I tried to finish up the big-ass personality profile survey that's been going around. I really did. But I can't.

Not when they put complicated questions on it, like, what's your favorite color?

Even when I was little, that did not have a simple answer. Sometimes it was red, sometimes green. And occasionally the combination of the two, brown.

Then came the big box of Crayolas with 54 colors (or was it 52?), and for a while there I knew my favorite color: violet-pink. Always wore it to a nubbin first. On things it didn't belong, like violet-pink fire engines.

But now, there are so many favorites.

When I lived in a world of just primary colors, yellow was never one of my favorites. Yet, look at this diary page. One of the most beautiful colors on the planet is the yellowish-tan of an elk's rump in the fall. When their winter coat is new and shiny. By this time of year it's just a tan rump.

Nothing beats the golden yellow of aspen in the fall, either. Especially with a dark green background of spruce or Douglas-fir.

I still love reds. Red hair on a woman is stunning, unless of course it is a dye job, like the actress on Sex and the City (good show, by the way... not as good as Six Feet Under, but good). I love the red of fresh blood. Not the bright, artificial-looking red of arterial flow, which a hunter should love, but just the simple blood red. The red that pools in the body cavity as you remove the entrails. The red that covers your hands up past the wrists (or elbows, if it's an elk).

The red of fresh raspberries. But not when they are their reddest. Those are too tart. The best red has a tinge of blue in it, when they are swollen and full of sugars.

I love some blues, too. The bluish green of turquoise, and the blue of dwarf forget-me-nots on the alpine.

That purest of all colors, the blue of Cerenkov radiation. I know I've mentioned this before. The joke of radioactive items glowing green is based on fact. But they're not green. When atoms split, they occasionally impart enough energy to some electrons that they could fly out at much more than the speed of light. But our universe does not physically allow anything to travel that fast, so the electrons shed the excess energy by emitting light waves. All of exactly, precisely the same wavelength. Light that just happens to be visible to us as blue. The purest blue you can imagine.

I've stood on the catwalk above a functioning nuclear reactor (not far from you, believe it or not) and looked down on that glow. Just magically emanating from the water for a meter or two around the reactor core. Incredible. Did not want to leave.

I still love browns. The reddish coat of a red heeler is attractive, but it is nothing compared to the solid tawny brown of a mountain lion. A lot of variation in their colors, but they all seem to be uniform across their body. And I've run my hands through some lion coats that I did not want to let go.

The surprising tiger's eye brown of the eyes of bighorn sheep. It is shocking enough when you look down to realize their pupils are a long, rippling split that crosses the eye, instead of a little round hole, but the mixture of browns and irridescent golds is incredible.

A lot of purples and violet still make it on my list of favorites. But the color of monkshood is probably on the top.

White is technically not a color, and plain white is boring. But ivory is beautiful, especially on a bride. Black is boring too, but look at what it does when it is combined with just about any other color. With a birthday so near Hallowe'en, I naturally have to like black mixed with orange. While most artificial orange colors are unimpressive, who would want a pumpkin that was another color? What would sunrises and sunsets be like without the infinite shades of orange?

But I would have to say my favorite colors are still green. Almost all shades of green (but not anything with much yellow in it, or khaki). The shades of green life. Plants and frogs. The dark green of spruces. The blue-green of sage, especially after a long winter when the sage is the first thing to pick up a little extra green. The bright green of new grass.

When I first discovered you could monkey with the colors of Windows, I started playing with different combinations. And settled on this set of greens. And been with it for over a decade.

Must like it.

So, that's one question done. Now back to the survey.