Just when you thought it was safe to read my blog...Here, read this while I try to figure out how to call Nigeria on my office phone.

51. I wish I could go back in time, and give my past self some pointers, maybe avoid a couple of pitfalls. I’d also tell my mom to buy Microsoft stock.

52. I was a dateless wonder in high school and college.

53. Maybe I didn’t get any dates in high school because I took Latin from grades 8-12. Tragically, I only remember a fraction of what I learned. I liked it, though my teacher was somewhat shrewish. I went to several state and national Latin student competition/conventions.

54. I’ve worked on publications since the 9th grade, when I was editor of the “Junior High Journal”. I was editor for the state geeky Latin students’ group publication (called “Uvae Vitas” - “The Grape Vine” - get it?), I was yearbook photographer my senior year, had some articles published in the UF student paper, and made newsletters for employers. Maybe I should have stuck with journalism as a major (it’s my minor), but I didn’t like interviewing people at the time.

55. I also flirted with a visual communications major for a couple of semesters. College art professors have such weird agendas for their students, none of which include teaching technique.

56. I eventually settled on a degree in English Literature. I think if I had been a more aware person, I would have stayed in academia and pursued a career as a college English professor. As long as that wouldn’t have required me to wear tweed jackets with patches on the elbows, I think I would have enjoyed that.

57. I frequently got in trouble in school for talking to my fellow students. I would like all my teachers who complained about my excessive chatter to know that my business card says I am a “Communications Specialist”. So there.

58. Some things I remember from elementary school: the swing sets, hating phys. ed., rows of boots lined up in the hallways during winter, having problems with long division in third grade, peanut butter chocolate squares, chocolate milk and ten cent ice cream sandwiches being available on Fridays, tornado drills sending us to the cafeteria, being perplexed by ‘Doonesbury’ (“Why isn’t this comic strip funny?”), enjoying the school library, cutting up in music class, coming into the building after recess in the winter and not being able to see from the glare on the snow, having to throw up and seriously considering leaning over the stairway for comic effect, and rusty water from the water fountains.

59. I was a sorority girl - Sigma Sigma Sigma, Rho Chapter, FSU. We were the black sheep sorority, the smallest sorority on campus, definitely not the snooty type. We were two houses down from the Chi Omega house, where Ted Bundy committed those murders years ago. Walking past it used to give me the creeps.

60. I’m a collegiate anomaly–I attended FSU for two years, then transferred to UF, where I earned my degree. I probably should have just gone into therapy for a semester or two rather than changing schools. I usually cheer for whoever has a better chance at the national championship when they play each other.

61. I wish I could remember how to read music. I had piano lessons and played flute for a few years in my youth. I wanted to learn percussion, but Mom put her foot down. Can’t say that I blame her, in retrospect. For years, until recently, in fact, I used to have dreams that I was back in high school and in the drum section. I got turned off to the flute when the junior high band director placed me in beginner band even though I had played for two years. By the time my disruptive behavior alerted him to his tragic mistake, I was pretty much a lost cause to that particular instrument. My brother gave me a snare drum and cymbal for Christmas, so maybe I will get around to learning drums one day.

62. I also wish I could sing. A few months ago I started singing in the car, since I have a fairly long commute. There’s a Blondie song and a couple of others I work on. But I very seriously doubt I’ll try to sing them in anyone’s hearing.

63. I wanted to be a writer for the longest time - as far back as third grade. I hate the fiction I’ve tried to write. Thanks in large part to the SCA, I’ve been doing a lot of nonfiction writing, which doesn’t seem too horrifically bad.

64. I was almost a tomboy, I remember hanging out with the boys in the tree house in the vacant lot next to our house. I didn’t play with baby dolls, but I did play with Barbies with the neighborhood girls. I invented elaborate, soap opera-like story lines. I also remember spending a lot of time on my own, riding my bike through the local park, going up to the Lawson’s to buy comic books.

65. I have severe math phobia. It’s so foreign to the way my brain is wired that it scares me, especially algebra. I failed algebra a number of times in high school and college. It finally came down to a semester where I had to pass both statistics and college math or flunk out of college. I got Cs in both classes. Close call. I used to have dreams where I was back in school and had to pass math, and usually I hadn’t been attending class. Though I can do shopping math, I can usually compute discounts and how much of a tip to leave. But that’s about it.

66. I’m pretty observant and can usually piece together what’s going on, so it’s hard to surprise me. Though my husband fooled me last year and had a surprise birthday celebration for me with my friends.

67. I’m jumpy and startle easily, especially if someone walks into a room and I’m not expecting them. Sudden noises will startle me. Apparently I’ve always been that way.

68. I hate when people are behind me, don’t like that at all. I’m getting worse about this one.

69. I used to have somewhat of a tornado phobia as a youth in Ohio. Now I’d like to see one, but not coming toward my house.

70. Roaches are absolutely disgusting; ewwwww! They are so gross that I can’t kill them by squishing them because they are particularly gross in death by squishing. I will spray them with bug spray though. I tolerate spiders because they tend to eat other pests. Snakes are neat, people shouldn’t kill them just because they’re snakes, poisonous ones excepting. Lizards are neat too, as long as they don’t get inside the house. And recently I’ve adopted the bee as a personal symbol of sorts, but I haven’t figured out the exact significance. I just like them.

71. Other totem animals besides bees are peacocks (mainly because their feathers are so pretty), leopards (because of leopard print, and the fact that they hunt for sport, which is just makes them more bad-ass cool) and cows. Cows are a family totem, my father liked them and I think my brother does too. Moooo!

72. Over the past year or two I’ve started to feel uneasy around staircases, especially the open kind; I’m thinking that in a past life I fell to my death down a staircase when I was about the age I currently am, which explains why this is a recent development.

73. In the Eighties, I had at least three premonitions of people’s deaths. My grandfather (Dad’s father), my uncle’s stepson, and a high school friend. The third one was the saddest. We were in college, both at UF, and I hadn’t seen him for a while, but he happened to call to talk to my roommate (another high school friend). I answered the call, and we chatted for a few minutes. I had the oddest thought, that he was contemplating suicide, though nothing he said indicated he was depressed. I couldn’t think of a way to ask, “Are you suicidal?”, so went on with my life, which consisted at that particular time of moving into a new apartment. A couple of weeks later, my former roomie called me in tears-he had killed himself. So, yes, I do believe that psychic ability is possible, and yes, I do have a lot of guilt over that event. I haven’t had any death premonitions since.

74. On a lighter note-my two signature fragrances are Tea Rose (by the Perfumer’s Workshop) and Enchanted Apple (by Victoria’s Secret). Both are hard to come by, so I stockpile them. Whenever someone compliments me on my scent du jour, I panic that maybe I’ve put too much on.

75. I’ve traveled to at least 30 states. I liked Omaha, NE, though I expected to hate it. I didn’t like Detroit at all. Colorado Springs was my favorite city to visit when I was travelling for a living, I always lobbied to get the assignments that would take me there. And Ohio, of course.