After a mostly pleasant day at work, I had to deal with some unrelated, severe bureaucratic hassles for a couple of hours, and don’t really want to re-live that experience. So, I’ll take a hint from Fred in order to construct a pleasant entry.

Ten things I've done that most of my friends probably haven't:

* Had my photo in a small-city newspaper because I was reading the previous day’s edition aloud -- and because I and was 4 years and 3 months old at the time.

* Eaten fresh scallop sashimi on the hoof, on a dive boat off the California coast.

* Played on a quizbowl team, as a full-time student, with a teammate whose mother is younger than I am.

* Co-wrote a full-length musical comedy with someone whose other collaborators have included Douglas Adams.

* Scared away a pair of fellow tourists at Uluru (Ayers Rock) by chattering excitely to them -- in French -- about the queen honeypot ant that was crawling at our feet.

* Played my own original songs on stage at the Rat in Boston. (The Police once played there too, albeit on a different night and to a much larger audience.) :)

* Voted for the first woman governor of a U.S. state who was elected in her own right (rather than to succeed a family member).

* Co-discovered a strange, previously unsuspected phenomenon of insect reproductive biology.

* Had (separate) conversations with Jane Goodall, Jim Hightower, C. Everett Koop, Sir David Attenborough, and Noam Chomsky.

* Won a gift certificate at a sandwich shop for submitting the best story of how my parents met.