I like dark chocolate.

I played basketball in high school. Mostly I warmed the bench. Once I “made” a basket for the opposing team, Hettinger. At the time, I wondered why lots of people were cheering. Late in his life, my father, in a conversation with me, ruefully admitted, “Yeah, my kids were never great athletes.” My mother played basketball, too, back in the day, in rural North Dakota.

I read books.

I like to hike.

I like the water. Mostly I like to drink it.

I’m not the best swimmer, but I can dog-paddle. I learned to swim when I lived in Okinawa. When we lived in El Paso, Texas, we liked to go to the pool. Later we went swimming in Deep Creek. I passed swimming class when I was an undergrad. It was a requirement to graduate.

I like the Oxford comma.

I love strawberries and blueberries.

I like squash and Brussels sprouts and almost every vegetable.

I hate hot dogs and sauerkraut. (Hell, I can barely spell sauerkraut.)

I like the Olympics. I really like figure and speed skating. I used to ice skate. I wasn’t bad at it at all. But never Olympic-level good. Just skating-on-a-frozen-N.D.-pond-or-river OK. I could go backward on my skates. No, I did not play hockey.

I like British TV shows. I really really, really, really like British TV and movies.

I used to say I like to cook, but not so much anymore. As my wise Mother would say, “Play dumb.”

I used to be able to play the piano and the flute.

I was a librarian.

I am an English major.

I once passed algebra I and II. Who cares?

There are too many “I”s in this essay.