7 Question Quiz

I volunteered to be tagged by Jo(e).

1. What were three of the stupidest things you have done in your life?

Not trying to find a better job than busing tables after I graduated from Northwestern. Not a complete waste of a couple of years, but I could've done a lot better but was too scared to try.

Quitting guitar lessons in high school. I'm so desparate to have a musical skill now that I'm older.

Being shy for such a long time in my life. Every friend I've every had I wish I had known sooner. We have such a short time with each other that I feel very stupid for having wasted months and years because I was worried about what others thought of me.

2. At the current moment, who has the most influence in your life?

One single person? My wife, always trying to be the man she thought she married. Expanding beyond that...Tom LeClair, my advisor from grad school; I'm still trying to live up to that ideal. Paulo Lugari, founder of Gaviotas. This is an extreme "at this current moment" because I am struggling with a career crisis and a book about him is pulling me hard in one direction.

3. If you were given a time machine that functioned, and you were allowed to only pick up to five people to dine with, who would you pick?

Jorge Luis Borges, Hunter S. Thompson (may he rest in peace), Laurance Sterne, Cervantes, Ed Abbey. That sounds like a fun dinner party.

4. If you had three wishes that were not supernatural, what would they be?

Still want to play that damn guitar.
Urban planners with an ounce of long-term thinking.
Soccer ball, fountain pen, newspaper, Wm Dean Howells, American Flag, canoe, and lots of other friends all to live within walking distance of my house.

5. Someone is visiting your hometown/place where you live at the moment. Name two things you regret your city not having, and two things people should avoid.

I regret that Scottsdale doesn't have a real downtown. (truth be told, I've only lived here a few weeks. I'm not entirely sure what we have and don't have)

Avoid July and possible August. I guess I would also avoid the water on the 18th hole at Silverado.

6. Name one event that has changed your life.

In my first year of grad school, reading an article about Andrew Ross and the idea that one could approach any text from an ecological point of view. That article, a puff piece in the departed Lingua Franca, altered my scholarship, my career and my sense of who I was as a person.

7. Tag 5 people.

I don't know five bloggers. They'll have to find this on their own.