[it's harder than it looks]

Rules: It's harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag 10 people. Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real...nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

1. What is your name: Josh

2. A four letter word: Jolt

3. A boy's name: Jesus

4. A girl's name: Jessica

5. An occupation: Journalist

6. A color: Jade

7. Something you wear: Jodhpurs

9. A food: Jambalaya

10. Something found in the bathroom: Jars

11. A place: Jaisalmer

12. A reason for being late: Jalopy broke down

13. Something you shout: Jump!

14. A movie title: Jacob's Ladder

15. Something you drink: Juice

16. A musical group: Jamiroquai

17. An animal: Jaguar

18. A street name: Joralemon

19. A type of car: Jeep

20. The title of a song: Just

[josh needs]

More facebook memery:
Type in your name and the word "needs" in quotes ("[Your first name] needs") INTO YOUR FAVORITE SEARCH ENGINE and see what comes up. List the first 10 and then tag 10 or more of your friends. Google seems to think I need...
1. A holiday or just a cuddle
2. To stop lounging on here's [sic]
3. Help
4. A scolarship [sic]
5. Extra lovin' to keep mind off ScarJo
6. To quit stalking Supermac
7. To explore the idea that Trojan War was really in ...
8. Tips!
9. To visit Hawaii
10. To make me this super awesome owl cupcake for my bday!

[things about me]

Yet another Facebook meme ...

Place an (x) by all the things you've done. Then send it to your friends (including me). This is for your entire life!

( ) Been to South America

(X) Been to Europe (if you count Ireland)

(X) Been to Asia

( ) Been on a cruise

(X) Gone on a blind date

(X) Skipped school

( ) Watched someone die

( ) Been to Canada

(X) Been to Mexico

(X) Been to Florida

(X) Been on a plane

(X) Been lost

(X) Been on the opposite side of the country

(X) Gone to Washington , DC

(X) Been to Vegas

( ) Been to a lighthouse

(X) Swam in the ocean

(X) Cried yourself to sleep

( ) Seen the Cherry Blossoms in Washington , DC

(X) Played cops and robbers

( ) Flown a plane

( ) Owned a boat

( ) Recently colored with crayons

( ) Been to the Kentucky Derby

( ) Been to Key West

(X) Been to a rodeo

(X) Sang Karaoke

(X) Paid for a meal with coins only

(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't

(X) Made prank phone calls.

(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose

(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue

(X) Danced in the rain

( ) Written a letter to Santa Claus

( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe

(X) Watched the sunrise with someone

( ) Seen the green flash at sunset

(X) Blown bubbles

(X) Gone ice-skating

(X) Gone to the movies

( ) Owned a convertible

1. Any nickname? Joshy Teacher, Rooster, Ushua, Ush

2. Mother's name? Pesha

3. Body Piercing? Left ear, now closed

4. How much do you love your job? A whole lot. A serious whole lot.

5. Birthplace? San Francisco, CA

6. Ever been to Hawaii ? Yes, as an infant

7. Ever been to Africa ? No

8. Ever eaten just cookies for dinner? Who can remember?

9. Ever been on TV? Yes

10. Ever steal any traffic sign? No

11. Ever been in a car accident? Yes

12. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle? No

13. Favorite number? I dig primes.

14. Favorite movie? Barking Dogs Never Bite

15. Favorite holiday? Chanukkah

16. Favorite dessert? Chocolate with chocolate, dipped in chocolate, with chocolate sauce and chocolate on the side

17. Favorite food? Too many to choose just one, but I could eat San Francisco-style burritos forever

18. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

19. Favorite brand of body wash? Aveeno

20. How do you relax? I watch Simpsons episodes I can sing along with

21. How do you see yourself in 10 years? With a positive net worth, and maybe a Ph.D., or a nice State Department posting

[25 random facts about me]

Note: This is a meme from FaceBook, thus the instructions are Facebooky. 

Rules: Once you've been tagged, write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to Notes under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people [in the right-hand corner of the app], then click Publish.)

