Stolen Meme

I borrowed the stolen meme from Linda.

I intend to answer at least one thing in each category in some detail - my twist on the meme.

LAYER 1: Tell us your...
* Name: Steven Joseph Emery (Steve)
* Birthday (month, day): April whatever (that's how I celebrate it these days - though it's really in another month, and I really celebrated it in May this year).
* Birthplace: the Hudson Valley of New York
* Current location: the Triangle area of North Carolina (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill - I've lived in all three of those towns).
* Eye color: Brown (from Sicily - no other brown eyes in my immediate background but from the Sicilian grandmother and my mother)
* Hair color: gray and silver - used to be dark brown, almost black
* Height: 6 foot
* Righty or lefty: Righty
* Zodiac sign: Sagittarius

LAYER 2: What's...
* Your heritage: Hungarian on two sides (3/8), Sicilian (1/4), Austrian (1/8), German (1/8), English (1/8)
* The shoes you wore today: ugly clog-like loafers (comfort, not looks) and athletic sneakers (for support)
* Your weakness: Food - can't seem to go long at all without it, and love to eat nearly everything.
* Your fears: That I will fail or disappoint people who trust me. That people will yell at me (hate that).
* Your perfect pizza: this is a hard one... I like white pizzas, pesto pizzas, deep dish pizzas... I love traditional Itialian pizza (American) toppings, but also all sorts of odd things, including ostriche and rattlesnake sausage (I've always thought that a fun image). I'd have to say, though, that the best I ever had was a very deep dish pizza in Chicago, smothered in mushrooms, basil, italian sausage, and very fresh roma tomatos. It was two inches thick, like a crisp, chewy quiche, almost. Man, it was good!
* Goals you’d like to achieve: I'm actually doing what I want. Huh. I'm not sure I realized that until just now.
* Your first waking thoughts: Almost always something about work - the project I'm working on
* Your best physical feature: my eyes - or my voice
* Your most missed memory: being able to fly - I could once, I know I could. I distinctly remember it. It comes back sometimes in dreams. I am going to fly up to the last lit spot in the clouds on a gorgeous autumn sunset someday, and land there and look West at all the glory streaming past me.

LAYER 3: Do you...
* Smoke: never a puff
* Cuss: Only when really angry or needing to make a point. I enjoy it when I'm alone and working on something mechanical, when it comes out in long streams that are traditional in one branch of my family. I inherited that gene.
* Sing: Yes - in the church choir for a while - I have a nice baritone/bass voice. I am known, though, as a whistler - I do it to raise my spirits, when I walk, or when I'm overflowing with energy or a tune in my head. I sometimes like to improvise blues or baroque when I whistle.
* Do you think you’ve been in love: Oh yes - still am. I am living a great romance. I am astonishingly lucky - and we also work hard at it.
* Did you go to college: yes but I quit and went back later. My BA degree is in Philosophy, with enough additional credits for majors in Studio Art, Art History, and Classics. Not one course in computers or business - but that's where I make my living. I use logic every day - though the only time I used the heavier stuff was when I altered a program to do the supposedly impossible by applying DeMorgan's law to convert "or"s (the impossible in that case) to "and"s. It was not a big deal, but it was fun.
* Liked high school: My senior year (new school - where I met Dearest) was good. The rest was an emotional mess - mostly cause for long angry walks in the woods with the dog after school.
* Want to get/stay married: Very happily married
* Believe in yourself: lots, except when I don't. I'm an INFP - full of self doubts.
* Think you’re attractive: Yes
* Think you’re a health freak: No
* Get along with your parent(s): Yes
* Like thunderstorms: Love them! I sit in the open garage door and watch them blow in from the West.
* Play an instrument: None - I can't make my hands work that way (fingers independent) - I'm lucky I could learn to type. My hands like to work with all the fingers together. And I do not have a reliable sense of rhythm.

LAYER 4: In the past month have you…
* Drank alcohol: yes - Most recently a tequila shot, last night, to make my brain STOP after work. My mind had been doing the mental equivalent of hyperventilating, or of an engine dieseling after the ignition is turned off. But I only drink two or three times a month, and never more than two or three drinks - usually beer (2 or 3) or wine (seldom more than two glasses).
* Smoked: Never
* Done a drug: Never - scared to death to play like that with my brain. I like my brain the way it is.
* Made out: Yup - always happy to do that with just one person I know
* Gone on a date: No - we are probably in the busiest time of our parenting years, and savoring it.
* Gone to the mall: no - I go five or six times a year - sometimes just to "people watch."
* Eaten an entire box of Oreos: I'm not an Oreo fan. They're OK...
* Eaten sushi: Three times - love it
* Been on stage: No
* Been dumped: No
* Gone skating: No
* Gone skinny dipping: No (only twice my whole life, actually - the thought of getting caught ruins any pleasure for me)
* Stolen Anything: No

LAYER 5: Have you ever…
* Played a game that required removal of clothing: No - sadly no opportunity when I might have found that fun...
* Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: No - but I have had several episodes of bed spins from dehydration the day after a night of too much beer or wine (college). But not trashed or out of control.
* Been caught “doing something”: Not really...
* Been called a tease: No - I've been teased...
* Gotten beaten up: Only as a kid and not badly
* Shoplifted: I can't recall, but it's the kind of thing I might have tried once or twice as a kid and then forgotten. I know I would have felt guilty about the object forever afterward, and I would have needed to get rid of it eventually. I have an overbearing conscience.

LAYER 6:
* Age you did get/hope to be married: Barely 20 - It feels crazy to me now - I'm so glad we did it.
* Numbers and names of children (either you have or want): Oldest 21, Daughter 17, Youngest 10 - all planned (Youngest was carefully planned when we realized we would be done raising kids far too soon).
* Describe your dream mate: I already have her. Check out her blog...
* How do you want to die: I don't. Unless when I'm depressed, when I want to do it with the flip of a light switch and have it be done just like a light going out.
* What did you want to be when you grow up: a scientist, a philosopher, an artist, a lover. I'm really quite close to all that, in some altered ways.
* What country would you most like to visit: Italy

LAYER 7: Now tell...
* Name a drug you’ve taken illegally: There isn't one - see note about my brain, above.
* Name a person you could trust with my life: My wife or either of my two oldest children. I think Youngest will be in that list when he's older.
* Name a favorite CD that you own: Impossible to choose, and it changes... I do have some CDs that I think are never going to wear out for me... Synchronicity by the Police, Vivaldi's concerti, Say I Am You by The Weepies, This is Where You Belong by The Summer Obsession, Come on, Come on by Mary Chapin Carpenter. Other artists are also favorites, but their CDs aren't quite so perfect (love maybe half of each).
* Number of piercings: none
* Number of tattoos: none
* Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper: 18? 20?
* Name a past experience that you regret: Telling a very innocent and devoted friend (who may, in retrospect, have been attracted to me beyond just being a friend, but I'm not wired that way) to get lost. I doubt I could have made that friendship work, but I could have been far gentler. I was a teenager, and not patient or experienced with such things.

Feel free to pick this up and do it yourself, as well.