you can't kill the rooster

Leo referenced David Sedaris' younger brother today, so I'm posting the infamous rooster essay.

He'll never hold elected office or own more than one sport coat, but you won't find anyone more loyal than my younger brother

By David Sedaris | Jun 1, 1998
When I was young, my father was transferred, and our family moved from western New York State to Raleigh, North Carolina. IBM had relocated a great many northerners, and, together, we made relentless fun of our new neighbors and their poky, backward way of life. Rumors circulated that locals ran stills out of their toolsheds and referred to their house cats as "good eatin'." Our parents coached us never to use the titles ma'am or sir when speaking to a teacher or shopkeeper. Tobacco was acceptable in the form of a cigarette, but should any of us experiment with plug or snuff, we would be automatically disinherited. Mountain Dew was forbidden, and our speech was monitored for the slightest hint of a Raleigh accent. Use the word y'all and, before you knew it, you'd find yourself in a haystack French-kissing an underage goat. Along with grits and hush puppies, the abbreviated form of"you all" was a dangerous step on an insidious path leading straight to the doors of the Baptist church.

We might not have been the wealthiest People in town, but at least we weren't one of them.

Our family remained free from outside influence until 1968, when my mother gave birth to my brother, Paul, a North Carolina native who has since grown to become both my father's best ally and worst nightmare. Here was a child who, by the time he had reached second grade, spoke much like the toothless fishermen casting their nets into Albemarle Sound. This is the thirty-year-old son who now phones his father to say, "Motherfucker, I ain't seen pussy in so long I'd throw stones at it."

My brother's voice, like my own, is high-pitched and girlish. Telephone solicitors frequently ask to speak to our husbands, and room-service operators appease us by saying, "That shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes, Mrs. Sedaris." The Raleigh accent is soft and beautifully cadenced, but my brother's is a more complex hybrid, informed by his professional relationships with marble-mouthed, deep-country laborers and his abiding love of hardcore rap music. He talks so fast, 'you find yourself concentrating on the gist of his message rather than trying to decipher the actual words. It's like speaking to a foreigner and understanding only the terms motherfucker, bitch, and hoss and the phrase "You can't kill the Rooster."

"The Rooster" is what Paul calls himself when he's feeling threatened. Asked how he came up with that name, he says only, "Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can't kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up sometimes, but, bitch, nobody kills the motherfucking Rooster. You know what I'm saying?"

It often seems that my brother and I were raised in two completely different households. He's eleven years younger than I am, and by the time he reached high school, the rest of us had all left home. When I was young, we weren't allowed to say "shut up," but by the time Paul reached his teens, it had become acceptable to shout, "Shut your motherfucking mouth." The drug laws had changed as well. "No smoking pot" became "No smoking pot in the house," before it finally petered out to "Please don't smoke any pot in the living room."

My mother was, for the most part, delighted with my brother and regarded him with the bemused curiosity of a brood hen discovering she has hatched a completely different species. "I think it was very nice of Paul to give me this vase," she once said, arranging a bouquet of wildflowers into the skull-shaped bong my brother had left on the dining-room table. "It's nontraditional, but that's the Rooster's way. He's a free spirit, and we're lucky to have him."

Like most everyone else in our suburban neighborhood, we were raised to meet a certain standard. My father had dreams of me becoming a great athlete and attending an Ivy League college. While I was happy to bottle and diaper my first football, I had no interest in actually throwing the thing. My grades were average at best, and eventually I learned to live with my father's disappointment. Fortunately, there were six of us children, and it was easy to get lost in the crowd. My sisters and I managed to sneak beneath the wire of his expectations, but I worried about my brother, who was seen as the family's last hope.

