P

This one is an audience participation meme, so be warned. If you comment on this entry, I'll give you a letter so you can come up with 10 words starting with that letter plus explanations of what each word means to you.

Haddayr gave me the letter P.

Pachyderms. Didja know that, according to Pliny the Elder, an elephant's only natural enemy was the dragon?

Palimpsest. We begin as tabula rasa; after that, it's all one thing on top of another.

Pan. Creepy sex-crazed goat man. I don't like to think about him much because he freaks me out. Dionysus is a bit more palatable, as frenzied fertility/madness figures go.

Prince. Creepy sex-crazed funky man. I like to listen to him because he makes me dance. (Tell me you can listen to "Housequake" and not move.) Back in high school everyone thought Michael Jackson was normal and Prince was weird. Ha!

Pynchon. I don't remember even a third of Mason & Dixon, but I loved it. Ditto The Crying of Lot 49, of which I remember only the final scene and the protagonist's name. (Of Vineland, which is best forgotten, I remember a little too much.) There's something to be said for books that keep you in the moment, even if that moment is 784 pages long.

Pasta. In college I used to make heaping pots of spaghetti, pile it on a plate, smother it with Ragu and nuke the whole bunch. I'm still too lazy to make my own sauce, although I like to heat it up with sauteed mushrooms and garlic and such. I think, honestly, that pesto has replaced marinara in my affections. Alfredo sauce has never done it for me. There's something just Not Right about it.

Puppies. Didja know you can RSS Flickr tags? Like this one? Hence you can find pictures like this one and this one and this one. (WARNING: the preceding links contain extreme levels of adorableness. Click with caution.)

Pineapple. I have been known to go on pineapple binges, buying whole ones, slicing them up into cubes, and eating them at one sitting. After a while the inside of my mouth will start to hurt, but I really can't stop. I also like the pineapple Jarritos. Tasty.

Punk. I came to punk rather late; although I was a Ramones fan long before that and was into some bands who were punk contemporaries, like the Talking Heads, for some reason I didn't really connect with it as a genre until I was nearly 30. Hey, in my defense, I was seven and far more into Star Wars toys during the heyday of punk. And I've always been a bit behind the curve.

Pony Princess!!! Meghan made me write this one. The end.