All blogged up.

Tag.

It means "day" in German. It's also the nickname of Mitt Romney's firstborn son. What infamy. You begin to see my point.

First, let me say that I absolutely quail at being asked to conjure “8 random facts/habits about myself.” (I don’t, really. I just thing the word “quail” as a verb sounds funny, when you visualize it.)

To begin with, we should posit, no facts are random. While they may start out looking that way, immersed as they are in the spray of phenomena emerging from the…er…spray-gun of phenomena, I can assure you, by the time we process these so-called random facts through the tintinnabulary, fast-food, drive-thru speakers of our cramped consciousness…they are, indeed, random no longer. And habits? As random as the crease in a nun’s wimple (which is to say, not random at all).

But I digress. There will be 8. No more. No less. The rules:

Should you have been tagged, the only alternative to honorable self-slaughter is to do the following:

• Post these rules before launching your 8-part rant.

• Relate the 8 random facts/habits/peculiarities/stigmata, as mentioned above, in your own blog, being sure to also include these key commandments.

• After the psychic dust settles, you must choose 8 new bloggers and/or people to afflict with this quest. Let them know they’ve been tagged via email or comment, and ask them to read your relevant post.

Ready? Let’s rumble…

1. I was confirmed by Bishop Walter J. Kellenberg sometime in the Spring of 1973. This means I have been a soldier of God for nearly 25 years. Am I eligible for a pension?

2. I grow the best tomatoes in the Mid-Atlantic. No, I don’t care what you say. Mine are better. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m not listening…

3. I once went on a ski trip with Neddie Jingo. It was Spring Break of our junior year, and we drove semi-cross-country from Ohio to Boulder, Colorado in the car of a third friend – let’s call him Mark – with the intention of cadging what skiing we could, during the day, and crashing on someone’s UC-dorm-room couch at night.

We were quite thoroughly broke, nearly all our cash sequestered for gas, ski tickets and whatever protein we deemed necessary. Too parsimonious were we even to buy beer, except on the most special occasions – or should an injury or ritual humiliation require immediate medication.

One of those special occasions did occur after skiing one day, when we splurged on a six-pack of Michelob and, searching for a spot to kick back and relax, parked the car by the side of the road, picked our way across the stones of a shallow river, and perched ourselves beneath some picturesque Ponderosa pines.

I should note, that while we were short on cash for beer, we were in possession of other, shall we say, more spiritual options, of which we availed ourselves, my recollection is, in spades.

So we sat. We grooved on the river’s song. We became one with the Larger Way. Until the Larger Way became larger than expected.

From upriver came a roar and a rolling wave of white foam which I could only compare to a tidal wave (which I’d never seen, either) coursing down the river’s channel – exactly like the cheesy special effects you’d see in a ‘60s disaster movie. In reality, some dam had undoubtedly opened its floodgates, in what must have been a regular occurrence at that time of day and year.

Needless to say, however, Neddie and I were absolutely spellbound by these Godhead droppings on the sidewalk of quiddity (Hallucination? Reality? Hallucination? What’s the difference?) and so stayed rooted in place, while Mark, ever the Eagle Scout, sped across the river to make sure he was on the same side as the car.

Me and Ned spent the long ride home sputtering obscenities, flash-frozen feet pressed up against the heater vents.

4. I’m hot for professional lady golfers. There. I’ve said it. So sue me.

5. I never slept with Jamie Lee Curtis. Although I did go to high school with her. And on that basis alone, for years afterward, I claimed to have..well..."known" her. To those who didn’t immediately see through this hollow and pathetic lie, I apologize.

6. I once, briefly, drove a tractor-trailer truck and on one memorable occasion, came within a hair’s-breadth of causing dozens of Long Island Expressway commuters to die a lingering, painful death, immersed in 10,000 gallons of super-heated liquid asphalt. But that’s a (long) story to be shared another time…

7. I have calmly watched my foot burn. 5 or 6 years ago, when I had my plantar warts removed. I woke up unexpectedly from the anesthesia, only to see a covey of doctors huddled around my flaming instep, frantically squeezing a spray water bottle, a bit like barbecue chefs whose coals had become too hot. Apparently they’d gotten a little trigger-happy with the laser gun. I felt not a thing, being pumped up with novocain. At the time, this seemed to me to be of some spiritual significance – my foot, perhaps, acting as a burnt offering to atone for my bad karma…or maybe my pronated ankles.

8. is twice the Protagorean nexus, 4…the square root of 64, one-half the points on a medieval compass rose, and folded in half, looks like a zero. Random? I scoff.

All right, here’s the problem. I know only one person with a blog, and he tagged me. So I’ve tagged 8 “normal” people, and promised to post their replies just here. I’m sure I’ll have more friends, once I get a new haircut and attend a few more mixers.