From the age of ten, Paul was being dressed in Brooks Brothers suits and tiny red clip-on ties. He endured soccer camps, church-sponsored basketball tournaments, and after-school sessions with well-meaning tutors who would politely change the subject when asked about the Rooster's chances of getting into Yale or Princeton. Fast and well-coordinated, Paul never minded sports just so long as he was either stoned or winning. School failed to interest him on any level, and he considered it an accomplishment to receive an occasional D-minus. His response to my father's impossible and endless demands has, over time, become something of a mantra. Short and sweet, repeated at a fever pitch, it goes simply, "Fuck it," or, on one of his more articulate days, "Fuck it, motherfucker. That shit don't mean fuck to me."

My brother politely ma'ams and sirs all strangers but refers to friends and family, his father included, as either bitch or motherfucker Friends are appalled at the way he speaks to his only remaining parent. The two of them recently visited my sister Amy and me in New York City, and we celebrated with a dinner party. When my father complained about his aching feet, the Rooster set down his two-liter Mountain Dew and removed a fistful of prime rib from his mouth, saying, "Bitch, you need to have them ugly-ass bunions shaved down is what you need to do. But you can't do shit about it tonight, so lighten up, motherfucker."

All eyes went to my father, who chuckled, saying only, "I guess you have a point."

A stranger might reasonably interpret my brother's language as a lack of respect and view my father's response as a kind of shameful surrender. This, though, would be missing the subtle beauty of their relationship.

My father is the type who will recite a bawdy limerick by saying, "A woman I know who's quite blunt / Had a bear trap installed in her...' oh, you know. It's a base, vernacular term for the female genitalia." He can absolutely kill a joke. When pushed to his limit, this is a man who shouts, "Fudge!" and sometimes follows it with a shake of his fist and a hearty "G. D. you!" I've never heard him curse, yet he and my brother seem to have found a common language that eludes the rest of us.
Via www.youcantkilltherooster.com

d’accord

I love David Sedaris.

I especially enjoy his stories about cultural and linguistic misunderstandings that really boil down to self-realization in unconventional packaging.

Part of it is that I've had my fair share of misunderstandings with the French. A bigger part is that I will forever link Paris with my own personal growth, having spent a critical month thinking, writing, and learning there in the summer of 2004.

I'm seeing David next month and am thinking about what I'll ask him this time when he signs his book for me. In light of the following essay, I may inquire if he's reconsidering his agreeably contrarian ways.

I suppose the next time I'm in Paris, I should just take the d’accord approach and see where I end up. On second thought ... maybe I won't.

The New Yorker: Shouts and Murmurs: In the Waiting Room
by DAVID SEDARIS
The advantages of speaking French.
Issue of 2006-09-18
Posted 2006-09-11
Six months after moving to Paris, I gave up on French school and decided to take the easy way out. All I ever said was “Could you repeat that?” And for what? I rarely understood things the second time around, and when I did it was usually something banal, the speaker wondering how I felt about toast, or telling me that the store would close in twenty minutes. All that work for something that didn’t really matter, and so I began saying, “D’accord,” which translates to “I am in agreement,” and means, basically, “O.K.” The word was a key to a magic door, and every time I said it I felt the thrill of possibility.

“D’accord,” I told the concierge, and the next thing I knew I was sewing the eye onto a stuffed animal belonging to her granddaughter. “D’accord,” I said to the dentist, and she sent me to a periodontist, who took some X-rays and called me into his conference room for a little talk. “D’accord,” I said, and a week later I returned to his office, where he sliced my gums from top to bottom and scraped great deposits of plaque from the roots of my teeth. If I’d had any idea that this was going to happen, I’d never have said d’accord to my French publisher, who’d scheduled me the following evening for a television appearance. It was a weekly cultural program, and very popular. I followed the pop star Robbie Williams, and, as the producer settled me into my chair, I ran my tongue over my stitches. It was like having a mouthful of spiders—spooky, but it gave me something to talk about on TV, and for that I was grateful.

I said d’accord to a waiter, and received a pig’s nose standing erect on a bed of tender greens. I said it to a woman in a department store and walked away drenched in cologne. Every day was an adventure.

