One Hundred Things About Me
- I like blackberry cobbler.
- I’m proud to be from Oklahoma.
- When I was a kid, my favorite color was purple. Now yellow is.
- I’ve never been to Europe.
- I collect pottery.
- New Orleans is still my favorite city.
- My all-time favorite album is Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s Braver Newer World.
- Jody and George were my imaginary childhood friends.
- I saw Tina Turner at my first “grown-up” concert.
- I know more about the Eleventh Amendment than you think I do.
- My grandfathers outlived my grandmothers.
- My father wrecked my first car, a Dodge Aspen, before I ever even got to drive it. (When he told me, I thought he was joking.)
- I vividly recall a childhood nightmare about a giant spider in the living room. I rarely remember dreams now.
- A Merchant-Ivory film, A Room with a View, changed my life.
- At 21, I was diagnosed with an ulcer.
- As a kid, I approved of the designated hitter rule; now that I’ve lived in a National League city for awhile, I’m not so sure.
- I stretch every day. If I don’t, my body punishes me.
- I think Babbitt is the most underrated American novel of the 20th century. (Kids should be reading it in high school.)
- I wish that I’d met Allen Ginsberg.
- I wish I understood e.e. cummings’s poetry better.
- I’d much rather be hot than cold. (In other words, I’ll take Florida over Michigan any day.)
- I’m in love with being in love.
- My lucky number is 23.
- I’ve never been to an opera.
- If I were an artist, my work would be influenced by Donald Judd and Morris Louis.
- Nothing turns me off like too much ego.
- I financed most of my undergraduate education by winning a scholarship exam about Oklahoma history. (Thanks, Oklahoma Heritage Association.)
- I like magnolia trees.
- If I weren’t in my current profession, I think I’d like to be either an actor or a social studies teacher. (Is that an odd either/or combo or what?)
- Tulips are my favorite flowers.
- For my money, The Mary Tyler Moore Show is the best television show ever.
- I like game shows more than just about any other television genre. (Match Game is my all-time fave.)
- Asparagus is my favorite vegetable.
- I’m passionate about lemons.
- I’d be a captain more like Picard than Kirk. I like Janeway, too.
- I’m awful about returning email and telephone calls in a timely fashion. Sorry!
- My dream vacation is to visit Paris for the French Open and then London for Wimbledon. (Maybe I could spend the two weeks between the tournaments in Madrid or Belgium?)
- At the right university, I might’ve majored in Canadian Studies.
- The worst thing that ever happened to me is having my heart broken.
- I’d make a great judge, but I’ll probably never have the chance to prove it.
- I’m obsessed with the Olympic Games.
- I was the editor of my high school’s newspaper. While in high school, I was a stringer for the local daily, too.
- After high school, I decided I wasn’t outgoing enough to be a good journalist.
- I get bored easily. (That probably means I’m boring.)
- If it’s not A Room with a View (see #14), Short Cuts is my favorite movie of all time.
- Even after years of living here, I don’t feel like I “belong” in Pennsylvania. And I doubt I ever will.
- When I was a kid, I was sure I’d find a way to live in Washington, D.C.
- I like Japanese restaurants.
- Nothing makes me feel cleaner than having a new, short haircut and freshly trimmed fingernails.
- I’m afraid of dentists and car salesmen.
- I’ve only been in love three times, and I’m not entirely sure one of those should “count.”
- I sort of wish I’d been the punter on my high school’s football team.
- I’ve never been sexually attracted—even in the least bit—to a woman. (Women are great, of course. I just don’t want to sleep with them.)
- I still have a picture of my ex on my desk at work. (After I wrote this, I put the photo in a drawer.)
- I don’t own a car.
- One of the first men I had a crush on was tennis superstar Björn Borg. (Later tennis crushes: Boris Becker, Pete Sampras, Albert Costa.)
- If you’re a man with a build like a linebacker, I’ve probably got a crush on you right now.
- I’m a Unitarian Universalist (with Humanist, Buddhist, and non-theistic tendencies).
- I don’t have a favorite TV show right now. (Do you?)
- My 80GB iPod is currently over three-quarters full.
- Loneliness is something I’ve struggled with, off and on, since childhood.
- When I was a kid, I got Sparky Lyle‘s autograph. (And Crazy Ray‘s, too.)
- Two of my best vacations were road trips to Yellowstone National Park.
- I wonder if you really got the Dorothy Parker reference.
- When I finally got the Tennis Channel, I did a little dance right there in my apartment.
- I think I’d like presiding at weddings.
- If it were track or field instead of track and field, I’d choose field every time. (Hammer throwers are sexy!)
- I really like diner food. Who wants to split the corned beef hash?
- I’m attracted to hairy men.
- In my opinion, Talking Heads was the best rock band ever.
- The last three plays to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama were Doubt, Rabbit Hole, and August: Osage County, and I saw each one of them on Broadway.
- As a kid, I read everything I could find about the Faroe Islands.
- I’m shy around strangers. Sometimes, I even wonder whether I have social anxiety disorder.
- On the SAT, I scored much better on the math than the verbal section. (So, naturally, I write and edit for a living now.)
- I wrote a master’s thesis on sports sociology. (And I later went back to school for more Sports Studies. Why, oh, why don’t I work for the Phillies?)
- I’d give just about anything for a good massage.
- I procrastinate.
- I got the worst sunburn of my life when I was parasailing in Acapulco Harbor.
- I’m not at all interested in having children.
- I’m an enormous fan of my mom’s pies, especially her coconut cream and lemon meringue pies.
- I’m concerned you’ll think this list is pretty darn self-indulgent.
- Are you surprised I’ve made it to No. 82 without mentioning beer? I am.
- Belgian and Belgian-style beers, particularly Lambic beers, are my favorites.
- I’ve never been to New England.
- I subscribe to more magazines than a person with a full-time job could possibly read.
- My favorite Iron Chef is Michael Symon.
- Ice cream usually upsets my stomach. (Sexy, huh?)
- I enjoy rodeo, particularly steer wrestling.
- I see Independence Hall nearly every day.
- I’m interested in vexillology.
- As a child, I was very, very good at checkers.
- After 10-plus years of commuting, I still smile when a train—wow, a passenger train!—pulls up to my station each morning.
- The worst neighbors I ever had (a) exposed me to bedbugs, (b) refused to cooperate with the exterminator, and (c) never said they were sorry. Hmph.
- According to the Myers-Briggs instrument, I’m an INTP.
- I’m not wild about peaches.
- Hot, not merely warm, water is essential for my morning shower.
- I haven’t been camping since I was a child.
- Jason Bateman could play me in the movie.
- I once was offered a job in Palau. I said no.
- It has literally taken me months and months to think of these 100 things.
