I know, I know. It’s got you up nights. You lie in your bed, staring at the ceiling, the minutes stretching into hours, and you toss and turn and punch your pillow and say to yourself, “If I only knew all about Sarah – her favorite kind of soup, her heroes, what sports she likes to watch on television – then maybe I could get a little shut-eye. But no, she keeps writing about other stuff instead of copying Fresh Hell and filling out a nifty little quiz, and now I can’t sleep a wink.”

Okay, so you probably slept like a log last night, but I’ve still filled out a couple of quizzes for you anyway – not so much because I think the readership cares, but because I don’t spend much time thinking about my “favorite” this or that, and if all else fails I can use it as a time capsule. Big ups to Kim and the girls of Galvanized for giving me the idea and providing the nifty Q & As, and next week we’ll rejoin our regularly-scheduled fuming.

Quiz #1: My Favorite Things

Boy singer: I guess I should pick just one, so I’ll go with James Brown, but I feel weird calling him a boy.

Girl singer: Aimee Mann.

Band: All right, let’s throw out the “pick just one” rule, because I can’t follow that. If you mean that I can only listen to one band for the rest of my life, I’d have to say the Beatles. If you mean the band that I listen to the most often, generally speaking, I’d have to say the Smiths. But I would still consider the Sundays my favorite band.

Song that brings back memories of high school: The “I stop the world and melt with you” song. To this day I can’t name the group that recorded that song, and I don’t even like it that much, but whenever I hear it, it teleports me right back to senior year, sitting in the front seat of Jenn’s mother’s car with the sunroof open and a big old super-size McDonald’s Diet Coke in my hand, just driving around and bitching.

Song/band that reminds you of your first sexual experience: Oh, good grief. Terence Trent D’Arby. If you have inferred from the presence of Mr. D’Arby that my first sexual experience kind of sucked, you have inferred correctly. Thank god both D’Arby and the first guy I slept with have vanished off the face of the earth.

Author: I can’t possibly narrow it down to only one. Top five: Hemingway, Atwood, Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, and David Sedaris.

Last book read: Coercion, by Douglas Rushkoff. The subtitle, “Why We Listen To What ‘They’ Say,” really says it all; it’s a book about marketing strategies, and it’s quite well written.

Kind of cuisine: Mexican. A life without guacamole is not worth living.

Place on earth: Can I get all abstract here and say “the driver’s seat of my car at sunset on the interstate”? No? All right, how about “underneath Christian Bale”? I guess that doesn’t count since I haven’t actually gone there (“. . . yet!”). Okay, okay, favorite geographical place on earth: Cape Cod. Honorable mention, “Eating Orange Sherbet On A Hot Night In Late June” Category: my grandmother’s side porch, Bryn Mawr, PA.

Thing to do on a vacation: Drive around in the rental car with my brother and make fun of stuff. And read, but that’s like saying “breathing.” And, if I vacation in a beachy-type place, eat a ton of seafood.

Leisure activity: Drinking beer and shopping. For beer. Just kidding. I like to do other things too, like make bead jewelry and yak on the phone and go to movies, but I do a lot of leisurely beer drinking and shopping. I like sex, too, but the question is “leisure activity,” not “extremely dim memory from the all-too-distant past.” (Sob.)

Work activity: Coming up with a sweet forehead-related nickname for Dawson Leery in a Dawson’s Creek recap. Seriously, I feel really proud of those. I think I peaked with “Little Lord Foreheadleroy,” but I keep at it.

Best live concert ever witnessed: The Sundays, December of 1997.

Stupidest thing done while drunk: So much embarrassing behavior, so little time. In order to avoid writing an entire novel in response to this question, I’ll go ahead and eliminate various inebriated hook-ups, prank calls to exes, prank calls to friend’s exes, ill-advised confessions of love, and instances of clothing removal, and say that I should never have accepted that piggyback ride from Nip that time, because he tripped, and we both fell on his face, and he had a big old cut on the bridge of his nose and big old black eye, and I got a bone bruise on my hand and limped around like a one-legged sailor for the next three days. I’ve never done anything really bad like get married or wake up in another city with no idea how I got there or anything. I did go home with a guy whose name I didn’t even know once, and we didn’t have any money for the cab, so the guy bribed the cab driver with the promise of bong hits. Hey, that’s really stupid. That’s way stupider than the piggyback-ride thing. Sarah is a stupid girl. Sarah is a stupid, orphaned girl, because both of her parents have just suffered massive heart attacks and swooned to the floor. Ma? Dad? I ended up dating the guy, okay? Very nice guy, in the end. A med student, very sweet. Ma?