When I got a kidney stone, I took the Métro to a hospital, and said, “D’accord,” to a cheerful red-headed nurse, who led me to a private room and hooked me up to a Demerol drip. That was undoubtedly the best that d’accord got me, and it was followed by the worst. After the stone had passed, I spoke to a doctor, who filled out an appointment card and told me to return the following Monday, when we would do whatever it was I’d just agreed to. “D’accord,” I said, and then I supersized it with “génial,” which means “great.”

On the day of my appointment, I returned to the hospital, where I signed the register and was led by a slightly less cheerful nurse to a large dressing room. “Strip to your underwear,” she told me, and I said, “D’accord.” As the woman turned to leave, she said something else, and, looking back, I really should have asked her to repeat it, to draw a picture, if that’s what it took, because once you take your pants off d’accord isn’t really O.K. anymore.

There were three doors in the dressing room, and after removing my clothes I put my ear against each one, trying to determine which was the safest for someone in my condition. The first was loud, with lots of ringing telephones, so that was out. The second didn’t sound much different, and so I chose the third, and entered a brightly painted waiting room furnished with plastic chairs and a glass-topped table stacked high with magazines. A potted plant stood in the corner, and beside it was a second door, which was open and led into a hallway.

I took a seat and had been there for a minute or so when a couple came in and filled two of the unoccupied chairs. The first thing I noticed was that they were fully dressed, and nicely, too—no sneakers or sweatsuits for them. The woman wore a nubby gray skirt that fell to her knees and matched the fabric of her husband’s sports coat. Their black hair, which was obviously dyed, formed another match, but looked better on her than it did on him—less vain, I supposed.

“Bonjour,” I said, and it occurred to me that possibly the nurse had mentioned something about a robe, perhaps the one that had been hanging in the dressing room. I wanted more than anything to go back and get it, but, if I did, the couple would see my mistake. They’d think I was stupid, so to prove them wrong I decided to remain where I was and pretend that everything was normal. La la la.

It’s funny the things that run through your mind when you’re sitting in your underpants in front of a pair of strangers. Suicide comes up, but, just as you embrace it as a viable option, you remember that you don’t have the proper tools: no belt to wrap around your neck, no pen to drive through your nose or ear and up into your brain. I thought briefly of swallowing my watch, but there was no guarantee I’d choke on it. It’s embarrassing, but, given the way I normally eat, it would probably go down fairly easily, strap and all. A clock might be a challenge, but a Timex the size of a fifty-cent piece, no problem.

The man with the dyed black hair pulled a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket, and as he unfolded them I recalled a summer evening in my parents’ back yard. This was thirty-five years ago, a dinner for my sister Gretchen’s tenth birthday. My father grilled steaks. My mother set the picnic table with insect-repelling candles, and just as we started to eat she caught me chewing a hunk of beef the size of a coin purse. Gorging always set her off, but on this occasion it bothered her more than usual.

“I hope you choke to death,” she said.

I was twelve years old, and paused, thinking, Did I hear her correctly?

“That’s right, piggy, suffocate.”

In that moment, I hoped that I would choke to death. The knot of beef would lodge itself in my throat, and for the rest of her life my mother would feel haunted and responsible. Every time she passed a steak house, or browsed the meat counter of a grocery store, she would think of me and reflect upon what she had said—the words “hope” and “death” in the same sentence. But, of course, I hadn’t choked. Instead, I had lived and grown to adulthood, so that I could sit in this waiting room dressed in nothing but my underpants. La la la.

It was around this time that two more people entered. The woman looked to be in her mid-fifties, and accompanied an elderly man who was, if anything, overdressed: a suit, a sweater, a scarf, and an overcoat, which he removed with great difficulty, every button a challenge. Give it to me, I thought. Over here. But he was deaf to my telepathy, and handed his coat to the woman, who folded it over the back of her chair. Our eyes met for a moment—hers widening as they moved from my face to my chest—and then she picked a magazine off the table and handed it to the elderly man, who I now took to be her father. She then selected a magazine of her own, and as she turned the pages I allowed myself to relax a little. She was just a woman reading a copy of Paris Match, and I was just the person sitting across from her. True, I had no clothes on, but maybe she wouldn’t dwell on that, maybe none of these people would. The old man, the couple with their matching hair: “How was the hospital?” their friends might ask, and they’d answer, “Fine,” or “Oh, you know, the same.”