1. I have a teddy bear named Elver, which I thought was a perfectly normal name when I gave it to him, at my cousin Louise's bat mitzvah. This bear is somewhere in my parents' house back in California.

2. Throughout much of my childhood, I was deeply concerned with war. Specifically, the war between the good people of Planet Salvania and the bad people of Planet Alto Deto over the resource-rich jungle planet of Reorilia. I made this all up in my head, of course.

3. The highest place I've ever been (outside of an airplane) is Muktinath, a Buddhist and Hindu shrine in the Himalayas of Nepal.

4. In middle school I stayed back a year, repeating sixth grade by taking a year off from Hebrew school and going to the local middle school. That year, I discovered that I was a nerd and made the transition to wannabe, buying Bugle Boy jeans and T&C surf shirts and totally failing to fit in.

5. The first time I heard "Loser" by Beck, it was on my car stereo, and I actually pulled off the highway to make sure I wouldn't lose the signal before I found out who the singer was. I felt like I had been waiting for exactly that song for years.

6. The first time I heard "Hand on the Pump" by Cypress Hill was at the Berkeley Square, a fantastically hip little club on University in Berkeley back in the day. It blew my mind so completely that I asked the DJ what it was. "Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of/Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of..."

7. The first tape I ever bought was Quiet Riot's Metal Health. The first time I heard Quiet Riot was in the car with some friends, and there was heated debate over whether the singer was a boy or a girl.

8. I'm a big fan of a local Brooklyn artist by the name of Elyse Taylor.

9. I love the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and one of my absolute favorite works of art there is a miniature sculpture of the goddess Durga killing the buffalo demon, Mahisha (Mahishasuramardini).

10. When I decided to go to Korea, I had never even tried Korean food.

11. The first time I was given a seriously grownup book to read in English class, it was with Mr. Poirier in seventh grade. We read The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. It was breathtakingly magisterial. I just reread it, and it wasn't as brilliant as I remembered.

12. I like that breakfast cereal that's made of oats and is super high fiber, and it's kind of like square Cheerios made out of granola dust.

13. I keep my old heavy metal T-shirts in a trunk because they simply can't be thrown away.

14. I'm an inconsistent meditator at best.

15. When I was little, I assumed that everyone wanted to write books when they grew up, and the only reason not everyone was a writer is that we need people to do other things sometimes. It was a shock to discover that there were people with no interest whatsoever in becoming writers.

16. I've always had a legalistic, argumentative streak, and for a while I thought I might want to be a lawyer.

17. My very first time on the Internet, I went fishing in Gopherspace and discovered instructions for seducing a horse.

18. I'm not sure I believe in God, but I pray a lot anyway.

19. I've always been fascinated by the exotic. When I was very little, I would imagine that my bed was a lifeboat drifting off to some undiscovered country. When I got older, I thought Ozymandias and Kubla Khan and the Rime of the Ancient Mariner were totally cool. I also really liked The Horse and His Boy, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my favorite Narnia book.

20. I will contemplate the other desserts with due seriousness. Then I will choose the chocolate one.

21. My favorite pair of boots ever was the biker boots I got at Daljeets on Haight Street.

22. My first car was my dad's old Toyota Corona, which burst into flames early in the morning of New Year's Day, just after I'd dropped off my friend Teresa, having gone to a concert together that night.

23. I know that the battle sequence at the end of Star Wars takes longer than the time that's stated in the movie. I know because I've timed it.

24. At various times, the Beastie Boys, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, the Beatles, Metallica, Guns'n'Roses, Bang Tango, the Cult and Soundgarden have been my favorite band. 

25. Briefs.

[incomplete sentences]

A Googler sent out this transcript (via The Memory Hole) of an actual form from the NSA called "Incomplete Sentences," which seems like an ideal blogosphere meme. Fill it out in the comments and pass it on to others. I'll do my own version soon.

DOCID: 3114399

INCOMPLETE SENTENCES

NAME (Last) (First) (Middle) DATE

FINISH THESE SENTENCES TO EXPRESS YOUR TRUE FEELINGS.

