Day 6: Random Thoughts: Part V

It's a bit misleading to label this Part V. I mean, let's be honest, pretty much every post has been random. It should be Part XCV (you do the math).

I can't believe that I only have a few blogging days left. It's probably just as well -- I have a couple of big commitments in the next month and then, of course, there's the dreaded Christmas shopping. Every year I vow we're going to scale back; I claim I want to spend the month of December doing things that feel Christmasy. Supposedly I like to bake cookies, write Christmas cards and throw back a few eggnogs with friends (actually that's a lie -- the thought of eggnog makes me gag -- but bring on the tequila). Yet these things never happen. Supposedly I abhor shopping, yet I spend the latter part of November and most of December doing it. I have no credibility.

Happily, I learned this afternoon that that's not entirely true (I seem to be telling several little lies in this post). I heard an interview with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, whose new book is a compilation of "Proust Questionnaire" columns from the back page of the magazine. Each month since 1992 the same set of questions has been posed to a celebrity, the theory being that you can tell almost everything you need to know about a person by the way he or she answers. If you go to the magazine's website you, too, can answer the questions, and you'll even learn which celebrity you're most like.

Jane Goodall, the chimp lady, answered like me 92.82% of the time. I think that gives me some cred. And runner up, at 78.86%, is Ron Howard! Now please, who doesn't like Opie? And here's something weird: turns out Jane Goodall credits a stuffed animal chimpanzee that she was given as a child with her lifelong passion, and its name was -- get this -- Jubilee! I wonder if Jane likes snack food cakes...

I'll tell you my answers to a few of the questions, but I think, if you've read all my posts (JZ, NSE and LH, I think I'm talking to you), you can probably answer most of the questions for me. Or at least come up with a good guess. And that makes me proud, because it means, I hope, that I accomplished part of what I set out to do in this blog, which was, through storytelling, to shed some light on how I came to be who I am today, and who I might like to be tomorrow. I think my mom and dad would be proud, which is one of only a handful of things I've ever actually aspired to. If you've seen the movie "The Sixth Sense," you can't possibly have forgotten the scene where Cole, a boy who speaks to dead people, and his mom are talking in the car.

Cole: "Grandma says hi.... She said you came to the place where they buried her, asked her a question. She said the answer is 'Everyday.' What did you ask?"

His mom, choking back sobs: "Do I make her proud?"

Yeah, I hear you.

So.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Having no hope.

What is your greatest extravagance? My purses.

If you died and came back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be? A well-loved dog.

How would you like to die? At an advanced age, but before I'm incapacitated mentally or physically. I hope I go to sleep one night and never wake up. I hope the people I love know that I died peacefully and that I loved them deeply. I hope I die with no major regrets.

On what occasion do you lie? I plead the Fifth.

Actually, that's a lie; I did answer that question. I'm just not telling you. For once.