“Did you see anything fucked up?”

“No, not that I can think of.”

It sometimes helps to remind myself that not everyone is like me. Not everyone writes things down in a notebook, and then transcribes them into a diary. Fewer still will take that diary, clean it up a bit, and read it in front of an audience: “March 14th. Paris. Went with Dad to the hospital, where we sat across from a man in his underpants. They were briefs, not boxers, a little on the gray side, the elastic slack from too many washings. I later said to Father, ‘Other people have to use those chairs, too, you know,’ and he agreed that it was unsanitary.

“Odd little guy, creepy. Hair on his shoulders. Big idiot smile plastered on his face, just sitting there, mumbling to himself.”

How conceited I am to think I might be remembered, especially in a busy hospital where human misery is a matter of course. If any of these people did keep a diary, their day’s entry would likely have to do with a diagnosis, some piece of news either inconvenient or life-altering: the liver’s not a match, the cancer has spread to the spinal column. Compared with that, a man in his underpants is no more remarkable than a dust-covered plant, or the magazine- subscription card lying on the floor beside the table. Then, too, good news or bad, these people would eventually leave the hospital and return to the streets, where any number of things might wipe me from their memory.

Perhaps on their way home they’ll see a dog with a wooden leg, which I saw myself one afternoon. It was a German shepherd, and his prosthesis looked as though it had been made from a billy club. The network of straps holding the leg in place was a real eyeopener, but stranger still was the noise it made against the floor of the subway car, a dull thud that managed to sound both plaintive and forceful at the same time. Then there was the dog’s owner, who looked at his pet and then at me, with an expression reading, “That’s O.K. I took care of it.”

Or maybe they’ll run into something comparatively small yet no less astonishing. I was walking to the bus stop one morning and came upon a well-dressed woman lying on the sidewalk in front of an office-supply store. A small crowd had formed, and just as I joined it a fire truck pulled up. In America, if someone dropped to the ground, you’d call an ambulance, but in France it’s the firemen who do most of the rescuing. There were four of them, and, after checking to see that the woman was O.K., one of them returned to the truck and opened the door. I thought he was looking for an aluminum blanket, the type they use for people in shock, but instead he pulled out a goblet. Anywhere else it would have been a cup, made of paper or plastic, but this was glass, and had a stem. I guess they carry it around in the front seat, next to the axes or whatever.

The fireman filled the goblet with bottled water, and then he handed it to the woman, who was sitting up now and running her hand over her hair, the way one might when waking from a nap. It was the lead story in my diary that night, but, no matter how hard I fiddled with it, I felt something was missing. Had I mentioned that it was autumn? Did the leaves on the sidewalk contribute to my sense of utter delight, or was it just the goblet, and the dignity it bespoke: “Yes, you may be on the ground; yes, this drink may be your last—but let’s do it right, shall we?”

Everyone has his own standards, but, in my opinion, a sight like that is at least fifty times better than what I was providing. A goblet will keep you going for years, while a man in his underpants is good for maybe two days, a week at the most. Unless, of course, you are the man in his underpants, in which case it will probably stay with you for the rest of your life—not on the tip of your mind, not handy like a phone number, but still within easy reach, like a mouthful of steak, or a dog with a wooden leg. How often you’ll think of the cold plastic chair, and of the nurse’s face as she passes the room and discovers you with your hands between your knees. Such surprise, such amusement as she proposes some new adventure, then stands there, waiting for your “d’accord.”

As always, merci beaucoup pour l'essai Rick

oversexed french nouns

As a native English speaker, accents and proper pronounciation aren't the hardest part of learning French and Spanish. The hardest part is remembering what gender is assigned to each noun. When you add the fact that there's no foolproof rule for what words are male or female, things can get frustrating. But they can also be really funny when the gender of the word is counterintuitive.

