Mark Regnerus is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is author of Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers and Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying. Before joining our panel on teen pregnancy, he sat down for our In The Green Room Q&A.

Q. What is the last habit you tried to kick?
A. I’m a worry wart. That’s a tough one to break. The worries I have just seem so robust. But I’m working on downgrading anxiety without medication, which I’ve never taken, but I’ve thought maybe I should some days.

Q. What surprises you the most about your life right now?
A. That people want to hear what I have to say. I can be difficult to pigeonhole, so I’m pleased that people still want to hear from me.

Q. Who was your childhood hero?
A. Kent Hrbek, Minnesota Twins, first baseman in the 1980s.

Q. What do you consider to be the greatest simple pleasure?
A. A nice cup of coffee and a good conversation. Instead I gravitate toward checking email and reading online news. Conversation is a lost form of pleasure.

Q. Where would we find you at 10 a.m. on a typical Saturday?
A. At home, or, I’m a Texan, so I have a son who likes to go shooting. He and I go plinking with a .22 rifle at a friend’s ranch south of Austin. It’s a good father-son thing to do. Uncommon for an academic, I suspect.

Q. What do you do to clear your mind?
A. Sometimes I pray. Sometimes I go for a walk.

Q. What do you wish you had the nerve to do?
A. Be a better world traveler.

Q. What is your favorite cocktail?
A. I prefer beer and wine. Mudslides aren’t bad. Been a while since I had one.

Q. What profession would you like to practice in your next life?
A. If I had to switch careers, and money wasn’t an issue, I generally like cleaning. You see the fruits of your labors. I did that before I went to graduate school.

Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. I’d like to go to Singapore. It’s intriguing to me — a global city with ethnic and religious diversity, a pretty good education system, and it’s a cutting-edge financial capital.

Q. Who is the one person living or dead that you would most like to meet for dinner?
A. Eric Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes. I’m a big hockey fan.

To read more about Regnerus’ panel, click here.

*Photo by Aaron Salcido.