Well, I couldn’t access the F5 page to see the question, but according to Dan my question came up next: What are your five favorite words (in any language), and why do you like them so much? Me, there are tons of words I’m crazy about in a few different languages. Well, I’m not going to do this very carefully, so my faux-dictionary style may be riddled with inconsistencies, but anyway, here you go: Machin-truc (ma

This week, Ritu asked: What are the five nicest things you have ever done for someone else? I’m the kind of person whose efforts at being nice always end up in micro-failures. I promise to send someone something, and then can’t find it; or pack it up and neglect to mail it for months on end; or find it, pack it, mail it, and it turns out I posed the wrong box, or the right box to the right place. I offer to carry an old lady’s groceries and then the bag tears and her eggs end up smashed all …

This week, Laura asked: Here’s a question you may interpret however you wish: name five most unpleasant awakenings you’ve experienced! These, unfortunately, have been many and varied. I think the five worst were these: Worst of all, was after a horrible, awful, dreadful weekend-long fever. I had nightmarish dreams of one of the girls who was perhaps expressing too much obnoxious interest in me, who gutted me and feasted on my innards. I dreamed of Italian condottieri attacking me in my home, subtitled in my mind in English. I dreamed of Marxist and Capitalist mice levitating and arguing in my …

This week’s Friday Five question is mine: What are five things you’ll never eat or drink again, if you can help it? I do not believe I am very picky when it comes to food. I was, when younger, but when I moved to Korea, I suddenly was confronted with the fact that I had either to adapt to a completely unfamiliar diet, or eat only the worst of Western foods—for, in Korea as I am sure of many other places, the best of Western food has made no inroads, while the crappiest, most fatty, worthless junk food of the …

A little behind on these things, I have decided to do two in one sitting, which means terser answers than usual. Last week’s question, from Rob, was this: Five instances of you opening your mouth as wide as humanly possible and inserting your foot. No false modesty please. This shouldn’t be hard. I’m more careful these days, but in the past I committed a stunning number of gaffes: Just the other day, I was talking to my first lesbians in a long time, and made some comment about couples just starting to hold hands in Korea recently. One of them …