25 randoms 'bout me

This meme has been making its way around Facebook lately, and I thought it'd be perfect for F&G. Enjoy!


I've gotten tagged by, like, six people for this - figured it was time to do it. If you don't want to respond in kind, no worries.

Let's go.

1. The reason why I have the time to write this now is because I'm stuck in the house with a sinus infection. I usually get them at least once a year. Have you ever had a sinus infection? It feels like someone is twisting a vice inside my face. They are not fun.

2. I tend to have more female friends than male friends (including almost all of my exes; if I cared enough to date them, why wouldn't I want to remain close with them?). No idea why that is. I also tend to have random and contrasting groups of friends, some of whom do not get along. It would be interesting to get everyone in a room together and see what happens.

3. I have an irrational disgust for rock salt - you know, the stuff that they put on the roads during snowstorms? It makes my skin crawl.

4. Apparently I could read at age two. My mom thought that I had just memorized the stories, but then she would ask me what a particular word was, and I would get it right. At four I was reading the sports section, mostly for the box scores. "Jose DeJesus" (a former Phillies shortstop) was a name that gave me fits.

5. No one talks better Steelers football with me than my father. When the schedule came out in the beginning of the year (remember, it was one of the hardest schedules for any NFL team since the merger in 1970), I said to my dad, "If this team wins twelve games, they're going to the Super Bowl." And not to toot my own horn, but I also said to him in December '05 that I thought they could "win the whole thing". They did. TOOT.

6. I quit playing baseball my junior year of high school so that I could continue doing the musical. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had kept baseball as the priority. There are days where I'm still surprised I made that choice.

7. If I wasn't allowed to act anymore, and could do anything else on the planet, I would love to be a football historian. I love learning about anything in general, but I'm fascinated by the history of football: how it started, what marketing decisions they made, how teams were built, etc. I can't get enough.

8. I love my job, but I'm not sure that I'll still be acting in twenty years. I definitely won't be doing regional theater away from my own bed 26 weeks a year.

9. I rarely cry, but when I do, I'm usually only able to get out about eight tears. My body and breath may still be weeping, but my tear ducts just shut off.

10. I wish I was better at keeping in touch with my friends. There are so many people I want to hang out with and keep up with, and they're all spread around the country, and there aren't enough hours in the day to call and/or e-mail as much as I'd like. I actually try not to think about it too much, because it gets frustrating.

11. I'm VERY sentimental for the days of yore. I frequently wish I could go back in time to my days in Sleepy Hamlet. Or at grad school. Or undergrad. That's probably why I love Facebook so much, because I can keep in touch with all of those people.

12. When I was on our 7th grade class trip (nicknamed Cryfest '90), a friend and I (he shall remain nameless, but he is tagged on this note) came up with an ingenious rating system for foxy females - you could be pretzels, dough, or beernuts. The best rating you could get was a "crunchy salty pretzel". I'm pretty sure that (a) this ranking system was inspired by seeing a girl that I had a crush on in a swimsuit for the first time, and (b) being in Canada for the first time made me dumber.

13. By the way, I had a crush on (and occasional relationship with) that same girl for ten years. And I'm pretty sure that I was the one who eventually blew it.

14. This sinus infection is totally taking away my appetite. But if I could have any meal in the world right now, I would have:
- fried catfish
- fried chicken (by my mother)
- collard greens
- yams or sweet potatoes (again by my mother, whatever she felt like making)
- rolls (by my grandmother)
- sun brewed sweet tea (again, by mom)

15. You know the voice that I do for my mother? I never get tired of telling that story (much to her chagrin), but it drives me crazy when I hear other people who have never met her try to do the voice. She's MY mother, not yours.

(This is also the time where I admit that I sometimes sound like that, too. Ask my current castmates.)

16. When I was a kid, I used to wonder why my parents didn't listen to any popular music. Instead, they would put on records of their favorites -usually War, or Stevie Wonder. I liked their music, but I always thought, "They should be listening to all the new stuff instead of their old stuff. No way that will EVER happen to me." Well, I'm still up on popular music - but I totally get why they felt they way they do.

17. Speaking of which, if you came of age listening to hip-hop in the mid-90s, two films you have to see are NOTORIOUS and THE WACKNESS. It will make you long for a hi-top fade. Or a red and black lumberjack. With a hat to match.

18. One of the most annoying things about growing up black in an all white suburb was the stream of kids who constantly wanted to play with my hair. They would touch it. They would stick things in it. They would put handprints in it. They weren't trying to be mean, but it didn't feel good just the same.

19. Some people view me as a success. I don't. Not yet.

20. I still see streaks of light in my eye from that sucker punch ten months ago. I think I probably will for the rest of my life. Surprisingly, I don't think about that night all that often. But sitting with my back to the door of a bar/restaurant brings it back in a flash. I still haven't been back to that bar, but I really want to have a night where I invite all of my friends there and we take it over. Now, if I could just be in the city long enough to make that happen...

21. <-- This is my favorite number.

22. I have a lot of debt; some "good", some "bad". I'm not ashamed of it. I just want to get rid of it.

23. I feel like I'm the only one of my friends that doesn't have kids. Seriously, almost all of my best friends my age have them already. Most days I'm totally ok with that, but I will say that, in the distance, I can faintly make out the sounds of a clock ticking...

24. I love Brooklyn (and NYC in general) to death; it's my home. But I'm virtually certain that I don't want to spend the rest of my life there. I do need to live in some type of urban area, though. As long as I'm around some kind of city with a major professional sports franchise, I'll manage.

25. I see myself as a storyteller by trade. Some days I want to leave all of this behind, move into a cozy loft in a bustling metropolis somewhere, and become a writer. I could write about sports, or just tell crazy stories about life on the road, or strange things that have happened to me. I mean, I tell these stories orally all the time; why not write them down and share them? To me, it's a natural extension of what I do onstage.

Thanks for playing.