1. I always wanted to be

2. I can't

3. If my father would only

4. People think of me as

5. I suffer most from

6. What upsets me most is

7. Most men

8. My family treats me like

9. My greatest worry is

10. Some members of the opposite sex

11. Most women

12. I regret

13. The main thing in life

14. Secretly

15. If my mother would only

16. I don't like people who

17. I wish I could forget the time I

18. When troubled

19. It bothers or annoys me that I

20. What most angers me is

FORM P5590A REV JUN 2000 (Supersedes P5590A REV JUN 76 which is obsolete)
Approved for Release by NSA on 02-16-2007, FOIA Case #42877

The Interview Meme

Here are the rules (via Pagan Mom):

1) Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2) I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3) You will update your own blog, or the comments here, with the answers to the questions.
4) You will include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5) When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.

1) When were you happiest?

That's a tough one considering how skewed my perspective is right now on much of my recent past. But I would say probably my senior year of high school, and then maybe the first year after Jenny and I moved to Court Street.

2) What is a talent that you wish you had?

I wish I were more athletic generally. And I wish I were better at learning languages.

3) What is your favorite flavor?

Chocolate.

4) How do you handle shame?

Badly. I'm working on that. Therapy and recovery are my main tools at the moment. But shame is something I really struggle with.

5) If you had to explain yourself in three sentences, what would they be?

(For the sake of decency, I'll avoid run-ons.) I have known for most of my life that I wanted to be a writer, except for a confused period in elementary school when I wanted to be a lawyer, and this desire runs so deep that I used to believe everyone wanted to be a writer, until I learned otherwise.

I was raised in Northern California by post pot-smoking New York Jewish hippies who became Orthodox Jews, and this was exactly as weird and alienating as it sounds.

I am a lifelong learner on as many fronts as I can manage, and in the last year or so this has taken an especially important turn as I have begun to learn the difference between pursuing dreams and indulging cravings.

[i am privileged]

Don't know where this meme started, but I picked it up from my cousin Louise. If it's true for me, it's in bold. Feel free to post your own.

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family (fam trip because Dad worked for travel agency types)
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

[answer meme]

Answer Meeee!

I'd like to know 27 things about you. Simply post a comment to this post with the answers. Thanks in advance!

1. Do you have a tattoo?
2. How old are you?
3. Are you single or taken?
4. Eat with your hands or utensils?
5. Do you dream at night?
6. Ever seen a corpse?
7. George Strait or Jay Z?
8. How did we meet?
9. What's your philosophy on life and death?
10. If you could do anything with me, and have no one know, what would it be?
11. Do you trust the police?
12. Do you like Country music?
13. What is your fondest memory of me?
14. If you could change anything about yourself what would it be?
15. Would you cheat?
16. What do you wear to sleep?
17. Have you ever peed in a pool?
18. Would you hide evidence for me if I asked you to?
19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?
20. Which do you prefer - short or long hair?
21. Do you sing in the shower?
22. What's your favorite color?
23. If you could bring back anyone that has passed, who would it be?
24. Tell me one interesting/odd fact about you?
25. What was your first impression of me?
26. Have you ever done drugs?
27. Will you post this so I can fill it out for you?

[weirdly accurate]

I mean, the results of this color quiz aren't perfect or anything — my situation is changing rapidly, and these descriptions often fit better for where I was three weeks ago, or five months ago — but they hit on a lot nevertheless. And not wholly by being nebulous.

Your Existing Situation

Having difficulty in standing up to the demands imposed on him. Finds a great effort is involved and wishes to have the situation eased.

Your Stress Sources

An existing situation or relationship is unsatisfactory, but he feels unable to change it to bring about the sense of belonging which he needs. Unwilling to expose his vulnerability, he therefore continues to resist this state of affairs, but feels dependent on the attachment. This not only depresses him, but makes him irritable and impatient, producing considerable restlessness and the urge to get away from the situation, either actually or, at least, mentally. Ability to concentrate may suffer.

