1) What influence does your brother Brian have on you?

Oh my, that's a tough one.

OK, well, for the record, my brother's name is Brian--which Ryan knows as he and his brother David have known my brother and I since we were babies. Ryan's parents and my parents are best friends, and Ryan, Dave, my brother, and I grew up together, which will explain Ryan's choice of questions here.

But anyway, let me think about this. What influence does my brother have?

You know, I don't think he has any influence per se. Brian and I were--and in many ways still are--different people. Growing up, he was the athletic one, playing soccer and baseball. I stayed in my room and hated the outdoors. He collected baseball cards, I read comics. He was the obligatory problem child, I was the obligatory good son.

Needless to say, as we entered our teenage years, this combination of traits let to a very tumultuous and, for me, torturous adolescence. I really did hate the guy for the majority of my teenage life, and wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.

(This, by the way, led to a very interest occurrence in college: because Brian and I were distant, I very rarely mentioned him, and so the majority of my friends didn't know I had a brother until they visited my house and saw the pictures. And I lost count of the times I'd mention him and my friends would go: "Wait, you have a brother?")

But I have to say him moving halfway across the country to Minnesota was the best thing to happen to us; having him elsewhere physically helped me distance myself emotionally from all the problems I had with him growing up. Brian and I get along fine now. I do envy how, at his core, he's actually a supremely mellow guy. I get riled up over just about anything--readers of this site may have noticed--but Brian takes just about anything in style. And he's got confidence in spades. All things considered, at this point, I'd say my brother is really one cool guy.

2) Shara Litowitz or Liz Loennecker?

HA!

OK, some exposition for those who did not go to Manalapan High School between the years 1989 and 1993:

Shara Litowitz and Elizabeth Loennecker were two women who were in the same graduating class as Ryan and I. They were two incredibly attractive women, and the focus of many a daydream. (And I believe the same can be said for Ryan.) They were, in this respect, your stereotypical High School Goddesses: the girls you saw in school that your adolescent hormones worshipped from afar, but whose private temples were forever closed to your piety.

(Not that I'm waxing poetic in the face of pointless rose-tinted nostalgia or anything.)

Now Liz was this six-foot (or seemed to be that tall) Irish lass who made me drop my jaw almost any time she came by. Naturally, Liz and I didn't speak much--maybe a handful of times, though we did share the same English class our Junior year. This pleased me. Especially when she wore this blue-and-white checkered mini-skirt. Ah, high school….

Then there was Shara, who was a sweetheart. Again, I only spoke to her a few times, but, at least in high school, she was one of those girls that was genuinely nice; you know, part of the "in" crowd without any of the pretentious snobbery the majority of the "in" crowd had. And, of course, she was gorgeous; beautiful long, blonde hair and fabulous smile.

Now, though I find such shameful adolescent fantasizing and objectifying of woman based solely on physical attributes to be beneath the mature adult that I am today, for the sake of my friendship to Ryan, and in fairness to the terms of The Five Questions, I shall "choose" which girl I would have preferred to have gotten to know better--on purely intellectual and emotional levels, of course.

It would be Shara, and for a very specific reason. During my Freshman year of high school I was one of the worst times of my life. My self esteem was so low the only reason I didn't kill myself was because I thought I was too much the coward to go through with it. I was this miserable, shell of a person. And to make matters worse, I had to take square dancing in gym class. On top of that indignity, I had to be grouped in with a bunch of kids were all belonged to the "in" crowed. Needless to say they weren't very kind, and it made dancing with the girls all the more unbearable.

Except that one of the girls was Shara. And during the one time where we were partnered up, I was with someone who didn't look down at me. If I made a mistake while dancing, she just smiled and told me not to worry about it. She was completely sweet and friendly, and was so at a time when I didn't think any "girl like her" would ever treat me that way. It was a simple token of kindness and it meant the world to me.

So there you go. Shara wins the kewpie doll.

3) Dog-Dog or Maya?

Oh, you are such a dead man, Pearlman. You want me to compare a girl I dated in high school with my favorite stuffed animal from when I was a kid? You are just sick, and will very much pay for this when I see you next....

So. Maya. I met her my Junior year, in the acting class elective I was taking. We "dated" for about two months or so between February and April of 1992. Maya was a sweetheart, a very nice girl. She was in the school marching band, if I remember correctly, and the girl's track team. She could dance up a storm when she actually cut loose. And she was not ready for any kind of serious romantic relationship.

I don't know if it was me or her or, most likely, a little of both, but while we were "dating" the truth is our relationship wasn't much more than friends with some hand-holding and cuddling. After two months we wound up getting into our first and only fight. When the dust had settled it became clear neither of us were comfortable where we were, so we went our separate ways and parted on good terms.

