- My kids are better than me at almost everything, but it doesn’t bother me, because they’re my kids, and these miraculous beings came from me—were something I created. I am proud that I made something more extraordinary than I am.
- When I was a kid, I had to have the most French fries on my plate of everyone at the dinner table. When my father would get up and go to the stove or the refrigerator, I would steal fries off his plate, thinking he was unaware, and laugh sinisterly.
- When I was a kid, I always wanted a treehouse, even though our backyard had no good trees in it.
- When I was a kid, I always wanted an in ground swimming pool in our backyard, but our landlord said no.
- When I was a kid, I thought an orgy was a lot of food, because my father would refer to grocery day as a “food orgy.” When I was 10, my 14-year-old cousin set me straight.
- When I was 12, I got a pretty severe bout of the chicken pox. For three days I was delirious with a fever. At the same time, I became a woman. It was a confusing week.
- I don’t like and will not eat baloney or onions. If I know they’re in a food, I have to eat around them. Actually, anything with baloney in it, I just wouldn’t eat at all. It is both a taste and a texture issue.
- I ate scrambled eggs with sugar on them right up through college because that’s how my dad got us to eat scrambled eggs, and that’s how I thought you were supposed to eat them.
- I’m afraid of rejection, bats, and elevators in that order.
- I’ve actively studied some form of nonverbal language since I was 13.
- Freshman year of high school, I used to “forget” my flute at band practice so I could spend the entire period reading my senior friend’s psychology textbook for fun.
- I associate almost every song with a color. I always have. I think they call this synesthesia. When I was just a baby, Sheena Easton’s Morning Train: brown. The Beatles’ Long and Winding Road? Dark blue. Jerry Rafferty’s Baker Street: black with sepia. Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely? Yellow.
- Synesthesia has followed me far beyond the 1970s and 80s well into my adulthood: Linkin Park’s Breaking the Habit: red. Lady Gaga’s Pokerface: also red. Neyo’s Closer: green. NIN’s Closer (as a grunge alternative goddess, forgive me for not starting with this Closer): black. Bjork’s Jóga: sepia. Prince’s Thieves in the Temple: indigo. Chris Cornel’s Sun Shower: violet. Imogen Heap’s Hide and Seek: ice blue. And Fleet Foxes’ Young Man’s Game: green. Sorry, I could do these all day and never get bored.
- I have a Diet Pepsi problem, but my real favorite soda of all time is regular Coca-Cola. I never drink it now, but if I drank it like I did when I was thin, I’m sure I would have diabetes by now.
- You’d think it would’ve been an art museum, but my favorite museum in DC was actually the Newseum. They had to shut it down years ago because they couldn’t afford to run it for free like the other museums in Washington. I could’ve spent days in that museum. My favorite exhibit was the photojournalism. So sad and so moving.
- Favorite movies: Spaceballs, Office Space, The Rutles, This Is Spinal Tap, Better Off Dead.
- I was a pretty decent roller/ ice skater as a kid. I just didn’t know how to stop.
- I wasn’t a bad athlete, even in middle school. I could whack a tennis ball into the next time zone with a bat. I did as many sit-ups as the boys. The girls soccer team captain at St. Mary’s told me I should play for them one time in PE.
- For a righty, I do a peculiar amount of things with my left hand, including opening jars and twisting off items. My great grandmother was ambidextrous.
- I frequently dream of my teeth falling out.
- My favorite food is lobster but my favorite food is also pizza. And ice cream. But ice cream now makes me sick because of my surgery.
- Eating very much ice cream makes me sick now.
- I don’t cook as often as I’d like, but when I do, I’m told I do it well.
I Learned Something Today 
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