Your Restrained Characteristics

Trying to calm down and unwind after a period of over-agitation which has left him listless and devoid of energy. In need of peace and quiet; becomes irritable if this is denied him.

Clings to his belief that his hopes and ideas are realistic, but needs encouragement and reassurance. Applies very exacting standards to his choice of a partner and wants guarantees against loss or disappointment.

Circumstances are such that he feels forced to compromise for the time being if he is to avoid being cut off from affection or from full participation.

Your Desired Objective

Wishes to find his stimulation in a voluptuous atmosphere of sensuous luxury.

Your Actual Problem

Anxiety and a restless dissatisfaction, either with circumstances or with unfulfilled emotional requirements, have produced considerable stress. He tries to escape into an idealized atmosphere of sympathy and understanding, or into a substitute environment of estheticism and beauty.

Meme is lifted from Pagan Mom, who characterized it as "annoyingly accurate" and is not wrong.

[a song meme]

Ask in the comments and I will give you a letter. Then post your top ten songs beginning with that letter.

My letter is I from Pagan Mom.

Those of you who know me will know how hard it was for me to narrow this list down to ten. So these songs are the ones that mean the most to me, or are simply the best of the lot, for today. I may have to do another post just to get in my favorites from among the rejects.

10. Isfahan by Duke Ellington (Far East Suite: Special Mix)

I'm a sucker for quality Orientalism, and The Far East Suite is a masterpiece of the genre. Johnny Hodges' alto sax leads "Isfahan," a stately paean to Persia's most beautiful city.

9. In a Cold Ass Fashion by Beck (Jabberjaw Compilation: Good to the Last Drop)

"I got options, I got cop shows
I get nauseous and the sweat is day-glo"

The best Beck lyrics lodge in my mind and stay there for years as cryptic labels that seem to sum up vast, complex, otherwise indescribable phenomena. "In a Cold Ass Fashion" is a throwaway produced by Carl Stephenson, who also did "Loser" and "Beercan," but it has more memorable lines than Beck's two most recent albums put together.

8. I Got a Woman by Ray Charles (The Best of Ray Charles: The Atlantic Years)

"She give me money when I'm in need
Yeah she's a kind of friend indeed"

Understated, smoldering, datedly sexist, genius. That crack in the voice when he says "money" makes my hair stand on end. Thank you, Ray Charles, for inventing soul music.

7. It's All in Your Mind by Beck (Sea Change)

"Well you're all scared and stiff
A sick stolen gift
And the people you're with
They're all scared and stiff"

It reminds me of someone I loved and lost, try as I might to change her. First released as a simple acoustic ballad on One Foot in the Grave.

6. I Am the Walrus by The Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour)

"Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your Knickers down."

It could've been "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" or "In My Life" or even "I'm So Tired," but we all know the Beatles, and I didn't want to turn this into ten songs by the Beatles starting with I. Anyway, this symphonette by John Lennon and George Harrison deserves pride of place, and I had it memorized for a while when I was 11.

5. In Bloom by Nirvana (Nevermind)

"Sell the kids for food"

For a metalhead like I was at the time, "In Bloom," with its surging power cords, tom fills and soaring chorus, was the way in. It was the first Nirvana song to grab me by the throat and not let go.

4. Intimate Interlude by Duke Ellington (The Intimate Ellington)

This song was the processional at out wedding. Jenny understood.

3. I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) by Aretha Franklin (The Very Best of Aretha Franklin, Vol. 1)

"You're a no good heart breaker
You're a liar and you're a cheat"

Aretha's Atlantic sides are some of the best-produced records ever made. Listen to the way Aretha's voice fuzzes out when she gets loud, and listen to that band!

2. It's So Easy by Guns N' Roses (Appetite for Destruction)

"Besides you ain't got nothin' better to do
And I'm bored"

So deliciously sleazy! There are days when I think this is the best song on the best album ever.

