Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

The Blofeld-to-my-James-Bond engaged in some introspection the other day. He ranks himself on ten categories:

1. Intelligence.
2. Sense of humor.
3. Passion.
4. Consideration.
5. Honesty.
6. Flexibility.
7. Serenity.
8. Balance.
9. Ambition.
10. Attentiveness.

So, everyone's probably wondering: how do I stack myself up?

1. Intelligence. Hmmm....I guess I'd give myself a 7 here. I think I'm smarter than the average person, but my approach is more "know a little bit about a lot of stuff" as opposed to knowing any one thing particularly deeply. I guess.

2. Sense of humor. I'm not sure how I'd rank myself here. Sometimes I think I'm pretty funny, but other times I wonder if my sense of humor isn't too obscure or abstract. I'll call it a 7, I suppose.

3. Passion. Well, do I rank how I show my passions, or how I feel them? This I ask because I tend to put up a look of imperturbability (is that a word? nah, don't ask), when on the inside I'm all a-flutter. I'm with Carlin here: "I don't have pet peeves, I have major fucking psychotic hatreds." But I don't get on stage and share them, much. Call it a 6.

4. Consideration. Another 7. I think I'm mostly considerate, but occasionally I can be a clod.

5. Honesty. Zero. I'm actually a Republican. (Just kidding. Another 7 -- I think I'm mostly honest, but I'm willing to "color the facts" a bit if I see the need, or a downside to blunt honesty. I think it comes from years in management and sales, two fields where lying is too often the tool of choice.)

6. Flexibility. Again, I'm not sure what's being measured here, but I'll give myself a 10 for going with the flow in two moves in six months.

7. Serenity. In some ways, I'm pretty serene. In other ways, I'm off the walls. So....another 7.

8. Balance. In the past, I'd give myself low marks here -- 4 or 5, at best, because I've generally been one to rank family and my writing way ahead of things like work and getting the oil changed. But I think this may go up as I take measures to make writing into my work. The problem with balance is that you first have to find the things you want to balance in the first place. We're constantly told to seek balance, but we tend to not consider the likelihood that we actively detest at least one or two of the things we're balancing. So I'll split the difference and take another 7.

9. Ambition. In my previous jobs, I'd probably get ranked pretty low, because I was never one to obsess over "moving up the ladder". This, of course, is because I saw the people who had moved up the ladder and generally found them to be insufferable cretins. But now that I'm doing what I want to do (or at least starting to), my ambition's going up. Yep -- another 7!

10. Attentiveness. Gotta be honest here: 4, at best. My attention span is lousy-lousy-lousy; "what's next?" is the phrase most often on my lips. Sometimes I can be almost Homeric -- and not the Greek poet, but the Simpsons patriarch: "And now, we play the waiting game! (beat) Awww, the waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos." I can focus when I really feel the need to do so, but the things on which I decide to focus tend to not be the things most other folks would focus on.

Adding it up, I get a 68, so at first glance I'm not that impressive a specimen. But I also get 30 bonus points for liking cats, which makes me just irresistable.

Yeah....