For a raging introvert, I am remarkably likely to accept a dare. One of the arenas in which I will rise to the occasion is for cultural exchanges. I’ll be the first to join the friendship dance at an Alaska Native potlatch; and be right up front to put on the Korean ceremonial dress or try my hand at a Japanese harp. This last was in Ketchikan, which has a “sister city” program with a community in Japan, when a group of musicians had come to share their traditional music with us. Somewhere there are some pictures of me carefully plucking the harp-strings with the five little finger-picks, while the lady in traditional Japanese dress turns to the small audience and says, “Praise? Praise?”

I have also been known to engage in a bit of light mischief. While I rarely come up with suggestions for stuff to do, I will often join in with a delicious tremor of being bad (in strictly relative terms, of course). My cousin Mary, who was always a natural leader, has often suggested fun things to do. One time as kids we all went skinny dipping in the pond down the hill from her house. Another time, we were camping out in her yard, and as soon as the lights went out in the house, we took off through the woods and went commando-ing around, hiding in ditches and debating whether to try and scare a tent full of boys who were camping nearby. When we began to see vehicles driving by very slowly, sweeping their headlights across the fields, we shrieked with delight and threw ourselves in the nearest ditch, pretending that they were looking for us. Turns out they were looking for us, and we were in huge trouble on account of Mary’s strait-laced older sister having discovered our absence and spilled the beans. Then there was that time we commandeered her family’s two riding lawnmowers for a little bit of light joyriding. (Mary swears that she does not remember this last one.) And one time when we were quite well into adulthood, we snuck across the road from her other sister’s house, under cover of night, and draped costume jewelry and floppy hats on the pink flamingos in the neighbor’s yard.

So, while I don’t sit around dreaming up bold bits of foolishness, I’m all in if somebody else comes up with a good idea. Thus, I arrive at the topic of T-shirts. I know that when people say, “We should get T-shirts!” they don’t always mean it, but what’s the harm? A blogger friend recently made the potential mistake of uttering this phrase in my digital presence, and thus came to fruition my dormant idea for a line of merchandise.

Here’s to new adventures, big and small, and to the magnificent medium of self-expression that is the printed T-shirt.