7 Things

Ryan Call tagged me for the 7 Things About Me meme, and since I haven't posted anything for a couple of days, I'll play:

1. In high school, I wanted to be President of the United States. I'd be damn good in the job, but I no longer want it. I'm very happy with Obama, thank you. And besides, this was before I decided I was an atheist. America isn't ready for an atheist President, and never will be.

2. I like rules and order (and rules of order); I like math and logic; I like building things. I've always wanted to be an architect (even when I wanted to be President, and then when I wanted to be lawyer, and now that I want to string words together into stories and novels), and these things are all related.

3. I'm giving serious thought to becoming a vegetarian. A vegetarian probably can't be elected President either. But cruelty bugs me and most--not all!--meat production in this country is cruel. Beans don't feel pain, as far as I can tell.

4. I like to travel overseas. In 2008 I broke my 25-year string of being outside the United States for all or part of the year. Since 1975, the year I graduated from college, there have only been 5 years (mostly my law school and early law practice years) in which I didn't spend some time outside the country. Another reason I probably couldn't be elected President (but might have a shot at Secretary of State).

5. I'm not a great public speaker, but as a senior in high school I won Second Place in the Illinois State High School Association Speech Tournament, Declamation Division. I still have my silver medal. The guy who won was really, really good. I don't remember his name.

6. I have about 4,000 books. They fill up my house. I know people with twice that many books. Their houses aren't twice the size of mine. I don't understand.

7. I used to have a recurring dream in which I could fly. I gather that's not unusual. My dream involved flapping my arms and gliding, rather than superman-style soaring, though. I still think that would be cool.

The rule of this thing is that I'm supposed to tag 7 people to name 7 things about themeselves. We all know how much I like rules (see No. 2), but one of my personal rules is that I don't tag people in memes. Instead, if you read this and want to play along, consider yourself tagged. If you feel like it, you can mention in a comment here that you're tagging yourself!