Be-Sailor-Boy, but we didn’t know each other then. My Latin now? Sucks. Sailor Boy’s version of the story was that when he met me again, he totally remembered me as the girl he used to avoid in Latin class. I didn’t remember him because I was barely conscious in that Latin class. Hence the avoidance.

4. For most of my life, my favorite color was blue, but in the past decade, it’s changed to red. I’m not sure why. I just find myself drawn to that color more often. I wonder if it’s a sign of a shift in my personality. On my sixteenth birthday, I took a nosedive with a glass of OJ in my hand and sliced my face open. Down to the bone. 28 stitches later, I have about a four inch scar on my cheek and jaw (Dontcha just love photoshop?). I’m still a klutz. I’ve also broken most of my toes and once, my tailbone.

5. The scene in Secret Society Girl where Amy was in a bathroom stall and overheard a total stranger talking about how unworthy she was of her ex actually happened to me in college, though not in the same way. Unlike Amy, I found the whole situation too funny for words.

So, it was just after having broken up with my first serious boyfriend. It was an awful awful breakup, which he’d punctuated by coming to a performance of a play I’d been in, and making out with a girl in the front row while I was on stage. (He was probably lucky I didn’t vomit all over them both). Later in that performance, I was in the stall, and the girl and one of her other friends were redoing their makeup in front of the sinks (I guess he’d kissed it all off), and she said, “I don’t even know what he sees in her. She’s a senior, and it’s not like she’s the president or the editor of anything.”

*That’s* when I started laughing. Yes, I was old, and clearly lacking in status.

I tag… Susan Adrian, Amanda Brice, and Robin Brande.

14 Responses to “I’ve been tagged”
  1. Robin Brande says:

    You took a Latin class with SB without knowing he was your future SB? That is SO romantic!!

    Great, now you’ve tagged me. This may take some thought. I’ve got a lot of secrets. Which ones to tell . . .

    [Reply]

  2. Kalen Hughes says:

    Ok, I admit to eight years of French, and now I can barely remember how to ask how much something costs. *blush*

    And bathrooms are always good places for fodder. The summer after my junior year of college I was out at a club, late into the night as I was exiting the loo I bumped into two girls I went to high school with. Insert a minute or two of small talk about what colleges were going to and what I’m working on for my thesis, etc. Off I go. A few minutes later my best friend comes out of the loo, bent over with mirth. She runs up to me and says, “The second you left the blonde one said, Wow, I thought she went to drug rehab after high school.” LOL! Uh, no ladies. I wasn’t a druggie (just a Punk). I was in the AP classes with your boyfriends.

    [Reply]

  3. Susan Adrian says:

    Whoops! Tagged–good thing I saw this!

    [Reply]

  4. Diana Peterfreund says:

    ooh, Kalen that’s a good one.

    Robin was so much more personal with hers than I was with mine, I guess I’ll have to share more about that bathroom experience:

    So, it was just after having broken up with my first serious boyfriend. It was an awful awful breakup, which he’d punctuated by coming to a performance of a play I’d been in, and making out with a girl in the front row while I was on stage. (He was probably lucky I didn’t vomit all over them both). Later in that performance, I was in the stall, and the girl and one of her other friends were redoing their makeup in front of the sinks (I guess he’d kissed it all off), and she said, “I don’t even know what he sees in her. It’s not like she’s the president or the editor of anything.”

    *That’s* when I started laughing. My lack of status was clearly a problem? (For the record, HE wasn’t the president of anything either.)

    [Reply]

  5. Heather Harper says:

    You and I share #2. (It’s so hard for me to imagine you that way, but it makes me feel better…lol.)

    Robin tagged me, so mine is up.

    [Reply]

  6. Patrick says:

    C’mon!!! Out with it. Let’s hear the Myrtle Beach story!!!

    We all know you have one! We all want to hear it.

    We’re all waiting!

    [Reply]

  7. Julie Leto says:

    My favorite flowers are tulips, too. Just got some for V-day. I don’t think I’ve ever really smelled them except in the spring when you walk around Chicago and the tulips are in bloom EVERYWHERE…yeah, the city does smell better then.

    Funny story about sailor boy and latin class…when my now husband first met me, we were in college. He was a Sigma Chi pledge and I was the ADPi Pledge Master. His pledge class came to sing to my pledges, but they didn’t have an appointment, so I turned them away (only because the Pikes were coming…must be efficient, you know) and he said that his pledge class was not saying nice things about me.

    When we met a year later, I believe his response after figuring out who I was was something like, “You’re that b*tch.” (No, I don’t think he meant to say it out loud.)

    My reply was, “Why yes, I am.”

    Established the lines pretty early on. :-)

    [Reply]

  8. Jaci Burton says:

    I have a lovely scar across my forehead courtesy of a running leap and the rug flying out from under me when I was 5 years old and staying at my grandparents’ house. I went face down on the iron bar on the side of the sofabed, resulting in 11 stitches. This year when we meet up we’ll have to compare scars as well as bras ;-)

    [Reply]

  9. Patrick says:

    This year when we meet up we’ll have to compare scars as well as bras ;-)

    I’m sorry… WHAT?!?! I think I missed something.

    [Reply]

  10. Bill Clark says:

    “I even had a Latin class with the Man-Who-Would-Be-Sailor-Boy, but we didn’t know each other then.”

    I don’t know which is more difficult to believe: that you had no memory of the SB-to-be, or that they actually were offering Latin classes for youngsters like you.

    Image of the young SB-to-be conjugating, “Amo, amas, I love a lass….” ;-)

    [Reply]

  11. Robin Brande says:

    Diana, I totally admire you for the redo. That’s some good, juicy stuff. Now I also know how competitive you are–good to know if we’re ever playing Truth or Dare.

    [Reply]

  12. Jessica Burkhart says:

    Yikes about the glass incident. I think I’d switch to plastic cups for life. :)

    [Reply]

  13. ERiCA says:

    I have about a four inch scar on my cheek and jaw (Dontcha just love photoshop?).

    Really? Somehow I never noticed this even when looking at you up close and in person. Or maybe I did subconsciously, but it didn’t stick out to me as marring your face. You’re beautiful even without Photoshop! =)

    [Reply]

  14. Patrick says:

    Sure, it’s easy to miss the scar in person, but didn’t you notice the eye patch and the greying hair?

    [Reply]

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