And finally, the answers to yesterday's little homage to the current meme making the rounds.. everyone was so gracious with their comments, my e-mail inbox was bursting! I thought it only appropriate to offer a little effort in my answers, by presenting them in PICTURES.
Answers to X Things
1. Adopted two black kids to live with me and my white daughter in a Manhattan penthouse apartment.
2. Worked as a house mother for bratty, private schoolgirls and helped them to navigate the murky waters of adolescence with exquisite baking and pithy admonishment.
3. Worked as a receptionist for a private investigation company owned and operated by a bankrupt magazine model. When answering the phone, I would speak only in rhyme.
4. In between performing triage surgeries in the jungles of Korea, I got sloshed on martinis made from the gin of a home-made still . I made people call me by a nickname that is an acronym synonymous with oral sex.
5. I was the only kid in my middle school with a tattoo of a mermaid on his arm. Dance senorita! (This one was done specifically for
mandy_moon)[Actually, it wasn't a mermaid]
6. Studied eastern religions and self-educated myself on the intricacies of philosophy, anthropolgy, sociology and pyschology while DJ'ing for a local rock station in Alaska. I built a catapult and flung a neighbor's piano with it.
Who is Chris Stevens? Who are any of us? Are we one person fixed at birth? Do we grow like a snowball coming down the mountainside of life, or can we change, shed our skin? A caterpillar becomes the butterfly, leaving the remains of his former self behind.
I look at my yearbook photo--Wheeling Central Catholic High School, Class of 81--and I wonder who that stranger is. Damned if I know. Maybe that's the point, maybe we're not supposed to know, maybe that's what this earthly joy ride's all about. Like Robert Frost said,
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
7. Proved that I could make it after all, as a television news reporter in Minneapolis.
8. Owned a daggit.
9. Lived on a boat with a pet alligator and owned a European sports car, all on the salary I received working as a police officer.
10. Performed magic tricks and practical jokes for hookers and drunkards from the judge's bench of a New York City court room.
