I've seen the movie Rushmore about a hundred times. That film pretty much sums up who I am: nerdy, smart, funny, stylish, occasionally obsessive (but only over things that matter, like saving Latin), and I'll shoot you in the ear with a BB gun if you cross me. But, moving on...

My job is very much like kindergarten, only without the crying and the pee-smell. But occasionally with naps.

When I'm not tapping into my inner seven-year-old, I tear my apartment to pieces and put it back together, bake kick-ass cupcakes, swim, read piles of books, and escape to Montauk whenever possible.

PS: If we ever meet, I'll try like heck not to ask you what you do for a living. I was brought up to think it's rude and, even worse, boring to ask. It's not that I don't care (okay, I don't care that much), it's just that there are so many other fabulous things to learn about you before I need to know where you park your ass for 8 hours a day.

- spelling
- making you giggle
- ice skating
- smooching
- sleeping
- curing people of the hiccups

I get told I have a nice smile, so I hope you'll take it for a spin and make me laugh.

Books: the first page of Saul Bellow's Herzog; the first chapter of Rick Moody's Purple America; anything written by a woman wearing a corset and bonnet in a stone cottage in the 19th century; P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels; A.S. Byatt's twisted new novel The Children's Book; Anna Karenina, which turned out to be excellently trashy.

Movies: I travel so much that most of the films I see are on planes, and they all star Sandra Bullock. However, if I were trapped in my apartment with all of Wes Anderson's and Whit Stilman's movies, all of Woody Allen's movies up to and including Crimes and Misdemeanors, and my Jerry Lewis box set, I'd be set for some time.

Food: Rigatoni Pitti at Bar Pitti; chicken with garlic peanut sauce at Peter's Chung King in Toronto; anything my mom bakes; constant cups of tea; the Buffalo chicken wrap at the Ditch Witch van on the beach in Montauk.

I really don't like answering this question, because there are a lot of people who have to do without a lot of things, and they, well, they do without. And that sucks, but it's true. So, instead, here are six things that are huge in my life and which I hope keep entertaining me for a long time:
- frequent trips to London
- long-term, loving friends and a very warm yet odd family
- endless stacks of novels
- my giant furry cat
- Montauk
- MoMA

- how badly I want next summer to be here already.
- why the clock is usually at :11 when I look at it.
- why people on the subway with really loud iPods are always listening to super-crap music.
- why a rich yet unknown relative hasn't crept up yet and bestowed on me a beach house.
- how to improve my front crawl.
- why I pay for 250 TV channels and yet can't find anything to watch other than reality shows about procreating midget motorcycle-building cake-bakers looking to buy their first home while going through sex rehab with Dr. Drew.

... sometimes exhausted and looking for a night in kanoodling on the couch; sometimes hopped up on goofballs and looking for a cocktail and a really great dinner somewhere.

...that I've never seen The Empire Strikes Back.

I know. *I know*.

- you are a grown-up. That is, you don't have to be remotely serious; just don't be the tedious bong-hit guy who "uhm, you know, really, like, has, uh, *issues* with commitment." Because, buddy, that's so 15 years ago.

- you are really nice and you're not freaked out by people being really nice to you too. It's simple really.