B - Band Room

Band Room: place

During my senior year of high school I spent 4 of 7 periods per day in the Band Room. Wind Ensemble (period 1, trumpet, then horn), Concert Band (per 2, horn), Study Hall (per 4, which overlapped the two other band periods), and Jazz Band (per 7).

SEE ALSO: French Horn, Study Hall, Spam,

# - 16

16: number

7+9=16
79-63=16
1+6=7

I have a light blue Woodland Soccer t-shirt. It was a rec league jersey from when I played in Middle School. It is #16. A friend of mine from the debate team played on the girls soccer team in the same league and had the exact same jersey. The first time I saw her wearing it and I thought she had stolen my shirt. I often wore that shirt to do a particular skit at a Summer Camp that I used to be affiliated with.

NHL Hockey star Pat LaFontaine wore #16.

Turning 16 did not mark any special rites of passage for me.

SEE ALSO: debate, hockey, Numbers, 7, 9, driving

S - Socks

Socks: thing, clothing

I prefer black socks to other shades. Unfortunately there are Fashion Rules that prevent me from upgrading to only owning black socks. Also, I am not Neil Gaiman.

I tend to wear white socks when working out. I have a pair of socks that I borrowed from my Grandpa. They were so big, I ended up using them as my special field hockey socks because they fit over my shin guards.

I once spent 9 dollars (!) on a pair of UnderArmor socks, because it was crucial that I had a pair of Red socks and they were the first ones I found.

This is not about baseball.

SEE ALSO: Floor Hockey, Field Hockey, Cage Dancing,

B - Bedsheets

Bedsheets: thing

The very first thing I'm going to buy when I "make it big" (or get my own place to live) is a really nice bed/mattress, but only so I can get super-high thread-count sheets. After that I'm never going to be able to get out of bed.

The second thing I'm going to do is hire someone to change my sheets for me when they need washing, because putting sheets on a bed is my single least favorite chore.

SEE ALSO: Chores, luxury, laundry,

T - Tea

Tea: thing, beverage

I used to make hot cocoa with a Mint tea bag in it. I was also really excited to learn, while I was in Wales, that it's okay to put milk and sugar in tea.

Now I mostly drink Green Tea with lemon and honey, but only when I'm really tired in the morning.

SEE ALSO: Wales, Morning,

R - Reading, Learning to

Reading, Learning to: Event

I learned to read just before I started Kindergarten. The first book I read all the way through on my own was "Monsters Come in Many Colors." It was a small square Sesame Street book with a beige cover. The monsters went to a factory, beige, and got painted by a machine.

I remember being sad about learning to read because I was sure that no one would ever read to me again now that I could do it myself. My parents did the you-read-a-page/I-read-a-page thing for awhile.

R - Ring

Ring: thing

Right around the time I started reading Lord of the Rings, I got a cool "Birthday Present": a silver ring with a large Amethyst (my birth-stone) and a leaf pattern. I mostly kept it in a small leather pouch around my neck.

I have trouble wearing rings, mostly because I tend to fidgit with them and worry about them catching on things.

Now I mostly want a real actual Green Lantern ring (but in my imagination). I do have a complete set of the Blackest Night promotional rings on my desk, and I wear them depending on my mood.


SEE ALSO: Tolkien, presents, comics, rocks.

S - Skiing, Alpine

S - Skiing, Alpine: thing, activity

I used to downhill ski a lot. My mom worked at Spirit Mountain for most of my youth, so I got Season Passes and often had a ride to the hill. In 5th grade, when it became clear that I had no future in Hockey, I followed the lead of my friend Scott and quit hockey to ski.

I remember starting to ski right around the 1988 Olympics in Calgary. I wanted to be Swiss skier Pirmin Zurbriggen (because his name was cool).

I had a pair of purple Blizzards. Then I got a pair of Saloman Force9s.

Once I started doing debate in HS, my winter weekends were taken up and my skiing became less frequent. I don't think I've been downhill skiing in 10 years.