Bra is short for brassiere (a French word), but a bra is actually un soutien gorge (which roughly translates to "a sustainer of the neck.") It also has a masculine indefinite article, which makes no sense, because we all know that man breasts are no fun. Likewise, a woman's blouse is un chemisier (masculine), whereas a man's dress shirt is une chemise (feminine).

To be fair, Spanish has much of the same gender confusion with these words: un sostén (meaning "sustainer" for bra) and un camisa (a man's dress shirt). But at least the word for blouse, una blusa, usually matches the wearer's gender.

I remembered these things when I ran across this David Sedaris spoken essay on NPR's Web site. It was done in 2000, right after the publication of "Me Talk Pretty One Day." I couldn't help but laugh as I listened to him talk about his own struggle with using the proper gender, and the fact that a vagina is masculine and the word masculine is actually feminine.

'Have you seen my wallet? I can't find her anywhere.'
In the second part of a series on life in Paris, commentator David Sedaris struggles to master the gender of French nouns, and in the process, learns some interesting things about the French language.

This language lesson is brought to you by the often-misused adverb "presently" and the letters ç, é, and ñ.

david sedaris: worms, germs, and christmas

Check out his latest essay, in the New Yorker:

“What’s this about a worm?” Lisa asked. She was lying on the sofa with a blanket over her, still groggy from her nap.

“Joan here had a worm living inside her leg,” I said, and Maw Hamrick threw a sheet of wrapping paper into the fire, saying, “Oh, I wouldn’t call that living.”

“But it was inside of you?” Lisa said, and I could see her wheels turning: Have I ever used the toilet after this woman? Have I ever touched her coffee cup, or eaten off her plate? How soon can I get tested?

i heart david sedaris

Check out his latest essay, in the New Yorker:

Were the plane to lose altitude and the only way to stay aloft was to push one person out the emergency exit, I now felt certain that the flight attendant would select Becky rather than me. I pictured her clinging to the door frame, her hair blown so hard it was starting to fall out. “But my husband—” she’d cry. Then I would step forward saying, “Hey, I’ve been to Raleigh before. Take me instead.” Becky would see that I am not the asshole she mistook me for, and in that instant she would lose her grip, and be sucked into space.

Via Rick

david sedaris is the man

I was lucky enough to go see David Sedaris again Friday night. Simply put, he's the most wickedly funny man on the planet. After the reading, he signed two books for me:

• "Me Talk Pretty One Day," which I love because it includes several stories about his struggle to learn French and resonates with me on a scary deep level. He asked "Did you come alone tonight?" when I got to the signing table. When I responded "No, I brought fourteen friends," he wrote "To Happy, Thanks for making me rich."
• "501 French Verbs," in which he wrote "I hate this."

I love David. And I daresay that I would actually consider having a child tomorrow if he were the sperm donor.

toshi-koshi

In Japan, at the stroke of midnight, Buddhist temples nationwide ring in the New Year. The bells are rung 108 times, the number of Buddha's positive attributes. People eat toshi-koshi soba (literally "soba for crossing over the years").

