Fourteen Factoids

Wednesday, July 14, 2004 -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

< Z @ D >

Sir Jerr the Bear is the newest member of our doughty band.

I took his survey:

1. If you could go back in time and not sleep with someone you slept with, who would it be and why?

James, when he and I were fifteen. It wasn't the cause, but it was part of a chain of circumstances that ended with his death. His death was an accident, but I can't help believing that if we hadn't messed around, he would be alive today.

2. What is your favorite ethnicity of food and give an example.

I'm not particularly adventurous in this respect. Chinese: fried shrimp. When we had cable-tv and access to the Food Channel, I loved watching Tony Bourdain wander all over the world feasting on the meat and organs of weird critters, with an obvious pleasure that verged on orgasmic. I respect the man, but I don't seek to emulate him. My favorite meat is still American beef, specifically Santa Maria-style barbecued tri-tip.

3. What is your earliest memory and how old were you?

Going to church. I was ambulatory, but not attending school, so this was in the years between learning to walk and kindergarten. The church was an old building originally used, as I remember (perhaps erroneously) for barracks. I remember the smell of wet dust, or wet pavement, but I don't remember rain. (There was not a hint of incense in that first church, and nothing of the archaic scent of a later church, a scent that became the smell of catechism for me, identified forever in my brain as myrrh, although it may have been only the smell of the floor wax.) The interior seemed sun-drenched, as if the church had been lighted by open doors or clear windows, but I don't remember windows. The hall was L-shaped, and parishioners sitting in the short part of the L could not see the altar at the top of the longer part. They couldn't see the priest during mass, they could only hear him, which lent a disembodied quality to the proceedings. I wouldn't have been able to see much of anything, no matter where we sat�I can recall a very vivid memory of my own smallness, of sitting on the kneelers in a forest of grown-up legs. I was too young to follow the liturgy, but old enough to know I was in the House of God and I must be quiet and not run about or stand on the pews. Otherwise, in retrospect, my memories are tinged with a sense of luxury, since I was free to lounge on the pew when all the adults had to stand or kneel. As long as I was noiseless and quick to move when the adults sat down, I could stretch out on the smooth wood of the pew, or curl up, or even crouch and trade alert, curious stares with other young animals, behind the backs of our families, as if we were part of some pagan conspiracy.

4. What are you wearing on your feet right now?

I am the Man in One Suede Shoe�I have a moccasin on one foot and the other foot is bare.

5. You're in McDonald's about to eat a cheeseburger and you drop it on the table and the bun comes apart. The table was just cleaned. Do you still eat the burger?

No. It can't possibly be my cheeseburger. I would never order a cheeseburger at McDonald's. An Egg McMuffin, maybe. But only at the drive-thru, or at the most, take-out. I wouldn't eat there, the furniture is stupid and the ambience is poisonous. It's bad enough eating all that fried fat, you don't want to be breathing it too. And yes, if I dropped my sandwich in the parking lot, I would pick it up, brush off the gravel, reassemble and eat it.

6. Do you talk to yourself?

Don't we all?

7. Give me liberty or give me...

...a team of lawyers from the ACLU.

8. If the national currency had to be a different color, what color would you want it to be?

I like the color it is now, so I don't really care, but I want the US Mint to issue a gold coin with my picture on it.

9. You're in KFC and you're getting chicken with two sides. Which two sides do you get?

Hushpuppies. And more hushpuppies. Does KFC have hushpuppies? I never eat there. I really don't care much for chicken unless it's baked with stone fruit or made into apple cinnamon sausages or into Deep-Fried Chicken Cordon Bleu.

10. How many children (if any) do you want to have?

Zero. If it was possible to do it without murdering someone, I would like to have minus 2.4 children and help reduce the world population.

11. Have you ever "seen stars" as a result of a big sneeze or getting hit on the head or anything? What brought it on?

A big humongous whup-ass orgasm, 9.8 on the Richter scale.

12. What's the worst thing you ever smelled?

A big humongous whup-ass orgasm, 9.8 on the Richter scale. Ha ha, just kidding. The mudpots at Yellowstone, the mater burning buckwheat, and a Nora Roberts' New York Times Bestseller vie for the top spot.

13. What's the worst *physical* pain you ever endured?

When I was a kid, I nearly died from meningitis and botulism and I lived through pain I nevah evah want to feel again in this life or the next or the next fifty lives. I think my karma's paid in full on that account, thank you very much.

14. I am mildy superstitious about the number 13. I harbor a certain tenderness for my superstitions�I'm an aspiring atheist, but I don't fret too much over my backsliding into unreasonable belief.

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

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