In the past few weeks, a chain letter called "25 Random Things About Me" has wormed its way through Facebook at an alarming speed. The exhibitionistic format has remained surprisingly intact: In addition to rattling off 25 facts about themselves, "Random Things" authors are supposed to tag 25 of their Facebook friends, prompting them to write their own note and tag 25 more people, and so forth and so on.
[UPDATE: The evolutionary basis of "25 things."]
Here's mine, cross-posted from Facebook:
1. My first word was "happy." My first phrase was "Beach Boys." My first sentence was "I want it."
2. I haven't eaten meat since I was in elementary school.
3. I was baptized on Wall Street.
4. My favorite band is the Beatles. I used to say my favorites Beatles song was "You Never Give Me Your Money," but I can't decide anymore.
5. In the summer between 7th and 8th grades, I got an electric guitar and practiced about 8 hours a day.
6. The most famous people I've met are Al Franken, Christopher Hitchens, and Lorrie Moore, the last of whom is an old friend of the family.
7. I have a weird set of movies I watch over and over, while I haven't seen a lot of the most famous ones. I've never seen Forrest Gump, Titanic, etc. Movies I've seen a ridiculous number of times: My Dinner with Andre, Back to the Future trilogy, Annie Hall, Duck Soup.
8. I'm a pessimist and a skeptic, but I try not to be a cynic. I think the world is probably doomed, but I have confidence that a lot of individuals will make a good-faith effort to try to make things better along the way to our demise.
9. I spent a month in Rome but have never seen the Sistine Chapel's ceiling.
10. Since the beginning of 2007, I always wanted Obama as president and Biden as VP. I couldn't believe I hit the nail on the head.
11. I have a vivid memory of touching Courtney Love's bare shoulder when she was crowd surfing at a Hole concert, one of the emblematic moments of my teenage years.
12. When I was a law review editor I spent about half an hour on the phone with an author debating every single contraction in the piece, about 60 in all. He loved contractions, and I didn't want any of them, so we compromised and changed about half of them to full words.
13. People tell me I'm very "tech-savvy," but I'm actually technophobic. I waited as long as possible to switch to a cell phone and digital camera, and I still don't have any kind of iPhone/Blackberry/etc. because I prefer writing things down in notebooks.
14. I wish I'd been European instead of American; I think I'd fit in better in Europe.
15. When I was in middle school, I didn't cut my hair for a long time and I looked like this.
16. When I was 2, I played a game we called "do counter," which was getting up on the kitchen counter and recognizing spices. I knew each one by smell, or as I called it back then, "hmell."
17. This article accurately describes me.
18. The first time I acted in a play, there was a part at the end where the other actor ran up to me (per the script), but I accidentally struck her forehead with my teeth, causing her to bleed onstage. We were both fine, but I felt really bad. People in the audience didn't realize anything had gone wrong; they thought it was fake blood.
19. I cook myself dinner almost every night.
20. I used to sketch people's faces all the time, and I wish I still had the time or inclination to do so. One of my favorites is a drawing I did in 7th grade of Justice Scalia.
21. I can't whistle. But I'm really good at snapping.
22. I can't give you an answer about whether I'm a liberal, or a feminist. I tend to agree with liberals, but I also think they get too much stuff wrong. I basically agree with most feminists' goals, but I think they too often exemplify William Hazlitt's aphorism, "It is essential for the triumph of reform that it shall never succeed."
23. I have a crush on Regina Spektor and Tracyanne Campbell, the singer from Camera Obscura.
24. I'm tired of being in my 20s; I can't wait till I'm in my 30s.
25. I started a blog last April. You should bookmark this link and read it on a regular basis.
Obviously, that last one was done for Facebook and is a moot point for you who are reading it here.
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