am 27 years old. Sometimes I forget that -- completely blank out -- and it takes me a minute, during which time I think, "Okay, I'm not 28 yet, and I've already been 26, so that means I'm ..."

I leave today -- Monday, April 1 -- for what I anticipate to be a four-month roadtrip, beginning in Austin and heading west and making essentially a loop around the country, all of which I will write about on this site as regularly as time and technology allow.

The best karaoke song I sing is "Total Eclipse of the Heart." It kills. I also do well with Britney Spears' "... Baby One More Time" and Destiny's Child's "Survivor." Also "Flashdance (What a Feelin')," but like anything, it all depends on your audience.

I suspect that I like sleep too much.

I am not entirely sure that I can find, say, Wisconsin on a map. This is troubling. When I taught high school World Geography, students would say, for instance, "Miss, where's Wisconsin?" And I would very stoically point to the large map on the wall and say, "You show me."

I also taught high school English.

Before I wrote movie reviews, I used to think, "Jesus, I could do better than that." And then I wrote movie reviews, and I used to think, "Wow, that's better than what I wrote." And then I stopped writing movie reviews, and now I think, "Jesus, I could do better than that." That's just the way it goes for me.

I am convinced that there is no finer food combination than peanut butter and chocolate.

Sometimes I forget where I'm driving, like suddenly the place I am headed is blank and just out of reach, like the name of someone I went to high school with. This usually lasts for less than a minute, but it is a sweaty and uncomfortable minute. And if you think this makes me a bit nervous about driving around the country for four months by myself, you would be right.

It will not, however, stop me.