As you may have gathered from recent entries, I’ve been really busy at work lately. Really damn busy. So busy that my coworkers and I have been referring to the situation as “The Apocalypse.” I just reached my five-year anniversary with my current employer — this job has now officially become the longest-running one I’ve ever had, and I hope I’m not jinxing myself by mentioning it — and in all that time, I’ve never seen it this crazy. Late nights every night for two solid weeks, sometimes very late nights, and a six-inch stack of paper in my inbox that never seems to get any shorter, no matter how many hours I put in. Just call me Sisyphus, I guess.

I was even planning to go in last weekend to try and get on top of some of it, but my rebellious body had plans of its own, which consisted mainly of vomiting so hard I could feel my stomach itself clenching. Not the muscles and flab that the world sees in the vicinity of my waistband, but the actual internal organ. The visual image that came to mind once everything finally relaxed was the nurses on M*A*S*H squeezing one of those black respirator bags shut, and the way it slowly refilled after it was released. I initially thought I had food poisoning, but I’ve since decided it was very possibly a reaction to the stress I’ve been under recently.

In any event, this Apocalypse thing has made me rather grouchy — possibly you’ve noticed? — for all kinds of reasons, not least of which is the effect it’s had on my blogging. I know that sounds stupid and superficial and some of you are probably thinking I have messed-up priorities, but the fact is I derive a lot of personal fulfillment from this particular hobby, and I keenly feel its absence when I’m unable to do it. Blogging reassures me that I haven’t completely surrendered my writing ambitions and allowed whatever gifts I may have to wither away, that I am still, somewhere deep down inside, the brash, romantic twentysomething that I think I liked far more than my 40-year-old self. Blogging is also a necessary escape from the mundane demands of what I do for a living, my own little fiefdom in which I don’t have to satisfy account managers or clients or legal departments or the faceless editors of the Chicago Manual of Style. Here, I am in charge, and all I have to do here is satisfy myself. And hopefully my Three Loyal Readers, assuming you’re still out there.

During times when the scope of my life spirals inward to the point where I can’t even manage to keep up on this, let alone anything more important… well, then I feel entirely justified to gripe about not having much of a life. Don’t misunderstand. I enjoy what I do for a living, I really do. But I’m not the type who can survive for long doing nothing more than working, commuting, and sleeping. Some people may love their jobs that much, but I am convinced they are an extremely lucky minority to which I do not belong.

All of which is a needlessly long explanation for what you’re about to encounter below the fold, assuming you haven’t already clicked away to greener online pastures. Yes, kids, it’s a meme! Not as worthwhile as a coherent essay about an actual topic perhaps, but it’s something I can putter at for two minutes here and there during my busy-busy-busy days over the course of a week or two. Which is exactly what I’ve been doing with this particular meme throughout the Apocalypse.

For the record, I snagged this one from SamuraiFrog a couple months back but I’m just now getting around to using it. I’ve said that entirely too much lately.