1. In a Sentimental Mood by Duke Ellington (Duke Ellington & John Coltrane)

Yes, Duke Ellington is worth three slots on my top ten. Besides, he wrote a lot of songs starting with I ("It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)," "I'm Beginning to See the Light," "In a Mellow Tone"). This exquisite track opens the beautiful album of collaborations by two of the greatest innovators, thinkers and spiritual seekers in jazz. With Aaron Bell on bass and the incomparable Elvin Jones on drums, closing the piece with a press-roll that's almost a holy act.

[high school meme]

Here's a high school meme, grabbed from miriamjoyce:

1. Who was your best friend?

That shifted over the years. My two closest friends during high school were Ashley and Lorie, whom I met my sophomore year, but Lorie and I had a serious relationship and then a devastating breakup at the start of my junior year, and Ashley moved to Connecticut around the end of my junior year. So freshman year, I guess it would've been Katie Wiley, though we were never that close; she loved Tesla more than anything in the world then. And senior year would've been Josh Poretsky, saxophone sensation and all-around sexy brooding ex-junkie.

2. What sports did you play?

Didn't.

3. What kind of car did you drive?

I had my dad's old Toyota Corona 4-door sedan, painted black (poorly) and given red racing stripes by Earl Scheib, until New Year's Day 1992. I had been to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I think, and had just dropped off Teresa Laddish. What killed that car was the requisite 12-point turn I had to do to get out of Teresa's narrow driveway. I had a steering-fluid-pump leak that sprayed hot goo all over my car's electrical system whenever I turned sharply, and that night, as I rolled down the hill back towards the main road, I saw smoke and then flames coming out of the hood of my car. I watched it burn from the gas station across the street. At one point a cop car came by and failed to put out the fire with their little extinguisher. Eventually the fire department came and finished the job. The car was totaled, but my tapes survived.

After that, my parents got me a little red Toyota Tercel hatchback that would rattle and shiver whenever it got much beyond 75 miles per hour. I would lose it in parking lots because it looked exactly like every other little red hatchback.

4. It's Friday night, where were you?

That was a fraught question. I was often at shul and then at home for Shabbos dinner, but often I didn't want to be. I would cut out some nights after shul, some nights after dinner, some nights before the whole Jewish shebang. If I was elsewhere, it was hanging out with friends: at Ash's house with Lorie and Robert and Heather, or at a concert, or at the pool hall (which we thought it was funny to call the "poo ha") with Josh Poretsky, or heading into San Anselmo with Amber Renwick.

5. Were you a party animal?

No. I went to hardly any actual parties.

6. Were you considered a flirt?

I was considered a flirt and a perv.

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?

I was in jazz band my senior year, playing guitar ineptly. We went to the Santa Cruz Jazz Festival and sucked ass.

8. Were you a nerd?

Yeah, although I was always one of the semi-cool alternanerds. The whole nerd thing was a little vague considering how few people had any intellectual ambition whatsoever. There was sort of a crowd of folks who took honors English and spoke in sentences and liked to think about things, and I guess we were nerds.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled?

Nope.

10. Can you sing the fight song?

We probably had a roll-over-and-die song. Our football team won one game during my entire time in high school, during my senior year; before that, their big claim to glory was the time they managed a lead over Marin Catholic at halftime. Anyway, I attended one school sporting event ever, a basketball game where Josh Poretsky was required to play sax in the band, and that was for the purposes of picking him up and leaving.

11. Who was your favorite teacher?

Mr. Skinner, my senior honors English teacher. He respected our minds enough to be a demanding bastard, and he introduced us to lots of very cool literature: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Waiting for Godot, The Bald Soprano. My Orthodox Jewish prejudices annoyed him enough that he encouraged me to read Spinoza. He was a stickler for grammar and taught it well.

12. What was your school's full name?

Terra Linda High School.

13. School mascot?

The Trojans. *snicker*

14. Did you go to Prom?

My senior year, I had basically none of my real friends at my school, and no girlfriend, and then they decided to have the prom on a boat, and I get ferociously seasick. So no.