SEE ALSO: Skiing, XC; Skiing, Water; Spirit Mountain, Girls

R - Reuben

Reuben: thing

I didn't think that I liked rye bread, or sauerkraut or Russian dressing until one time I was really hungry in college and the best choice left was a Reuben. Now they're one of my favorite sandwiches (if not my favorite outright).

When I was an intern at the National Museum of American History, one of the Archivists was named Reuben.

SEE ALSO: sandwich, birthday, smithsonian

H - Hair

Hair: Thing

I haven't combed my hair at all since the Summer of 1998.

In high school I had long hair. I still have the ponytail saved from when I got it cut (on the first day of my new job at the Hacienda del Sol).

My standard haircut is #8 on the top, #6 on the sides (though somtimes I get #6/#4).

SEE ALSO: product, Hacienda, Hygiene

B - Bear

Bear: thing, animal

I still have a blue Teddy Bear that I got at Valley Fair when I was 4 years old. It's been with me pretty much since then. It's name is "Valley Fair Bear," which is very concrete and literal. It is sitting on my bed right now.

"Bear" is also currently my favorite sign in American Sign Language.

In 7th or 8th grade I was playing Hide and Seek in Hartley Field just behind my house. I was hiding, and my friends could clearly see me but were not chasing me. It turned out that there was a black bear meandering around just across a very shallow ravine and tiny creek from where I was hiding. Probably less than 50 yards away. The bear did not eat me.

B - Bluandbrowne

Blueandbrown: thing (color)

Bluandbrowne, or the combination of a shade of blue and shade of brown, is one of my favorite colors. It started when my brother found a cool piece of patterned fabric at my grandparents' house.

I have many, possibly too many, sweaters and blankets and other things in those colors.

The spelling indicates that it is one single concept. Also it would be a cool middle name.


also known as: AquaSepia, Cinnamon-Teal (which is also a kind of Duck),

SEE ALSO: Sweaters, Blankets,

O - Otter

Otters: Thing, living

Otters are probably my favorite animal, more specifically, North American River Otters (though sea-otters are decent). I like them because they are really fun to watch at the zoo. I would probably like to be one (or at least how I idealize them) and swim and run around all day.

I have, on my desk right now, a small plastic Otter that I stole from my brother when he was very young, and I was not so young. I'm not giving it back. I also have an awesome blanket with an otter and a really cool painting.

There was an incident last year of a group of Otters attacking a Human swimmer. I didn't like that.

F - Frisbee

Frisbee: thing

I wasn't very good at throwing frisbees when I was younger. The college I went to treated Ultimate Frisbee like religion, so of course I had to be rebellious and be part of the 15% of the student body that didn't play organized Ultimate. I'll play it now though, but not seriously.

I have two glow-in-the-dark frisbees and I like them. one of them used to have a shiny red bomb on it, but some kids temporarily lost it in a lake and the sand wore it down.


SEE ALSO: Razor, Disc Golf, Carleton

H - Hats

Hats: thing

I like to wear baseball caps sometimes, but not often. I like the brims on the flatter side rather than the more curved side, and I like them with adjustable sizing, not fitted. The best baseball-style cap I've ever had was a green corduroy Hartford Whalers hat. I lost it at Pike Lake Golf Course.

Winter hats make my head itchy and never cover my ears enough unless they have ear flaps. I like them a lot though, especially with ear flaps and tassels.

In my younger years I had a lot of Bula brand hats. They had really cool crazy patterns, colors and shapes.

T - Toes

Toes: thing

I think I broke my pinky toe when I was 8 or 9. I was playing some sort of kickball on my Grandpa's old green Pontoon Boat. I wound up to kick, and my toe hit a part of the railing on the follow through (the foot kept going). It hurt a lot.

SEE ALSO: Boats, Kickball

R - Relationships

Relationships: thing

Not counting Middle School, I've had 3 girlfriends. 2 Sarahs, 1 Emily; 2 Violists, 1 Cellist. None lasted longer than 3 months. Oh, well.