So… are we ready? Okay, then, let’s begin…

1. What’s your favorite Dr. Seuss book?
   Honestly, I’ve never been a big Seuss fan. I don’t recall owning or even reading any of his books when I was a child, I have no warm glow of nostalgia for the weird, inhuman creatures that inhabited his universe, and absurdist poetry and nonsense words tend to annoy rather than amuse me. That said, I do have one very fond memory involving a copy of Green Eggs and Ham and a stuffy fleabag apartment on a hot summer evening about 17 years ago. And that’s all you need to know about that…
2. If you could live in any home on a television series, what would it be?
   Hm. I’m somewhat surprised, given how much time I’ve wasted over the years pondering TV shows, but this question really isn’t something I’ve ever given any thought to. The first TV home that comes to mind is Stringfellow Hawke’s mountaintop retreat in Airwolf, but I don’t know how to fly a helicopter, so that might make grocery-shopping a little tricky. Duncan MacLeod’s manly bachelor loft in the later seasons of Highlander was also very cool, with its freight elevator and exposed brick walls, but I’m not sure I can see myself living above a stinky old gym. I guess I’ll have to ponder this for a while and get back to you…
3. What’s the longest you’ve gone without sleep?
   As best I can figure it, about 27 hours. When I flew to England back in ’93, I was advised to try and stay awake as long as possible after my arrival, to help combat the jet lag. I’d gotten up early to make it to the airport, was unable to nap on the long flight, and arrived in the UK at 7 AM, British time, which was sometime in the wee hours of the night according to my own body clock. Nevertheless, I managed to keep my eyes open until about 8 PM that evening. I don’t remember ever feeling abnormally tired, but my mind played a lot of strange tricks on me that day… in the weeks to come, I would rediscover buildings I’d seen that first day, but in my memory they’d been on the other side of town. It was as if the mental map I formed on Day One was scrambled around from the way things actually were. It was very disconcerting, like a confusing flavor of deja vu.
4. What’s your favorite Barry Manilow song?
   The theme from American Bandstand. (Not a big Manilow fan, I’m afraid…)
5. Who’s your favorite Muppet?
   Kermit the Frog. He seems to be the purest expression of Jim Henson’s personality, an everyman who was heartbreaking in his insecurity, gentleness, and idealism, but equally inspiring in his optimism, imagination, and natural leadership abilities.
6. What’s the habit you’re proudest of breaking?
   Well, see, I’m the sort who indulges habits more than I try to break them. But I guess it was really good that I finally (mostly) stopped blowing my money on so-called “collectibles” that just sit in banker’s boxes in my basement. And books, too. As much as I love them, it’s just ridiculous to be slowly burying myself in books that I have no time to read.
7. What’s your favorite website?
   Bloglines.com, because I can see all of the other websites I like there! Well, most of them, anyway…
8. What’s your favorite school supply?
   Paste.
   No, seriously, I do have a bit of a notebook fetish. I’m always on the lookout for the perfect notebook for a given task. I like Moleskines, like all good pretentious creative types, but a good steno pad is great for random jottings. Just lately I’ve been thinking of getting some refill paper for my old college-era three-ring binder and maybe trying to do some creative writing in longhand.
9. Who’s your favorite TV attorney?
   Denny Crane!
   (Actually, I far more admire the politics and speechifying abilities of Denny’s partner, Alan Shore. Played by James Spader, whose slimy persona in ’80s Brat Pack flicks has mellowed into mere eccentricity, Alan is a liberal that other liberals can look up to, able to articulate all those mushy concepts that we ordinary lefties have so much trouble defending, feisty and proud of his progressive ideals, and not intimidated by anybody, no matter how swaggering. But Denny is played by William Shatner, and you know how that is. It’s Shatner!)
10. What was your most recent trip of more than 50 miles?
    My run out to Wendover, Nevada, a few weeks back to see Huey Lewis and the News.
11. What’s the best bargain you’ve ever found at a garage sale or junk shop?
    I don’t tend to frequent either of those, so it’s hard to say… I guess it would have to be the shirt I picked up last October at the DI (our local charity secondhand store). I was going to an ’80s-themed Halloween party and needed something that looked like that vintage. I came up with a purple buttondown dress shirt in an appropriately Prince-like shade and no apparent wear, for something like 85 cents.
12. Where were you on September 11, 2001?
    I’m assuming this question means “Where were you when you found out what was happening/had happened?” I was actually in several places for the various milestones of that awful day.
