Tuesday, 01 June 2004 | Fill-in

Do you ever wonder if you're not very good at being what you are? What I mean is, does it ever occur to you that you might not really know what you're doing, when it comes to being a ____, and that all other ____s are in on a secret that you're not? (Fill in the blanks with: girl [woman?], adult, whatever.)

Alison recently asked, "What do you know a lot about that no one ever asks you about?" It took me a while to come up with my own answer, and once I settled on something, I sort of stopped thinking about it, at least in relation to myself. (I do occasionally ask other people that question, however.) It bothered me that I had trouble with my answer, and I wanted to ask someone else to help me figure it out, which of course is silly. Who would know better than I would?

I know the alphabet in sign language; in fifth grade, my friends and I used to spell out words across the classroom. I know the phonetic alphabet; in college, Jay and I left notes on each other's cars written in our disguised language. I know the population of several North American and European cities (thanks, in part, to my brother, who used to read [out loud] chunks of The World Almanac in the car on family vacations). How to give a cat a shot of insulin. What it's like to be a preacher's daughter. How to make coasters out of bathroom tiles. How to do flips on a trampoline. The lyrics to the song Troglodyte a cappella. How to hit a solid backhand in tennis. The various accepted billiard rules in England, the US, and Germany. How to diagram a sentence.

I feel like I'm missing something, something important. It's strange to reduce yourself to such traits, especially since, by definition, they're traits you're not known for. It's almost like I'm talking about someone else entirely.