Self-Tagellation

Dan Zak in The Washington Post of February 6, 2009 (today; it's today but someday someone will read this and it won't be today, though it will be the today of that day) writes amusingly about being tagged on Facebook with the virally popular "25 Random Things About Me." I'm not on Facebook. Should I be? I don't like being tagged. It seems silly. Sometimes. It makes me feel so, so, I don't know, like my personal space has been violated, like kids in sixth grade "tagging" me with cooties. But that's just me. Today people get tagged with unwanted cookies, instead of cooties, come to think of it. Maybe I'll be on Facebook before today, this today, is over. Anyway, I hereby tag myself. (I didn't even know I was into self-tagellation, but it's fitting for a blog that invites "solipsistic sophists.")

Here goes.

25 Random Things About Me

1. Last week I discovered I don't care that much for Bruce Springsteen, not anymore; though that can change, like anything else.

2. I have my doubts.

3. Crying comes easy.

4. For parts of 30 years I've had a recurring nightmare about lying about not drinking alcohol.

5. Right this minute, I am sitting in a coffeehouse, wearing only one sock, nothing else (won't say where -- the coffeehouse is, or the sock).

6. I am already tired of doing this.

7. I want to miscount on this list and see if anyone notices.

8. Thirty days in a chipaholic rehab center did not cure me of my potato chip addiction.

9. My pantyhouse is itching me.

10. I do not shower every day and don't mind at all.

11. I like aromatic soaps.

12. My deodorant is very expensive, from Crabtree & Evelyn.

13. When I was under 10 years old, I tried to call Willie Mays.

14. Sometimes I wish I were a priest.

15. Walking the dog alone is often my favorite part of the day.

16. I'm not ready to die, but maybe I am.

17. I've read very little of Soren Kierkegaard; I love the name.

18. I envy enormously people who can gracefully and seemingly effortlessly do anything physical, things like rollerskate or ice skate or dance or swim or play the piano.

19. Now I'm enjoying doing this.

20. I am still angry that Mr. Tunick hit me and sent me shocked and reeling to the floor in junior high.

21. I feel guilty (slightly) that I haven't sprinkled this list with references to my wife and children, but, hey, they should make their own lists!

22. I like the number 22, its palindromic endlessness.

23. I wonder if there is a heaven and hell; purgatory was always hard to accept; more so, limbo.

24. It was probably (almost certainly) the best thing to shuck my job a year ago, but bitterness sometimes sneaks in about how it went down.

25. When I was very little, I loved to rub my fingers along the silk border of the blankets, especially along the sewn nubs, hypnotically entrancing me.

Consider yourself tagged.