The other great relationship I've had was with a Place. We were together for 18 years, and I learned a lot. Then it ended, before I was ready; Divorce is no fun. That's why I'll probably never get married.

Z - Zoo

Zoo: Place

Both of my parents took me to the Zoo (The Duluth Zoological Gardens / The Lake Superior Zoo) often when I was a young kid. I would make them read all of the placards about the animals. Trips to the Twin Cities usually involved a visit to either the Minnesota Zoo or the Como Zoo.

I love the zoo. I may not want pets, but I will definitely take my hypothetical future children to the zoo. It's where I learned to love animals (well, along with the Library and TV).

My favorite animal at any zoo is always the Otter, and if they're out playing, I'll spend at least 20 minutes to a half hour watching them.

M - Maps

Maps: thing

I especially like when books have maps in them. I suppose that comes from all of the fantasy novels that I read. I think they make it easier to visualize what is happening. I especially liked the Karen Wynn Fonstad atlases. I think maps were also my favorite thing about role-playing games.

I, on a good day, can name just about any country on the map of the world (though the little islands will screw me up most of the time).

Google Earth is my favorite piece of software ever.

G - Glasses

G - Glasses: Thing

I got glasses in 3rd grade. I never minded going to the eye-doctor because my Uncle worked there and that was kind of fun. I got contacts in middle school or early high school because they made it easier to play sports, but they were awful to put in, and they were uncomfortable.

One time, at a summer camp that I went to, I sat on my glasses after we had been having massive wrestling matches, they broke. This was the very first day of the week, so I had to go through the week pretty much blind (I think I still got a bullseye in archery).

I have the super-light-weight bend-y frames now (Which I love, because I worry about them breaking), but I really miss having glasses with lenses tall and wide enough that I don't notice them. People tell me they look better small, but they aren't as good for looking through.

I still have a few pairs of old plastic-frame glasses from my (and one other person's) childhood. They're kind of fun to wear sometimes.

I would make passes at girls who wear glasses (if I made passes at people).

F - French Horn

French Horn: thing

I played trumpet for most of my Middle/High School years. In my senior year, I decided that I wanted to learn French Horn. I signed up for Concert Band and borrowed a Horn from the school.

French Horn is hard, what with the hand in the bell and the thumb key and the conical-bore mouthpiece. There's even a book about it called Devil to Play. There are almost as many French Horn jokes as there are Viola jokes. (ex. "Q: How do you make a ______ sound like a French Horn? A: stick your hand in the bell and play wrong notes.). I wasn't very good at it, but it was a lot of fun. The dumb substitute orchestra teacher (part of being a horn meant having to play in orchestra) openly ridiculed us once.

Halfway through the year, Torm asked if I could switch to Horn in Wind Ensemble. I thought about it for a little bit and then decided that I could bail on the trumpet section, because percentage-wise, the French Horn section was the coolest in band (Pound for Pound the trombones were coolest). French Horn morning sectionals usually involved breakfast. It also meant a much larger instrument cubby.

French horns sound really cool when played really loudly, or when they get to make the whooping noises.

I haven't played the horn since I graduated.

T - Tolkien, J.R.R

Tolkien, J.R.R: person, franchise

I first saw the Rankin and Bass Hobbit cartoon in the tiny gym at Lincoln Park School in 1st or 2nd grade. The Goblins scared me. So I decided I didn't like it.

In 5th grade Advanced Reading class we were assigned to read The Hobbit. I, because that's what I do when required to read something, decided I didn't like it. When we finished reading it, my friend started reading The Fellowship of the Ring. Even though I definitely "didn't like" The Hobbit, I decided to read it too.

My first copy of Fellowship was my Uncles. It had a white cover. I remember reading it by flashlight on the way back from a hockey tournament in Silver Bay (while listening to Milli Vanilli (which was cool at the time)).

I spent the next several years reading as much as I could about Middle Earth. I tried reading The Silmarillion in 6th grade, which was a little bit beyond me. I had the atlas, the language books, the games, his other writings, etc. I used my birthday money one year to buy a leather-bound all-in-one volume (because, of course, Lord of the Rings is one Novel, split in to 3 volumes and 6 books.)