15. If you could go back and do it over, would you?

I used to have this recurring nightmare that even though I was a Columbia graduate and no one was questioning my degree, I've discovered that I was a point shy of graduating properly from TL, so I've gone back to take one last class, and now I can't pass it. The last time I had this dream was back in 2001, during the last and best period of my employment at DoubleClick. It suddenly dawned on me in the dream that I would have to decide, come Monday, whether to go to high school or to my job. So I asked my then-boss, Karen Delfau, what I should do. "Come to work," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I've never had the nightmare again.

16. What do you remember most about graduation?

Malika Ghazvani went tumbling into the gap between the stairs and the wall, then climbed out and shouted, "I'm fine! I'm okay!" And Mr. Skinner noted the irony of celebrating our individualism by dressing us all alike.

17. Where were you on senior skip day?

We didn't really have one. Anyway, I was 18 in my senior year and could therefore sign my own notes. I used to waltz into the office with a note saying, "Please excuse Joshua Ross for all absences in the previous month," with my signature underneath. I got a fair amount of leeway considering I mostly cut class to work on the school newspaper.

18. Did you have a job your senior year?

Nope.

19. Where did you go most often for lunch during high school?

Before I could drive, I had lunch out on the benches, then eventually moved to the upper hallway overlooking the benches, where I ate with the other semi-nerds. Once I had a car, I went to the mall most days and had a Chinese combo plate. During my depressive junior year, when I had few friends at school, I would take my lunch and drive up to a high hill and park, sitting in my car and listening to Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine and Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger a lot.

20. Have you gained weight since then?

Lots.

21. What did you do after graduation?

I temped at Lawrence Berkeley Labs that summer, and then went off to Columbia.

22. When did you graduate?

1993.

23. Who was your Junior prom date?

There was a junior prom?

24. Are you going to your 10 year reunion?

I was just back in the US and unemployed at the time, and that made too lousy a story, so I skipped it.

25. Who was your home room teacher?

We didn't have home rooms.

[false memories]

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a completely made up and fictional memory of you and me. It can be anything you want — good or bad — but it has to be fake. When you're finished, if you would like you can post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people don't remember about you.

I picked this up from T and thought I'd post it here, even though no one ever responds to my memes. Please, post a lil sumpin sumpin.

[ten odd things about me]

It seems almost unfair to limit it to ten, but here we go (meme from T):

1. I have a sort of sub-Tourette neurological tickiness that lodges words in my head and creates an uncomfortable, distracting pressure to blurt them (which I sometimes do within a nonsense sentence, to make it seem less weird). Those who've known me a long time can probably recite a list of the most frequently recurring words. This is worse when I'm tense, as during my last couple of months at STV, when a little ditty with the lyric "So hard to give a shit / So hard to give a shit" (in an Eastern European accent) ran constantly through my head all day at work.

2. When I was younger, it surprised me to learn that not everyone wanted to be a writer and make books.

3. I'm obsessed with Central Asia.

4. I don't own any Legos because I'm afraid if I did, I'd never do anything else.

5. I get my hair cut by people with stripper names.

6. When I was a kid, I always wore out the left knees on all my pants; later, I had surgery on that knee for a torn meniscus. Coincidence? Who knows?

7. I harbor a fantasy that my maternal grandmother is decended from Romanian Gypsies.

8. Sweet mixed drinks make me queasy, but I'm fine if I have a glass of juice and shot of liquor separately.

9. When I eat cold cheese, especially cream cheese, on something warm and bready, my face feels flushed and sweaty, but it doesn't change appearance.

10. Though I grew up in Marin, I've never been to Alcatraz or walked the Golden Gate Bridge.

[musical friends meme]

So I picked this up from my cousin Louise over at her blog: What music do I link with my various friends and acquaintances? Metallica reminds Louise of me because she knew me back in my middle school days, when I was convinced that Metallica was the greatest band in the world. (I was a serious true believer.)

So I'll start with Louise, and work through other friends to see what I come up with.

