There’s a discussion currently ongoing over at the Fountain Pen Network, entitled “Ten Things I’ve Done (That You Probably Haven’t).” Apparently it’s an Internet meme or some such thing. Some of the responses were quite interesting, so I figured what the hey, I should participate in an Internet meme at least once in my life. In no particular order, then, here’s my list:
- Deciphered five-thousand-year-old jar sealings dating from the reign of the first king of Egypt (or possibly his predecessor), made when written language was still a new idea.
- Read the Story of Sinuhe in the original hieratic.
- Produced a Master’s thesis, which should have taken most of a year, in three weeks. (And graduated. And impressed the heck out of the committee. AND it wasn’t because I’d procrastinated.)
- Learned the art of bonsai from an American master, in the process working with trees now on display at the Morikami Museum and the National Arboretum.
- Won a university fiction-writing award without entering.
- Nearly perished of hypothermia in July (in the northern hemisphere, south of the Arctic Circle).
- Flew less than twenty feet above the Florida Everglades in a Cessna 172 (as a passenger), startling the heck out of several alligators.
- Aged eleven, gave an impromptu anatomy lesson following the accidental partial vivisection of my arm. My audience was the P.E. instructor, a former Marine, who nearly fainted.
- Learned from, and served as principal demonstration dummy for, a martial arts instructor who some years before had been resoundingly flunked out of high school by my father.
- Met Mr. Rogers. (I was four at the time; I remember little other than that he was every bit as nice as he seemed on TV.)
I should probably elaborate on some of those, but I won’t. I have a comment section. Interested parties may ask.
For the last several months, I have been indulging in an experiment in personal grooming: namely, beardedness. I’d often wondered how I would look with a beard, and as I had some leisure time and no other immediate pressing use for the lower half of my face, I decided to attempt the enterprise. My follicular fervor was further fueled (say that five times fast) by the exorbitant prices of razor blades, not to mention the generally flayed condition in which they leave my face. So I did what seemed the only sensible thing, and removed myself from the fray.
The experiment progressed through several stages: “This itches”; “This really itches”; “Sweet Cthulhu, make the itching stop!”; “Thank goodness this no longer itches”; “Hey, this is starting to look halfway decent”; “Why is my beard curling and going fuzzy?”; and finally, “It still itches!” Through careful application of an electrically-powered beard trimmer (the wonders of modern technology!), I was able to control my beard, keeping it somewhere between “halfway decent” and “curling and fuzzy.” At its best, I thought it looked rather professorial. At its worst, I worried about being pulled out of the ticket-line the next time I attempted to board some form of mass transit.
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It occurred to me, not long ago, and largely through the promptings of certain concerned friends, that I had neglected to post any of my little musings and meanderings for quite some time. After indulging in the requisite quantity of procrastination, I therefore set about overhauling this somewhat rusty and weather-worn old beast of a website. It took some doing, as I had to re-learn which sprocket connected to which chain, what the precise gearing ratios might be, and which vacuum-tube should be inserted into which socket. In other words, I’d mostly forgotten how to do the assorted HTML and CSS jiggery-pokeries which result in web pages. I think I’ve remembered now, mostly — but isn’t that the way of memory? We can’t know what we’ve forgotten until we run up against it.
In any case, the time has come. I now officially re-launch this website, this electronic memoir if you will, in which my humble words are brought to you by the magic of pixels and phosphors and information tubes and various whatnots none of us quite understand. I hope it shall prove congenial to the readership. Do alert me if any spare cogs drop out as you’re perusing it.