The movies lived up to my expectations, though I worry that people now first associate the words Lord of the Rings with the movies and not the books.

S - Snow

Snow: Thing

Snow is my favorite form of precipitation. I like it with all five senses: how it smells, how it coats everything, how it feels on your face and beard, how it mutes sounds, and how it tastes, whereas rain is only nice to look at and hear.

Snow is also good for throwing people into. Especially girls (and especially girls that were on debate or speech teams). You can't throw a rainball, and hail is just cruel. You can't build a shelter out of sleet.

I like to shovel. I suppose, possibly, I romanticize it, not having lived in Minnesota for full winters for the last 8 years, but I do like to shovel, and I love the feeling of cheeks warming up upon coming inside after being out in the winter conditions.

My favorite type of snow, by name at least, came from an article in a Ski magazine that I used to read when I was a skier. "Death Cookies" are chunks of icy snow that one ought to avoid skiing over.

P - Politics

Politics: thing

In, I think, 3rd grade I was either president or vice-president of the Stamp collecting club in my class. It didn't last very long, and I wasn't any good at collecting stamps.

In 9th grade someone in civics class convinced me that it would be a good idea to run for class treasurer. I didn't win (which is good), and, in hindsight, I think they were trying to put one over on me.

I was also the Vice-President of Band my senior year. I don't remember exactly what it entailed, but I'm pretty proud of that one.

I wouldn't make a very good politician in general.

D - Dance

Dance: activity

I went to two dances in High School (not counting the gym-required sock-hops, for which I was sometimes in the band). One was kind of a debacle, but only kind of. The other was Prom. I went with my good friend Emily. It took all of my courage to ask her (even to go just as friends). I rented a tux (voluntarily, which, at the time, was a huge deal), she had a very pretty light-blue dress. We got a limo, and ate at Red Lobster (I had jambalaya). The theme was "Moondance" (it snuck in just before the "Titanic" theme craze). Afterwards a few friends came to my house and we watched "Catch-22."

In college I went to mid-winter ball a few times, but just with friends. I also took "Social Dance" as a PE credit (though I had already gotten all of my PE credits, so it was just to become a better person). I quit after the humiliation of hearing girls arguing over who got to sit out the next dance (men were outnumbered) rather than have to dance with me (and one other guy who, with me, was always the last one picked). I decided not to waste my time with it, and the weather was nice, so I quit. It was one of the two classes I ever dropped in college.

I once danced in a cage at a club in Seattle, with no chemical impairment. (It's actually not as wild or crazy as it sounds).

Now the only dance I do is the Calculator. I learned it from the British, and I only do it when JV Field Hockey wins games (so not this year).

SEE ALSO: Gym class, Emily, Field Hockey, East

G - Glow-in-the-Dark

Glow-in-the-Dark: Thing

When I was younger I had the small glow-star stickers. I had a whole imaginary cosmos on my wall at my house on 11th St. There was mythology/astrology associated with it and everything (at least in my head), though my constellation-making skills were not subtle. I was sad when I had to take it down when we moved, but I did draw a map (or possibly did a crayon rub), long since lost.

One of the reasons I preferred Construx to Legos was the glow in the dark pieces. I left the 2D world of star-stickers and entered the 3D world of glowing planetoids (made of construx bells) hung by fishing line in my room in the Northfield St. House. Again, when I had to take them down to move to college, I was sad. Of course I still have one with me that has hung in all of my rooms since.

Now I have photo paper that glows, so I can make anythign I want glow (lantern-corps symbols, Starman #63 cover, the-camp-I-used-to-be-affiliated-with-in-winter, Bangor, etc). I've also got, paints, tape, string, among other things.

I think Bio-luminescence is pretty cool. It was easily my favorite part of Avatar (if that's what Unobtanium does, then it's worth the 70 katrillion dollars per ounce). Even though I probably should have some sort of objection to it, I think that glow-in-the-dark cats and rabbits are cool.