Louise: Schoolhouse Rock. I'm just a little too young to have caught Schoolhouse Rock as a kid, so I was introduced to it by Louise.

Jenny: This is a tough one — we've spent so long together now that a lot of music reminds me of her — but after her semester in Salamanca during college, she came home with a CD that she played, slightly apologetically, of a Latin pop star she'd really come to like: Shakira.

Daniel: Daniel and I were music buddies for a long time, and he was instrumental in shaping my current tastes, so as with Jenny, it's kind of meaningless to pin it down to one particular artist. But of all the artists I didn't like until Daniel taught me to hear them, probably my favorite today is Talking Heads.

T: We also shared a lot of music during our long relationship, but two artists in particular stand out: Yukari Fresh, a treasure she found in Japan (and whose music is woefully underappreciated in America), and Solas, the Celtic band good enough to get me to go with Thekla to the town of Doolin in County Clare, Ireland, and while away the evening in a pub, sipping Bulmer's cider and listening to very, very good Irish musicians. (It was a brave sacrifice.) I also think of Thekla in association with Erin McKeown, whom we first saw at the Postcrypt coffee house on the Columbia campus (where I met Thekla) when Erin was just a 19-year-old bundle of hippie wool tumbling in from Brown University to blow our minds at an open stage night, and Noe Venable, who went to high school with T.

Lori: This is the Eskimo one, who I dated back in college, and she's the one who convinced me that I should really give Everclear a try (the band, not the beverage). Their album Sparkle and Fade is the only good thing they ever did, but it's a lyrically rich, underrated gem from the mid-nineties era of post-punk, post-grunge hard rock that would've been working-class except nobody had a job. (Did we really elect a second Bush?)

Berit: The lyrics of Everclear's "Santa Monica" are a good summary of how I felt about my relationship with Berit as it collapsed over the summer when I met Lori. But the musician who brings Berit most strongly to mind is, of course, PJ Harvey, whose power to make Berit squirm with erotic delight was something I could never match.

Lorie: This is the non-Eskimo Lorie, the one I'm still friends with (and really need to call). Back in high school, when we first dated, I spent a lot of time lying in her room, inhaling second-hand cigarette smoke and staring up at her magazine photos of Mike Patton's torso (which was very nice in those days). Lorie and Ashley were rabid fans of Mr. Bungle, Patton's first band (Ash even had the side of her head shaved, just like Mike), and also fans of Faith No More, whose "Epic" video is a classic document of the late-eighties thrash-funk moment, when dressing like Arsenio Hall while rapping over heavy metal briefly seemed like a great idea. (Trivia: Though FNM T-shirts insisted that "THE FISH LIVES!", the fish in fact died. And the answer to the question "What is it?" was widely agreed to be "Losing your virginity.")

Ashley: Ashley was also a music buddy for many years, so there's a ton of music I associate with her, especially all those obscure Bay Area bands we used to go see: Bluchunks, Fungo Mungo, the Limbomaniacs, the Deli Creeps, MCM and the Monster, Dizzybam. But it was later, after I'd come to New York for college and Ashley had moved to Norwalk, Connecticut, that we would spend weekends in her odd little attic apartment above a flower shop on a windswept highway intersection, drowning our loneliness with Rolling Rocks, excessive flirtation and hours of listening to Soundgarden (What is it with Ashley and fish-abuse videos?) and Morphine.

Lauren: Bhangra, yo!

My father: Stan Getz. Lester Young. Oscar Peterson. Miles Davis. Slim Gaillard. Lord Buckley. Crosby Stills & Nash. Sly and the Family Stone, who he and my mom used to see live at the Electric Circus.

My mother: All of that, plus Ray Charles, who played at the first rock concert she ever went to.

My sister: Little Mermaid. Sorry, Shana. I know you're older now — heck, I'm going to your college graduation this spring — but you did watch your Little Mermaid video about 10,000 times.

Did I miss anything obvious? I don't think so — at least not involving anyone I still know. Enjoy the music.