I am not presenting a paper in South Africa this year. I am not drafting policy for accepting Haitian refugees into the country. I'm not splicing DNA inbetween teaching med school.

Hi. I'm ita, and I am less exciting than the rest of my immediate family.

I am currently the most interesting person in my family. Though my father and my sister both had vastly more entertaining teens and twenties than I did.

The best dancer, though, I'll bet.

Hmm... yes. Although only because there's really not much competition.

On the other hand, my family is very interesting, so that's some consolation.

Hi. I'm ita, and I am less exciting than the rest of my immediate family.

Yeah, but none of them can kick the ass you do.

I am the boringest member of my family.

I'm the family loser.

I used to be, now I'm the unencumbered one who lives downtown and goes out and travels. Enh. It ain't all it's cracked up to be. I have fun but domestic bliss has upside too.

Hmmm. My whole family is pretty boring, or at least my side. DH is the one with the colorful relatives.

I'm pretty boring. My SiL is deciding whether she's gonna spend a year in Liberia, I think the rest of us are eating her dust

I don't do anything, either. My family does not believe I am writing a book though. They make "Whatever." faces.

I frankly have no idea who the most interesting people in my family are because, if I am any indication, we aren't the most sharing of people. I know I'm not.

My sister is getting married Sunday and frankly verging on Bridezilla-ness. She is certainly the loudest and most attention-seeking one in the family right now. I don't know if I think that is interesting or not. Actually I am pretty sure I don't, but she is interesting in other ways most of the time.

I, on the other hand, am still sick. But hey, better me than them, I suppose.

I'm the family loser.

As always, this depends on the perspective that you are taking.

Each week during the summer, the newspaper in my Minnesota hometown does a profile on the garden of a local family. Typically pictures of tomatoes and day lilies, and human interest stories about the gardeners. A couple of years ago they did one on my parents' garden. Pictures, gardening tips, my folks' history in the town. Then their kids. A paragraph on my sister and her husband who live in a nearby suburb, their jobs and their love of gardening. My brother who lives in a nearby town, his job, his hobbies. My other brother and his wife, who live in the hometown, their interests, their Church, speculation on the newspaper visiting their garden in twenty years.

After a eulogistic paragraph on each of the good and decent offspring who stayed in the area, there was a final cryptic sentence: "The (Lastnames) also have one other son, who no longer lives in Minnesota."

I felt like a black sheep who had brought eternal shame on the family.