It's kind of funny, actually. Looking back now I can see, even then, the mistakes I made, or the way I handled things with her, that would be repeated, in varying ways, in future relationships. Kinda scary seeing the things I did then still happen ten years later.

But I'm sorry, Ryan, I see no point in choosing between a childhood security blanket and a naïve high school romance. There's no ground for comparison, other than that both were in my life for a time, I gained from them what I could, have pleasant memories of both, and am more than content to let them slip peacefully into dim-lit memory.

4. Why did you eat my "whoopie pie" (devil dog) when we were younger when it wasn't yours?

For god's sake man!! Is all you want to do is torture me by bringing up all these embarrassing childhood stories!?!? I mean, how old were we when this happened? We couldn't have been more than twelve, probably younger!

Jesus, I barely even remember this one! All I remember is you, me, and our brothers were hanging out at your house. Your mom had left some snacks, and I ate one that was supposed to be for you. I know I didn't do it maliciously; most likely I thought it was open season on the snacks and didn't realize you had been pre-assigned one. But I do remember you getting so pissed about it that you tried to beat me up over it. I think you actually did. Over a fucking whoopee-pie, dude! And people say I over-react....

But, if after fifteen some-odd years, this little event still causes you such emotional trauma that you demand some sort of closure, let me state here and now, in front of all the untold billions of people who read my site on a daily basis, that I am most sincerely sorry for eating your whoopee-pie. I was a horribly selfish child to have done such a callous thing to such a dear friend, and I hope someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me for betraying our friendship in such a manner.

But, dude, it is just so damn delicious……

5. Which was a more positive memory...Our Cloud City or our plays that we put on in front of our parents that your brother sabotaged?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

OK, more explanations so people have a clue what we're talking about:

Ryan, his brother David, and I were best friends in the first ten years of our lives, and especially so when we were in Kindergarten and First Grade which, as anyone my age knows, is right when the original Star Wars trilogy was at it's height in popularity. As kids, we loved playing with all the toys and spaceships and what-not.

Now, I was fortunate enough to have parents that encouraged imagination, and as my mother herself is a school teacher, I had plenty of building blocks and the like to play with. So Ryan, Dave, and I often combined the blocks with the action figures, creating sprawling play-sets in the Play Room of my parent's house. Our masterpiece was our version of Bespin's Cloud City, from The Empire Strikes Back. I know photos of this thing exist at my parents house, and if I had the time I'd scan in some images to show you. For a bunch of six year olds, it was magnificent. We had towers and courtyards and all sorts of neat little additions that made perfect sense to us, even though it looked nothing like the sets from the movie. But as far as we were concerned it was perfect.

It was wrecked, eventually. I forget how, I think my brother may have trashed it, or someone else did, or maybe we eventually got rid of it ourselves. But it was our crowning glory out of all the years we played together.

Then there were The Plays. I forget how this started, no idea whose idea it was--maybe one of us, maybe one of our parents, but the three of us--Ryan, Dave, and I--wrote plays to perform. We made a bunch of them, maybe a dozen or so, though the only one I remember specifically was a rip-off of the movie The Goonies where the pirate was named One-Legged Billy so as not to be confused in any way with the movie's pirate, One-Eyed Willy. I know it was a very collaborative effort, with either Ryan or Dave writing out the scripts that we literally made up as we went along, throwing out dialogue and just letting the stories unfold however we felt.

I honestly don't remember Brian wrecking many of them. I know as we got older he would interfere--by the time we hit twelve or so--Brian was just being the obligatory evil older brother. But I have no memory of him really ruining anything. Who knows, maybe I just blocked it out.

Oh! And there was another one I just remembered: We were thirteen or something, and we wrote this mystery. I had this giant, three-foot-tall stuffed Gorilla, and we made him the murder victim. The gorilla was named Igor, so in typical kid logic we named our victim Igor Stravinsky, and then we all went about solving the murder; I'm pretty sure we involved our parents, questioning them about the murder or something. That one was definitely one of our best. Don't remember who killed poor Igor, though.

But, getting back to point, I think (now that I have yet again waxed pointless nostalgia) that I'd say I enjoyed the plays more. The creating we did when playing with toys was grand, but considering how I used to really enjoy writing, I think the plays are what I liked most; creating the characters and stories, figuring out what was going to happen. You know, when you play with toys, no matter what, you are still limited by the toy itself. But when you create a story from scratch--or ripping off movies we liked--we still had carte blanche to do whatever we wanted. So, with apologies to George Lucas, I'd take creating my own fantasies over playing in his.