a (re)introduction

There’s been quite an influx of new readers this month (hi! welcome! thank you!) so I feel it wise to do a bit of a reintroduction so you all know (or remember) who you're dealing with here. Which begs the question: how does one actually describe themselves? Facts? Feelings? A carefully curated vibe to attract a very specific audience? I'm not emotionally or philosophically equipped to answer that on a Tuesday. Luckily, there are other, smarter people than I who have already figured out the format, so all I have to do is fill in the blanks!

We begin with Stephen Colbert's rapid-fire set of questions, designed not to tell you facts about a person, but who they actually are, which isn’t a terrifying concept at all.

Let’s get started.

Turkey, ham, cheddar, mayo, on a very soft rye bread. Must be eaten with a side of Cape Cod potato chips, carrots and ranch, while drinking a lemonade and sitting by a pool on a hot day.

I think my parents brought me to a Bruce Hornsby concert when I was very little but my memories of that are foggy. So the first concert I actually went to by choice was Usher.

Worms.

Apples for eating. Oranges for juice.

Yes. Leslie Nielsen on the set of a Christmas movie in which he played Santa and I played Girl In Living Room. He also gave me a fart machine.

Energy can't be destroyed, only transformed. So I like to think when we die, our energy just gets recycled into something else in the universe. Hopefully something beautiful, like a redwood. Not, like, a parking lot.

Game Night

Window. My head is just supposed to like… sit there on my neck for a whole flight? No. I HAVE to have something to lean against.

Three-way tie: orange blossoms, cinnamon, and homemade bread baking in the oven.

My kitchen when my husband cooks salmon.

Dancing to Shiny Happy People by REM and And She Was by the Talking Heads in the living room with my brother and parents.

Dogs. I’m too insecure for a cat.

Down is the New Up by Radiohead.

3? I don’t know how this works when nobody is actually asking me this.

Increasingly joyful, extremely well-fed.

Now let’s go a little deeper with James Lipton's ten questions, the ones he closed every episode of Inside the Actors Studio with (borrowed, he'd tell you, from French TV host Bernard Pivot).

Here we go:

Ephemeral. It sounds exactly like what it means.

Miasma.

A sharp, unexpected, and original sense of humor.

Watching someone do something they’re really bad at, especially when they think they’re really good at it.

Fuck or cunt. The “uh” sound really just packs a wallop.

Heels clacking on a marble floor and my son’s laugh.

Styrofoam being touched, moved, broken, really anything to do with styrofoam.

I really want to say marine biologist because I’m so fascinated by sea creatures but I’m also terrified of them and the ocean and really anything to do with large bodies of water in general. So maybe…. librarian? Panda caretaker? Fuck man, I don’t know. This is a stressful one because I’m contending with this question IRL every day as the entertainment industry crumbles around me. I guess I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

Marine biologist.

Welcome, have some freshly baked challah. We’re about to start watching Clueless, why don’t you take a seat in that reclining lounger made out of clouds surrounded by everyone you love?

*

Obviously no questionnaire, however famous, can fully capture a person — but consider this a skeleton — the bones upon which you can build the rest of me over time.

In the meantime, I want yours: best sandwich, worst smell, favorite curse word (especially favorite curse word). Comments are open. Let’s go.

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