Wow! \u00a0What a greeting!\u00a0 Following my inaugural article, I received e-mails from many more DPN readers than I had anticipated.\u00a0 Most pertained to my family\u2019s wellbeing in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. (In answer to that one, we are fine, but thousands of others face months of rebuilding their lives. Sandy left deep scars, to be sure, but we New Yorkers are a resilient lot!)\u00a0 Several readers asked more personal and specific questions:\u00a0 What do I do in my spare time?\u00a0 What other books would I recommend?\u00a0 One even asked me for a recipe for an Amish dish! (No can do:\u00a0 My foray into the \u201cplain\u201d life was not long enough to master even one.) \u00a0But because my DPN publisher wanted a longer columnist\u2019s biography, I thought I would get that out of the way by responding to some of those e-mailed questions. \u00a0What better way to kill two birds with one stone than to provide biographical material in the form of selected trivial facts that define me as the ordinary American woman I am?<\/p>\n
Born in New York City and raised on Long Island, where much of the seafood sold in stores and restaurants is caught that very morning, I am, sadly, deathly allergic to clams. I am also allergic to most antibiotics, as well as to the pesky red fire ants so common in the state of Georgia, where I lived from 1994 until 2010. This makes me a very unsuitable guest at a clambake, a problem patient for doctors, and an insurance liability at any Southern garden party. (I am\u00a0loads<\/i>\u00a0of fun otherwise.)<\/p>\n Some of my friends view me as a high-ranking member of the Grammar Police. I cannot imagine why.\u00a0 I simply happen to believe that people should master their native language, especially the lingo of their chosen profession. I won\u2019t use a realtor who pronounces herself a \u201cree-la-tor\u201d or buy anything from a jeweler who refers to his wares as \u201cjew-lery,\u201d but does that make me a\u00a0bad<\/i>\u00a0person? There is no law against my refusal to make a follow-up appointment with a dermatologist who can\u2019t make the distinction between nevus (singular mole) and nevi (plural) \u2013 not that I have any of those unsightly blemishes, of course (!) \u2013 or who asks if a rash is \u201cpuritic\u201d instead of \u201cpruritic.\u201d (If he can\u2019t pronounce the adjectival form of pruritus, he should just say \u201citchy.\u201d) A florist should always articulate that final \u201ci\u201d in poinsettia. (The latter only annoys me in December, for obvious reasons, while the former example is a year-round irritant.)\u00a0 My interest in language has deep roots.\u00a0 With the blessing \u2013 nay, the unbridled! enthusiastic! encouragement! \u2013 of my sixth-grade teacher, Sister Michael Mary, I launched the first-ever Vocabulary Club in my parochial elementary school. Despite my most persuasive and endearing, yet completely incomprehensible polysyllabic pitch, very few of my classmates seemed inclined to sign up. Fewer actually became members. In truth, while I did eventually become president of the club, I remained its only member through the end of the school year.\u00a0 It is not only written language that intrigues me. Conversational language does, too.\u00a0 In the five years I spent traveling on business as communications director for a software company, my biggest personal accomplishment was to demonstrate to thousands of people all over the U.S. and Canada that not all people who grew up on Long Island sound like Joey Tribbiani, of the old hit TV show, \u201cFriends.\u201d<\/p>\n I consider myself to be a spiritual person and have spent more than a few sleepless nights pondering profound theological questions.\u00a0 For example, I\u2019ve often wondered why it is that Westerners who embrace the notion of reincarnation are most often under the impression that they were grand personages in at least\u00a0some<\/i>\u00a0of their former lives. You rarely meet one who tells you that he was once an embalmer or a chicken plucker. (Exception: A woman might tell you that she was a courtesan in a former incarnation but never, never a streetwalker.) In one nocturnal flight of imagination, it also occurred to me that a curmudgeonly editor must have deleted a few paragraphs (or even an entire chapter) from the Bible, and that is why more people don\u2019t attribute a sense of humor to God.<\/p>\n In the looks-and-likes department:\u00a0 Some people like to say that they weigh the same today as they did in high school. I can proudly say that I weigh the same today as I did yesterday. Mysteriously, however, I have worn the same bra size since the age of 19, even through multiple pregnancies. If there were occasions when it appeared that I possessed four of the usual two, um, feminine attributes, people were too kind to inform me. Shame on them! Although I enjoy a good Jack Daniel\u2019s Manhattan \u2013 heavy on the vermouth, in a delicately stemmed martini glass \u2013 I have no desire to balloon to a size requiring purchase of maternity clothes. To that end (and for other sound reasons), I do not overindulge.\u00a0 Finally (and I am ashamed to say this, being of proud Irish stock), I detest hot corned beef.\u00a0 Sliced and plated, it reminds me of a red and wrinkly neck one might see on an elderly, Caucasian Miami Beach vacationer who forgot to slather on his sunscreen that morning.\u00a0 Hide that corned beef between two pieces of rye bread, though, and I\u2019m in heaven!<\/p>\n Random facts? \u00a0Perhaps!\u00a0 More than anyone wanted to know?\u00a0 Probably!\u00a0 Sometimes, though, trivia is far more interesting than the big picture.\u00a0 If asked to provide a dozen random facts about yourself, what would top your list and what else would you include?\u00a0 Composing such a list is harder than you think, but the results might surprise you.\u00a0 Give it a try.<\/p>\n This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.<\/span>” mce_’ + path + ‘\\” + prefix + ‘:’ + addy69264 + ‘\\’>’+addy_text69264+'<\\\/a>’; \/\/–><\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2012, DPNLIVE \u2013 All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Letter from America. Wow! \u00a0What a greeting!\u00a0 Following my inaugural article, I received e-mails from many more DPN readers than<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-and-style","category-living-in-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9924,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9923\/revisions\/9924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}