4. The city where I grew up. You don’t need the specific suburb, no one can spell Irondequoit, not even spell-check. You give up? You don’t like my game? Rochester. It’s in New York, on Lake Ontario. No, I’ve never been to New York City. It’s a six-hour drive and everyone I knew in college who went there got their luggage stolen. Toronto was only a three-hour drive, and everyone there knew how to use their turn signal. Rochester was the home of Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch + Lomb back then. My grandparents were given the chance to buy shares in Xerox before it was incorporated, but they felt it was too risky. Yeah, I know, pity.
5. My nickname growing up. No, not Lezzie. Four letters. Not slut, either, though I heard that a lot, too. I mean the one my parents still call me. The one that makes me cringe. Lolly. Isn’t that sweet? It’s downright gack-worthy. Lolly is five letters? Okay, drop one of the Ls. That works, now, doesn’t it? It’s more important to be creative than accurate sometimes. At least that is what my father tells me.
6. One of my biggest childhood secrets. No, not the fact that my mother was a lesbian—that’s too obvious, and it has too many letters. Not my stepmother’s mental illness—they kept that secret even from me until I was older. I am looking for the answer to why my mother was in and out of the hospital and doctor’s offices for most of my childhood—why she wore tape over the left side of her glasses and had four corneal transplants. I wasn’t allowed to tell people my mother had herpes. They would think it was the sexual kind. It wasn’t; it was the oral kind that settled in her eye and eventually took her vision. There are drugs for that, you say? She was ten months too early. You don’t like the word herpes as an answer? Feels too gooey? Just write bad eye. That’s good enough. If you leave out the space in the middle it will fit.
7. How I rebelled against my parents in high school. What, you didn’t know me then so it isn’t a fair question? Well, take a guess. Nope, not the time I shaved my head. That was accidental. Besides, how do you really piss off a lesbian? No, I mean piss them off more than just dating unemployed loser musicians. Teenaged sex, well, yes, but think bigger. Worse than smoking pot and skipping school. (Yes, of course I did that.) Give up yet? Rush Limbaugh. That’s right. I became a “ditto-head” praising Jesus and hating “feminazis.” Even voted for George Bush in my first presidential election. Take that, Mom! I’ll rebel and screw up the country at the same time! I know, I know, you’re thinking, but she looks so sweet. You have no idea how diabolical I can be.
8. My father’s profession, in Latin. Okay, I can’t spell it either, so I’ll just copy and paste it for you. Pediatric Gastroenterologist—the digestive tracts of children. My father devoted his life to the study of burps, farts, shit, and vomit. He’s very good at removing quarters from children’s stomachs with a little tube called an endoscope. I’ve seen it done. I’ve also watched him stretch a child’s esophagus, which involved a lot of vomiting and crying. He swore the boy was given an amnesia-inducing agent so he wouldn’t remember any of it. I wish I had been given the drug as well, as I cannot forget it. Attachment disorder, he tells me, makes for a very good doctor. Dad could never be a vet; he could never hurt an animal, “even to save its life,” he told me. Children, on the other hand, were something different entirely.
9. The city where my father moved when I was four years old. Hint: it’s the biggest city in the only state in America that doesn’t have counties. What, you don’t remember high school geography? Anchorage, Alaska. Four thousand, one hundred and seventy-one miles away from my mother. Of course he wanted to be involved with his children—he just wanted them to experience the joy of commercial travel a few times a year. What kid doesn’t like a twelve-hour trip without parents? Our mother gave us snacks for the plane. There were flight attendants to help us make connecting flights. Anchorage had mountains. It was beautiful. Don’t tell me New York has the Adirondacks. My father doesn’t believe in them. No, he told me so when I was a kid—New York has big hills, not mountains. He’s a doctor—remember? An educated man. He wouldn’t get that wrong.
10. The number of times my father has been married. Here, I’ll help: Jackie, Sharon, Judy, Margaret, Jan, Theresa, Tricia. Seven. But it’s not entirely his fault, he tells me. Jackie didn’t really count. They had a marriage of convenience—he needed to move out of his mother’s house, and she wanted to get into medical school. Two through five were legitimate, but his second ex-wife, Sharon, died and sent him Theresa, wife number six, to be his “one true love and his second chance at being a father.” When that didn’t work according to plan, she sent him Tricia, wife number seven, to once again be his “soul mate and second-second chance at being a father.” It’s not Dad’s fault that Sharon’s ghost was a lousy matchmaker; he could have reduced the total by one if she had been more skilled. What, you’ll never be able to remember all those names in order? Fine. We’ll just call them #One, #Two, #Three, #Four, etc.
11. The number