Mike Doughty sings, in "Where Have You Gone": "Left here looking for girls that glow in the dark." Me too.

SEE ALSO: Construx, Bedroom

S - Speed

Speed: Thing

In theory, I really like things that go very fast (animals, superheroes, fighter planes), but in practice speed really scares me.

I've seen the movie Speed while riding on a Coach Bus far to many times.

A - Aquaman

A - Aquaman

Even though he gets made fun of for having supposedly lame powers, I really liked Aquaman when I was a kid. He was easily the coolest of the Super-Friends, and my favorite superhero. Being able to talk to undersea animals (with cool telepathy that made a neat noise and looked like circles), and to breathe underwater were things that I really wished I could do (probably because I loved the idea of water and the sea, but was a non-to-poor swimmer). I also really liked The Flash (because he was fast).

When I lost one of my first teeth (possibly my very first), the (very generous) Tooth Fairy brought me an Aquaman action figure. When you squeezed the arms, it's legs did a flutter-kick.

D - Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs: thing

Like most good small children, I loved dinosaurs. I had a variety of different dinosaur toys (hard-animal ones, Fisher-Price ones, etc) and a few crucial books. My favorite was Deinonychus, mostly because it had the cool slashing toe-claw, but also because it looked fast (being not-fast myself, I really appreciated fast things) and was said to be very intelligent.

I saw my first Dinosaur skeleton at the Science Museum of Minnesota. I believe it was a Triceratops.

Jurassic Park, the book and the movie, rekindled my love of dinosaurs (though I didn't like the nicknames, or how they shortchanged Deinonychus becaue 'raptor sounded sexier). I was also glad that my brother got the toys, so I could play with them too.

I used a quotation about Dinosaurs' tiny brains as the intro to my Oratory in 11th grade, and I also quoted from the final page of Michael Crichton's The Lost World in debate rounds.

See also: Debate, toys, aquaman

J - Jolly Ranchers

Jolly Ranchers: Thing

When I was in 7th grade I got a 5-pound bag of Jolly Rancher candy for Christmas. I brought a pocket-full to school one day. As I was eating one in Life Science class, another kid asked me if I could have one. Word got around that I was the kid with candy. I thought this would make people be my friend, but it just made people want candy. Once the bag ran out, I needed to get another one to finish the year. I didn't continue to bring them the following year.

When my Great Grandpa died, I learned, at his funeral, that he was known for always having candy to give to children. This made me feel good and helped me rationalize my own candy sharing as family tradition rather than an attempt to get friends.

Green Apple were my favorite, though I liked the Red/Pink ones too. Lemon was only sometimes good. Grape scared me. Now the thought of eating any of them makes my mouth hurt, but I'm more than twice as old as I used to be when I could eat them

L - Lozenge

Lozenge: Thing

I've always preferred lozenge-type cough drops, like N'Ice, to other shapes (like Halls or the square-ish ones). Their semi-rounded top fit nicely against the roof of my mouth, and I liked the flat bottom. This made them, psychologically, more soothing than other cough-drops.

SEE ALSO: Jolly Rancher

N - Nic-ipedia

Nic-ipeda: Thing

The Nic-ipedia (which also encompasses the Nic-tionary) is an Encyclopedia of me (maybe more of a general reference book).

It is inspired by a number of things, most notably Amy Krouse Rosenthal's book "An Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life," and the game I like to play called "Tell me a story about [insert word here]".

Nic-ipeda entries will be for single words, or very brief ideas. Entries will contain personal stories, definitions, or random thoughts about how the word pertains to me, or events in my life. I may go back and add to them as I see fit, or edit them based on reader suggestion.

Entries will be tagged by letter, to allow a semblance of alphabetical order.

Like my previous project [SEE "Lists, My Year in"] I will try my hardest to post at least one entry per day. I will also have it import to Facebook. Unlike my previous project, I may post more than one thing per day.

Suggestions are welcome.