Soup: Lobster bisque.

Artist: What I know about art wouldn’t fill a teaspoon. I like Andy Warhol and Magritte the best. I also like an artist named Ken Grimes; his work is kind of hard to explain, but you can learn more about it here. I have a poster based on “Untitled (Must Be More Tolerant Of Others)” on my wall. Also, I don’t know if cartoonists count, but Roz Chast rocks my world.

Sport to watch on TV: Baseball. I actually prefer listening to it on the radio because radio announcers call the games better, in my opinion, but I’ll take it on TV.

Breakfast: A sesame bagel from David’s Bagels with scallion spread and sliced tomatoes; grapefruit juice; a coffee with milk, light, two sugars. Mmmm.

Favorite getting-ready music: Liz Phair. Liz Phair doesn’t just kick ass herself; Liz Phair makes me feel like I can kick ass also.

Most nostalgic situation: Tough call. I guess I’d say the summer of 1990, before I went away to college. Lots of fun, not too many worries in my life, I fell in love for the first time. I don’t know that I’d want to go back, especially, but it’s a time I remember fondly.

Heroine: I have lots heroines – Rosa Parks and Gloria Steinem; Amy Sedaris; Wing Chun and Pamie and Gwen; Nip’s Sister, who is the biggest kick in the head ever; Ernie; Sophia Loren. If I had to choose just one, though, I’d choose my mother. We drive each other crazy frequently, and she’s not perfect, but she’s funny, she’s a kind person who does a ton of volunteer work for not much thanks, she’s a caring and involved parent, and she’s a good writer with great legs who doesn’t take any crap.

Popular misconception about yourself: Jeez, I don’t know. I think sometimes people find me more intimidating than they should, but I don’t mind that.

Quiz #2: About Me

Living arrangement: I live in a sunken studio (meaning it has two little stairs from the “foyer” down to the main area) in Manhattan with an orange cat.

Favorite TV show: Now that I pretty much follow TV for a living, I don’t really have a favorite show. Watching TV is like a busman’s holiday a lot of the time for me. But I love Law & Order in all its incarnations; I’ve seen the reruns about a dozen times each, and I never get sick of them. If Dick Wolf thought up a show called Law & Order: Jaywalking Division, I’d watch it.

What’s on your mousepad? I recently changed over to a desktop from a laptop with a touchpad, so right now I just use the Dell mousepad that came with the system. I have a ChickClick mousepad, but I’ve decided to save that one. Do mousepads get worn out? I don’t even remember.

Favorite smells: Lavender; sautéed garlic; autumn leaves; the smell of snow.

Worst feeling in the world: Telling someone you used to love that you don’t love them anymore. I’ve had to deal with this on both sides, and saying it is worse than hearing it.

Best feeling in the world: Waking up from an awfully real-seeming nightmare and seeing the cat and the glow-in-the-dark stars on my wall and realizing that all my teeth really didn’t fall out after all. Love is great and all, but relief is such a sweet emotion too.

Favorite soundtrack: I’ll have to call this one a tie between Rushmore and GoodFellas.

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? Do I think first thing in the morning? I don’t think I do. I don’t think I can. If I do, it’s something along the lines of “must – have – coooooffeeeeee.”

Do you get motion sickness? It depends. I have low levels of inner-ear fluid, which makes me more prone to vertigo than most people, but if I can keep an eye on the horizon, I don’t usually get sick. I used to read in the car on long car trips, but I can’t do that anymore; I don’t know why. I don’t really like going on boats. Canoes and rowboats I don’t mind, but bigger boats make me queasy.

Roller coasters – scary or exciting? Well, I’ve never gone on a real roller coaster. I always hold everyone else’s stuff, and I eat a hot dog and play Skee-ball with everyone’s handbags draped over me while they scream their heads off on the Batman ride or whatever. I went on a “virtual” one once, at the boardwalk in Santa Cruz, and I almost puked. I don’t think I’d ever go on one, unless it’s a ride-the-Whirlwind-or-your-family-dies type of situation – I’m totally phobic about barfing, and I just don’t think I’d enjoy it. So, “scary,” then.

