Five things.
Jesus, John. Some of us have writing to procrastinate. Which, well. Um.
So okay. —Though I have to agree with fellow taggee Yglesias that this particular meme lacks a certain gimmicky je ne sais quois. One is tempted to cheat with overly specific items such as I have 14,774 songs in my iTunes library, or maddeningly vague items such as almost all the money I’ve made from writing is due to pornography, but I am at heart a decent creature, raised up right to color inside the lines.
- My mother comes from South Carolina aristocracy; my father from folks that seceded from the Confederacy. I was born in Alabama, and most of my formative years were spent in Virginia, Kentucky, and both Carolinas. Yet I can’t speak with a Southern accent to save my life.
- Though I score as an introvert on most Meyers-Briggs evaluations, I tend to be loud and effusive at parties. —Also, I acted a bit back in high school and college. Roles I have played include Dr. Jim Bayliss; Jeff Douglas; Sidney Lipton; Bridegroom; Harlan McKenna; Dr. Bazelon.
- I was once in possession of what might well have been the world’s longest appendix. Or so a surgeon assured me in 1986, after a longer-than-expected appendectomy. For all I know, the intervening years have swept that record under the rug. If you see me at a party, ask for the extended dance mix; this particular anecdote doesn’t survive translation to the written word.
- Though I can’t draw a lick, I’ve completed three 24-hour comics: “Getting to 24,” “The Star,” and “The Story I was Going to Tell on Halloween Night but Couldn’t.” Not that many people have done more than one, but I don’t know that any of us are necessarily proud of this achievement.
- Did you attend Oberlin College in 1987, along with Liz Phair and Michelle Malkin? Did you eat in Dascombe? Do you remember what was invariably the loudest table in the joint, loaded with SF-computer-gaming geeks cracking wise and bluing the air with awful puns? I was the salad bar guy, constantly neglecting his tubs of croutons and dressings to hover about that table for a taste of the action. Those jokes shaped the entire rest of my life.
Now for the tagging: Kevin Moore! Anne Moloney! Jeff Parker! Sara Ryan! Barry Deutsch! Pentamemes are go!
