* !Fedrinka by Jackie Roe, TW Social Director*
Evening, TWibe. Another “All About Me” Deuce Club tonight, spotlighting a longtime TW poster (and stalwart DC supporter!). You guys seemed to enjoy the guessing game last week—even if it stumped exactly none of you—so we’ll keep it going. In addition to wagering your guesses, don't forget to also share your reactions or ask any follow-up questions for our mystery TWiber, who will be around later tonight.
(If you missed our first two TWibe profiles, you can find them here and here.)
Introducing the “real” _!
Birthday: December 23, 1975
Hair color: Brown
Eye color: Hazel
Siblings: One (older brother - 2.5 years)
Last film you saw: The Desert of Forbidden Art (a spellbinding art documentary)
Do you have a significant other?: No
Favorite musician: Karen Carpenter
Favorite film: The Natural (LA Confidential a close second)
Favorite TV show: Mad Men
What you like to do on the weekend: Watch sports (that matter; not regular-season NBA, NHL or MLB, or non-major golf)
Favorite sport: The pure sport, sans politics: baseball. The cultural sport (even with the politics): college football. The sport I share more intimately with a community: tennis! :)
Most memorable experience: Having to deal with a roommate-turned-squatter who played hardball politics with the local police and forced me to take drastic measures in order to save myself and the other roommates in a house that I managed (in an unpaid, non-professional capacity). I was later told that this was basically the movie Pacific Heights, which I later watched. Yes, it basically was.
Worst fear: Heights—more specifically, bridges in the middle of a city that have three-foot-high barriers instead of sensible seven-foot-high barriers (insane that barriers are so low in public places).
Best feeling in the world: Enabling another person to gain a foothold in life when s/he previously had none.
Worst feeling in the world: Watching wars and the military-industrial complex advance unabated.
Death: Is spiritual far more than physical.
Do you believe in heaven and hell?: Pope John Paul II said that heaven and hell are states of mind. Like death, heaven and hell are spiritual more than physical.
Who is the closest person to you? My mom.
Bad habits: Withdrawing from contentious situations/interactions. [JR: Yes! Makes life unnecessarily difficult . . . though comes in handy when Fedal wars break out.]
Most prized possession: The people who raised me and mentored me (and the memory of them).
Most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done: As a kid, flubbing the last note of a slow-moving romantic piano piece at a recital (“Claire de Lune”). As an adult, leaving the side gate open at my mom’s house and allowing the dog to wander onto the streets of Phoenix. The dog miraculously didn’t get run over.
Hard liquor or beer? Neither. (No, I’m not Mormon.)
Love or lust?: Why is this even a question unless Don Draper is the one being questioned?
Favorite love song: “Our Winter Love” by Bill Pursell
Favorite break-up song: “Solitaire” by The Carpenters
What are you thinking at this very moment?: The Vancouver Canucks just scored a big, big goal.
Have you ever cried in public?: Four words: Tenebrae with choral chanting.
Something you want to do before you die: Effect substantial positive change in one realm of civic life in America.
Favorite person to talk to: A friend named Meghan (worked on student newspaper together in college).
What do you hate: War and its pervasiveness.
What makes you angry: Democrats not doing much of anything to stop unjust wars from happening or continuing.
Who would you want to meet?: Too many people, but the short list of five is as follows . . . Vin Scully, Chris Hedges, Bill Moyers, Chris Fowler, and any journalism- or poverty-oriented philanthropist you might know.
Who do you miss?: My maternal grandfather, my father, and a high school friend now working as a doctor in Florida.
The last person to make you smile: Juan Jose, who actually (gasp!) was able to take delight from Federer’s smile after Melzer won a drop-shot-aided net rally. (Shows he still has a pinch of feeling for the one he calls “Jacket.” Sniff. :))
Personal quote: I don’t have quotes so much as a cluster of strongly-held views. One of them is, “Don’t focus on the perhaps inelegant manner in which someone speaks truth. Focus on the truth being spoken.”
What is the meaning of life?: To help other people; most urgently, the people who—through no choice of their own—didn’t gain the advantages or opportunities I had, and which other people have.
If you could change one thing that happened in your life, what would it be?: Well, there are no regrets in life, not really. Self-acceptance is such a core part of being human and, more specifically, being able to make peace with life’s many crushing disappointments. [JR: nods I say it all the time—there’s no such thing as regret, only things we do and things we don’t do . . . ]
Favorite TW moment: Sharing Federer’s Olympic doubles gold medal with a small core of Fed fans who did not give up hope after the singles loss to Blake in the quarters. The intimacy of that bond showed how TW can create poignant beauty and a sense of shared struggle in an anonymous online world.
Start guessing, TWibe!
If you’d like to join the ranks of tan, jewell, and today’s mystery TWiber and take the “All About Me” plunge, e-mail me here. (Or if you’d like to nominate a TWiber to take the quiz, feel free to do that, too. I can’t promise it’ll come to fruition, but I’ll definitely reach out to him/her and pass along the quiz.)
Have a nice weekend, everyone, and a very happy Easter to all those who celebrate it!