Last year, I celebrated New Year's with Matt and Jessy. Jessy's mom is Japanese and they have a family tradition of saying 108 things that people were grateful for or that happened that year. We did the circle until the 108 things were said, and I vowed to continue the tradition.
1. My health.
2. Surviving my divorce.
3. Nurturing relationships.
4. Kind friends.
5. A warm home on this rainy night.
6. My amazing golden retriever Casey, who gives me unconditional love.
7. My father, and his way of always saying just the right thing.
8. Paris, and a life-changing month this summer.
9. Seeing Caen (the martyred city) and the American Cemetary in Normandy. Both showed me the true cost of war .
10. Gerard, the kind waiter in Caen, who wanted to fix me up with the guy at the table next to me.
11. Climbing the streets of Mt. St. Michel, and being grateful to not have waited until I was older to make that journey.
12. David Milroy, for talking me into taking the trip and for giving me the gift of the French language.
13. Marion de Koening, for teaching me about art and for helping me wrap my brain around its beauty.
14. Cass Davis, for talking me through the hardest decision of my life.
15. Diana Hussey, for inviting me to share in her big day .
16. Ophira Bergman, for quietly supporting my decisions and being so non-judgemental.
17. Diana and Ophira, for their courage to love. And almost making it down the aisle at San Francisco City Hall.
18. Being honored as Diana's matron of honor in their gorgeous commitment ceremony.
19. Tiana Fares, for great tunes to dance to at the ceremony.
20. Frances Hsieh, for walking me down the aisle at the ceremony.
21. Harrison, for a great makeover, live-in fashionista advice, and making me feel like I won the roommate lottery.
22. Eleanor Webber, for her fearlessness, late Sunday nights watching Alias, and creating crafty bitches.
23. Jennifer and Craig Sturak, for inviting me into their family at Thanksgiving. And Jennifer for so much free therapy.
24. Jen Beauchamp, for teaching me to take a compliment with grace and much free therapy.
25. Sydney Donahoe, for sharing her wisdom, for being gracious in the face of adversity, and much free therapy.
26. Rick VanderKnyff, for seeing my potential, allowing therapy from 23-25 at work, being incredibly flexible, and generally being the coolest authority figure ever.
27. John McCleary, for taking a chance on me.
28. Nolan Thomas, for reminding me to savor the finer things in life.
29. Reggie Toledo, for reminding me to laugh.
30. Georgia (and Grant) Gredvig, for sharing their home with me on New Year's Eve. And Georgia for being an amazing listener.
31. Holding Madelin Anne Gredvig on her first day in the world and seeing Maddy's non-stinky (it's true!) black poo.
32. Spending time with Harriet, Zoe, and Oli Subramanian on New Year's Eve at Georgia's.
33. Lynne Bush, for her insistence that I apply for the SDSU job, rushhour haiku, and the Livestrong bracelets.
34. Cindy Robinson, for helping me appreciate what I most definitely deserved, and for the Livestrong bracelets.
35. Colleen DeLory, for giving me the scoop.
36. Jack Beresford, for hiring me.
37. Suzanne Sterling, for mothering me and constantly shoring up my self esteem.
38. Coleen Geraghty, for reminding me that I might find love in a European city.
39. Sandra Millers Younger, for her resilience, her courage to rebuild, and her honest love of dogs.
40. Aaron Hoskins, for being the most genuinely nice guy I've ever met.
41. Denisse Roldan, for reminding me to stay focused on what's next in life.
42. Kevin Decker, for daring me to think about what's possible.
43. Jason Foster, for sharing his story of survivorship.
44. Steven Collins, for always surprising me.
45. Lyn Olsson, for sharing her 1000 cranes and the act of love behind them.
46. The fete des pompiers and that guy who danced with me. (I never did get his name.)
47. Laura Wentz, for an afternoon photographing the elevated walk and for helping me savor our apartment in the Marais.
48. Greg (Gregoire, G-Unit) Turk, for always being up for a new adventure and for introducing me to Nouvelle Vague.
49. Tatjiana Babic, for always making her own weather wherever she goes.
50. Becki Phillips and Kendall Rattner, for advice on the best falafel in Paris (Lenny Kravitz).
51. Trevor Huey, for surprising me after I thought I had him pegged.
52. Nathan Law, whose question helped me realize that there are scarier things than being alone for the rest of my life.
