The seven questions

First it was Tokyo Gal. Then it was Corky. They wanted to know seven things about me.

Here are seven things:

1. I was born and raised in New York City, where my family still lives. I shared a room with my two older brothers until we were five, ten, and fifteen years old. They taught me to swing fast and run hard. This has only come in handy once or twice.

2. I want to go everywhere; see everything. Time and money are minor nuisances.

3. Sometimes, when I’m alone in my apartment, I pretend I’m a gospel singer and sing a triumphant rendition of “Ride On, King Jesus.” This may explain why the neighbors back away from me when we run into each other in the corridor.


4. The only person I wanted to go to the senior prom with was the hilarious and absurd Chris Farley from Saturday Night Live. I invited him and he wrote me a nice note on gray stationary saying that he got my invitation too late. Uh-huh. I’m sure that if he’d come, he would have spent the entire time doing lines in the bathroom and dancing spastically around the dance floor in his baby-blue tuxedo, bathed in sweat. Fortunately, this is what I look for in a prom date. I ended up going stag and dancing with everyone else’s dates, and then peeling my drunken friends off of sailors at the fleet week after-party.

5. My favorite place in New York is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s where I go when I need comfort, replenishment, and serenity. It’s a powerful thing to stand before beauty in silent communion and solidarity with strangers.

6. If the Met Museum is my temple, Gray’s Papaya on 72nd and Broadway is my altar. Where else can students, homeless people, yuppies and tourists get a “Recession Special” - two scrumptious hot dogs and a glass of papaya juice -for a mere $2.65? Eating these dogs is a religious experience, peeps.


7. I am drawn to ancient things. I like to visit this little Cycladic sculpture at the Met because it’s so ancient, it’s modern – and reminds me that art has always been a necessity, not a luxury.







I now tap Elly and Raouf, because they haven’t been asked yet and because their answers will be more interesting than mine.