Pen or pencil? Pen. I can’t remember the last time I used a pencil. Probably the last time I played miniature golf.

How many rings before you answer? I “screen” a lot during the day, because the telemarketers know I work at home. After the dinner hour, I pick it up when I get to it. Two rings, usually.

Favorite food: My mother’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year, grilled cheese.

Do you get along with your parents? Yes, thank god.

Chocolate or vanilla? It’s not that I dislike chocolate; it’s that I like almost any other flavor of anything better. So, vanilla, but good vanilla, not the fake yellowy stuff.

Favorite ice-cream flavor: Oregon blackberry. My mother ate massive quantities of it while pregnant with me, and as a result I think it comprises a significant percentage of my bloodstream. In college, my dining hall had an ice-cream bar, including one vat of virulently purple blackberry ice cream; nobody ever touched it, not one person, except me. I ate a bowl every day. It took me until April, but I finished the thing. Anyway. It’s a hard flavor to find, and it’s pretty scary-looking, but I have walked fifteen blocks to a Baskin Robbins in a different neighborhood when I heard they had some.

Croutons or bacon bits? Croutons. I like them both, but if I had to eat one for the rest of my life, I’d have to go with the crouton. Bacon bits get stuck in my teeth.

Do you like to drive? More than just about anything.

Do you sleep with stuffed animals? Yes. I tried to break myself of it in college, but it didn’t work; I like having something to hug. Boyfriends do nicely. In the absence of a boyfriend, I have a stuffed tiger and a stuffed Kliban “Supercat.”

Storms – cool or scary? Cool. I used to hate them, because I had super-sensitive ears as a kid and I dreaded the loud thunderclaps, but now I like them.

What type was your first car? 1990 Honda Accord coupe, charcoal grey. She’s still around. Great car.

If you could meet one person, dead or alive, who would it be? My paternal grandfather. He died twenty years before I was born. I don’t know what I’d say to him, but I’d still like to meet him.

Favorite alcoholic drink: Brooklyn Lager on draft.

What is your zodiac sign? Aries. Top of the order, baby.

Who’s your favorite poet? Robert Frost. Auden has individual poems that I like better, but overall, I like Frost the best.

Do you eat the stems of broccoli? Ordinarily. I usually put broccoli into other dishes, so I use the whole thing. If the broccoli’s on its own on my plate, it depends. If it’s not too tough, I’ll eat the stem.

If you could have any job you wanted, what would it be? Play-by-play announcer for a minor-league baseball team. I suppose I could make that happen if I tried, but I think I’ve probably gone too far in another direction with my life at this point.

If you could dye your hair, what color would it be? Dark reddish-purple with bright blue streaks.

Have you ever been in love? Several times.

What is on the walls in your room? Movie posters, art postcards, cartoons, a life-size cut-out of Darth Vader, pictures of my family, a couple of mirrors, a bulletin board, and a framed reproduction of the front page of the New York Times from the day I was born.

Is the glass half full or half empty? Half empty – but I’m a thirsty person, so that’s just how I look at it.

Favorite Snapple? I don’t drink nearly as much Snapple as I used to in college, but if memory serves, I drank many a gallon of Diet Raspberry Iced Tea.

Favorite movie? The Shawshank Redemption. It has replaced Diner, and I never thought I’d see that happen.

Are you a lefty, a righty, or ambidextrous? Righty – strongly so. I don’t even like smoking with my left hand.

Do you type with your fingers on the right keys? Usually, although sometimes I cheat with the keys on the far left-hand side and the shift key. I type 85 wpm, though, so it’s not holding me up or anything. God bless my high school for forcing us to learn touch-typing – it’s the handiest class I ever took.

If you could be any gardening tool, what would it be? A hoe, of course. Ha ha. Not. I guess that little handheld spiky thing that you use to break up soil. I don’t know the name of it, but that thing is pretty cool.

What’s under your bed? Giant plastic cozies with sheets and blankets in them; tumbleweeds of lint and cat hair; cat toys from ages past; books that have slipped down between the bed and the wall. When I have people over, the cat himself is under the bed too.

What’s your favorite number? Twenty-two.

What is your dream automobile? I love the vintage Mustang, but if I had the dinero to buy another car, I’d get another Accord, and just customize the interior with a tiny little TV/VCR and more ashtrays.

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