53. Kyle (Van Goghsie) Rollin, for his quiet fidelity to his girlfriend.
52. Tanner Rollin, 'cause he's fluent!
53. Kathy Wentz, for sharing her gift of song each day.
54. JulieAnn (Rennie) Sparks, for showing me what I can be like.
55. Lauren, who craves attention and deserves someone who will appreciate her.
56. Sean Donoghue, for his amazing Irish ballad in the middle of the Loire Valley.
57. Chic Jung, for his joie de vivre and wicked poetry.
58. Seeing The Magic Flute in the Bastille Opera House.
59. John-Bryan Davis, for the most beautiful Christmas letter I've ever read.
60. La Familia Orozco, for getting the singing started in the Loire.
61. Sunflowers as big as my head in the Loire.
62. Seeing what moved the Impressionists to paint.
63. The Louvre, the Orsay, the Marmottan.
64. Amboise and the visit to DaVinci's home and garden.
65. Susan Guerra, for phone calls everyday when I was at my worst. And laughter later.
66. Susan Arredondo, for her neverending kindness, love of dogs, and "it's Nolan's cocaine" carrot cake.
67. Renee Bivens and Dan (Black China), for fun shuttle rides and Jude-a-licious movies.
68. Treacy Lau and Dinia Green, for being role models with a sense of adventure.
69. Madame Claudine Yin, for improving my pronounciation immensely.
70. Michel, for reminding me that I'm a woman. And saying that my Spanish is so good that he thought I was a native from a Spanish-speaking country. (It's not.)
71. Rogelia Becerra, for introducing me to Cafe Europa and Nazar Hanna, for sharing his gift of music (Novamenco).
72. Jan Pretorius and Karen Purvis, for managing my money and my future.
73. John Hughes, for the gift of a livestrong bracelet. And for the best advice ever for phone interviewing.
74. Melissa Hagan Moore, for celebrating my first year being cancer-free.
75. Healy Vigderson, for a day at the Glen Ivy spa I won't soon forget.
76. Scott Araujo and Monika Lyssand, for the sweet way they share their love.
77. Tess Mann, for animated dinners and intelligent conversation.
78. Al Franken, for 16 hours of books on tape across Arizona.
79. Michael Moore, for Farenheit 9/11, a film that made Americans think .
80. Marta Prachar, for reminding me to take pictures everyday.
81. Lance Armstrong, for inspiring me to make the most of my survivorship.
82. Cherie Traylor, for her no-nonsense perspective and facilitating the best 90 minutes of my week.
83. Margaret Bergamin, for helping me see the future I'm working toward and Yvonne Gantry, for the story of her kiss.
84. Nanny.
85. PlanetDan, for laughs and intelligent commentary each day.
86. Karen Andrews, for good advice and the most unique French dictionary I've ever seen.
87. Diana Lai, for celebrating Bastille Day and her thirtieth birthday with me in Paris.
88. Betsy D'Ambrosia, for honoring her commitment to our country and serving in Kuwait.
89. The Husseys, for having the grace to come to Diana and Ophira's big day.
90. Geoff Graham, for being an incredibly competent Toastmasters Voyagers president.
91. The anonymous guy at the shuttle to Mt. San Michel depot, for holding my backpack for the day and not taking anything.
92. Dido, who sings what my heart feels.
93. David Sedaris, whose clever writing makes me laugh so hard I cry. And who inspires me to be a better writer.
94. Holly Cartwright, whose generosity knows no limits.
95. Maureen Hatheway, who se love of travel inspires me to see more.
96. JoAnna Proctor, for holding up the mirror and giving me an "aha" moment.
97. The San Diego Public Library, for books on tape, movies, and the occasional (!) book.
98. Netflix, for more good movies than I'll ever get through.
99. Amorino, for making the most amazing gelato I've ever had.
100. Laura Haislip, for thoughtful conversation and a fun night out.
101. Maresa Archer, for suggesting the legal insurance.
102. Jim Herrington, for the tender way he wiped the tears off my face.
103. Terry Hewins, for being my Toastmaster mentor.
104. Alias, the best hour on television each week.
105. The Hillcrest Farmer's Market, for organic apples and flowers that make my heart smile.
106. Rick Steves, for the best travel advice ever. And RATP, for getting me everywhere (and providing kick-ass souvenirs) this summer.
107. Robert Doisneau, for black and white images that inspire me to snatch my own three seconds from eternity.
108. Eric Snow, for teaching me so much about myself. And for helping me be less judgemental.