25 things the internet doesn't know about me

Yes, of course this is a meme I picked up from Avitable... and one of the things NOT on this list is my inability to ignore a meme...

Anyway, here we go:

1. When I was 6-7, I attended a very strict school in the south of Scotland and was the only girl in the entire school (it was an interesting experience, to put it mildly).
2. During my time at that school, I had the palm of my right hand smacked with a metal ruler by the teacher as part of a punishment meted out to the entire class. It hurt like hell.
3. The only PE class I consistently enjoyed was also at that school - the boys all played rugby, but for once my mother put her foot down and refused to let me do that (thank God), meaning that I ended up playing badminton with the headmaster's wife every day. Fabulous.
4. I'm not a particularly spiritual person, yet I know that the night my beloved aunt died, way back when I was 21, and far from both my home and hers, our souls connected - she died at the exact same time I was lying on the floor of the jazz club in my university town (held in a fabulous old building with stained glass windows) in a pool of moonlight reflecting through the stained glass. I felt peaceful. (Don't ask why I was lying on the floor...)
5. I cannot ever imagine being able to eat oysters.
6. I love junk food, even though here in France it's virtually treason to admit to such a thing. Meaning I don't eat it very often (probably a good thing). But the cravings are there...
7. I love trashy TV shows, even though I'm pretty much an intellectual snob.
8. Oh yeah, I'm an intellectual snob!
9. I don't think I actually know what it feels like to be truly happy.
10. One of my biggest fears for my girls is that their love lives will be like mine - non-existent for way, way too long (never even went on a date till I was about 21, never got a Valentine's, never got asked out, never heard that anyone had a crush on me), then intense and exclusive for a long time, and finally back to being alone again.
11. I feel woefully unsuited to explaining the finer points of boy-girl relationships to my girls.
12. I am hopeless when it comes to putting on make-up (which is why I rarely wear any).
13. I didn't learn to swim till I was 30.
14. Since learning to swim, I've almost never been in water and am now back to not being able to swim again.
15. The thing about how you never forget how to swim is CRAP.
16. I have always wished I were more athletic.
17. When I was in primary school, I wished my name were Wendy.
18. I would love to learn to dance the salsa and the tango.
19. I hate my skin - both its colour (white as hell, prone to bluish and orange splotches in cold weather, bright redness in hot weather) and its extreme sensitivity.
20. I passed my driving test in 1990 and have essentially never driven since (I've mentioned this before), but am hoping to find the money to take a few (a lot of) "refresher" lessons sometime in the next 12 months.
21. I have never owned, nor ever wanted to own, a dog.
22. I am pathologically terrified of dentists (because I have big gum problems) and haven't been for longer than I'm willing to admit (because I have excellent - but ugly - teeth, no fillings, no bridges, no crowns).
23. I haven't ridden a bicycle since I was 19.
24. I think I have a pretty good rack (apart from the whiteness of my skin, of course), and it's almost certainly the part of my body I find the least offensive.
25. I often feel guilty for not missing my mother because we didn't have a bad relationship. Yet I don't miss her. At all. (Though I do miss having "a mother", just not mine.)

I've just read these back, and now suspect that I sound like a cold-hearted basket case. Which may be partially true, actually (I would baulk against "cold-hearted").