Ganked from Gramina

I am having some rare downtime. I am filling it with a survey of things about me whose straight answers would be news to no one, but I've decided to try to tell something that most people wouldn't know in each answer. Alert the blogosphere -- someone's being self-referential!!

Interesting to me is the fact that in choosing something you probably won't have already heard about me, I chose a bunch of melancholy stuff. I guess that's pretty understandable; I try to keep the moaning to a minimum in my entries, as a general rule.

( but you were not spared today )

Oh, and I forgot to tell you:

Mom got me this, and this (in red), and this, and this (just the 10-inch; she kept the other two for herself -- how selfish is THAT? ;-). Also a mess of clothes and far more food than I could ever list for you.

(And yes, in fact, she DOES own stock in Martha Stewart. She's my mother, isn't she?)