    I was at home, eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast, when I first flipped on the TV and learned the World Trade Center was on fire. I remember thinking it must be some kind of Towering Inferno scenario; terrorism never occurred to me. I was still watching when the second plane hit the other tower.
    Not knowing what else to do, I went ahead and went in to work… and I heard the news about the first tower collapsing on my car radio during the drive. And then I heard the about the second tower’s fall in a stuffy corner office with two of my coworkers, all of us huddled around a little transistor radio and steadfastly not meeting each other’s eyes for fear of what we might see there.
    What a shitty day that was.
13. What’s your favorite tree?
    The old box-elder in my backyard that used to hold my treehouse in its three trunks. (Seriously, the tree has a single broad base with three big trunks spreading out from that; my treehouse sat serenely in the middle of them for years). Dad and I removed the treehouse a few years ago, when it had become so dilapidated it was threatening to fall down on its own, and one of the three trunks broke and fell a year or so after that, leaving the remaining two looking unbalanced and precarious… but I have a lot of good memories of the time I spent in that tree.
14. What’s the most interesting biography you’ve read?
    Edward Rice’s Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, my introduction to one of history’s most fascinating, accomplished, and dangerous characters. I purchased the book based on an intriguing subtitle (The Secret Agent Who Made the Pilgrimage to Mecca, Discovered the Kama Sutra, and Brought the Arabian Nights to the West; I believe this was dropped on later printings of the book, FYI) and was utterly blown away by it and its subject. A dozen historical figures have been tagged as the supposed “real-life inspiration” for Indiana Jones, but Burton has one of the stronger claims on the title. Actually, Burton’s real exploits out-do Indy’s fictional ones for sheer unbelievable manliness.
15. What do you order when you eat Chinese food?
    Hm. Well, usually when I’m eating Chinese, I’m having take-out with my parents from the Golden Tree, a local mom-n-pop we’ve been frequenting since I was in high school. I believe my mom always orders Dinner A for three, which includes paper-wrapped chicken, ham fried rice, fried shrimp, chow mein, egg foo yong, and an egg roll.
16. What’s the best costume you’ve ever worn?
    I threw together a pretty nifty Indiana Jones outfit two years ago. The things that made it so great? I found a light-up plastic skull and a plush-toy gopher — yes, I was Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls Indy! And the small handful of people who got that were duly impressed.
17. What’s your least favorite word?
    It’s actually two words: “client feedback.” Anyone who’s ever worked in advertising or any other freelance creative field shares my pain, I’m sure.
18. If you had to be named after one of the 50 states, which would it be?
    Pennsylvania. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Pennsylvania Bennion.
    Okay, maybe not so great. I can’t help it if my last name isn’t as universally compatible as “Jones.”
19. Who’s your favorite bear?
    Not who so much as which, which would be the Jedi teddy bear The Girlfriend made for me back around the time Attack of the Clones came out. She cobbled together a reasonable facsimile of Jedi robes for him, and I armed him with a lightsaber-pen promotional premium that came in a cereal box.
20. Describe something that’s happened to you for which you have no explanation.
    Uh… somehow I did not end up as a swashbuckling, globetrotting adventurer and novelist despite all my best intentions? Really, what the heck is the question getting at? An encounter with the mystical and/or supernatural? Sorry, never had one.
21. If you could travel anywhere in Africa, where would it be?
    To Rwanda, to see the mountain gorillas while there still are some.
22. What did you have for lunch yesterday?
    A capocolla-and-salami sandwich from Toaster’s, a pleasant little cafe just up the alleyway from my office. The people who work there are all surprisingly beautiful, male and female alike. It’s a little disconcerting, actually…
23. Where do you go for advice?
    Oh, I would imagine the usual people everyone else goes to: friends, coworkers, parents, my spousal equivalent. I’m not in therapy and I don’t go to church, so I have no ecclesiastical or psychiatric advisers in my life…
24. Which do you use more often, the dictionary or the thesaurus?
    The dictionary, without a doubt. Usually because I’m trying to prove a point to some thick-headed account guy who doesn’t believe me when I say that some term is two words when he thinks it looks better as one.
25. Have you ever been snorkeling? Scuba diving?
    Scuba, no, but when I was a kid I had a cheapo face mask and snorkel that I played with a bit. Sadly, there isn’t much to see in Utah’s murky freshwater lakes and reservoirs, or at least, I never saw much…

And there you go! Not much to show for two weeks, is it? Sigh…