100 Things You Never Cared to Know About Me

Alright, everyone else seems to have a "100 Things" post, so who am I to flout convention?

And I had thought about splitting this into pieces, doing maybe 20 at a time, but you lose the desperation that creeps into these posts which makes them enjoyable, as people dig and dig for facts 83-97, so I'm committing to the whole thing at once. The things I do for you people.

Just keep in mind I might, just might mind you, have made some of these up to protect my true identity...

1. I married my high school sweetheart and have lived happily ever after.

2. I am very good at dodging airborne vegetables, plates, and/or kitchen cutlery thrown by said high school sweetheart.

3. I'm a terrible flirt, but much like a dog chasing a car, I have no idea what I'd do if I actually caught one...

4. I've had 14 cars, only one of which was road worthy after I was done with it.

5. I really hate having my second toe touched. Gives me the heebie jeebies.

6. I'm a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-environment Republican... Yeah, sometimes I don't know why either...

7. In High School I was a big commie Democrat.

8. I've been riding the same train since I started college 17 years ago.

9. And it's getting a bit old...

10. But it beats the hell out of the nine miles of traffic jam on the southeast expressway every morning.

11. I weight about 75 pounds more than I did when I was chasing Wifeypooh in High School.

12. And not all of that is muscle...

13. I am hopelessly nostalgic for the 1980's, kind of the way my Dad is about the '50's.

14. My parents divorced when I was in high school, and I carry a modicum of guilt around from that, even though I intellectually "know" it wasn't my fault.

15. I have a younger brother.

16. He's richer, thinner, and better looking than I am... Well, 2 out of 3, anyway.

17. We've become much better friends now than we were when we lived together, which is I think par for the course with siblings.

18. My musical tastes are very eclectic, but I’ll listen to anything by Jethro Tull.

19. I’ve had my picture taken with a President (George H.W. Bush) and two president wanna-bes (Jack Kemp and Bob Dole), but I’ve never had my picture taken with any of the four governors I’ve served under.

20. My first car was a 1974 Karmann Ghia. I’ve never quite gotten over her.

21. My favorite car was my 1981 Mazda RX-7, which I totaled by crashing into a state trooper. (You want a quick response, hit a state trooper, that’ll get the cops coming pretty fast.)

22. My least favorite car was the 1980 Pontiac T-1000 I drove in between totaling the RX-7 and putting the totaled RX-7’s motor in another car.

23. My dad and I put the motor in by ourselves and I was always amazed that the damn thing actually worked.

24. Not because of my dad, he could fix a rainy day, as the saying goes… I’m a bit more of a spaz with mechanical stuff.

25. But I am the one all of my inlaws call for advice on mechanical issues. (They’re even more spazzy than I.)

26. I’ve wanted at one point or another to be an architect, a computer programmer (this was back in the BASIC days…), a journalist, a politician, or in the military.

27. I still want to be an architect.

28. But it’s probably too much math.

29. I dropped an astronomy course in college because it turned out to be mostly math. (Took Geology instead, the infamous “Rocks for Jocks” course… Loved it, and can tell you to this day what an arête is and how it is formed)

30. I’m a huge Star Trek geek, to the point of owning the entire Star Trek: The Next Generation on space-consuming VCR tapes (thanks Maw!).

31. My best friend for a couple years growing up was a six foot tall (this is in the fourth grade) black kid named Christian.

32. I’m so white my nicknames in grade school were “Whitey” and “Albino”. I desperately wanted brown hair instead of the platinum blond I had at the time.

33. Christian and I made quite a pair.

34. About the time I began to really appreciate my hair, it started falling out.

35. Oh, in case you get any ideas: the nickname Albino caused not a few fights. And still engenders the same response.

36. My first fight was over a pencil. Another kid took my Battleship Cove pencil and broke it. Wasn’t much of a fight, I don’t think either of us landed a punch, but not for lack of trying.

37. I met my other best friend in the second grade and we’ve known each other ever since. It’s one of those friendships where you can go three or four years with no contact and then fall right back into with no problem.

38. I was the first of my peer group to get married and the first to have kids.

39. Because we had kids so young, we’ll be 45 when kid #2, The Boy, goes off to college.

40. We’re planning on changing the locks.

41. I think my first kiss happened in kindergarten, in my garage, with a girl from up the street named Patty. (But I’m not entirely sure that happened, I may have made it up and just chosen to believe it as fact over the years.)

42. My next kiss took about ten years, and happened on the roof of a porch overlooking a lake after the junior prom.

43. I’ve “dated” a grand total of four women (two in junior high, two in high school), kissed two of them, and married one.

44. I almost dated a fifth, but the morning after we agreed to a date we both simultaneously gave each other notes chickening out.

45. She’s the great unrequited love of my life.

46. I still think about her (don’t tell wifeypooh!).

47. I have a great affinity for crunchy-granola, peasant skirt-wearing liberal women. And that’s almost diametrically opposed to the person I married.

48. Oh, and I think, for the most part, Bob Dylan is overrated.

49. I love Weird Al Yankovic.

50. One of my proudest achievements is that my kids have memorized the Dead Bishop sketch from Monty Python, including the Rat Tart part.

51. The kids are also big Weird Al fans. There’s hope for them yet.

52. I’m listening to Green Day’s “Whatshername” right now, and while I think Green Day rocks to the Nth degree, I think their politics is puerile and juvenile…

53. And the Dixiechicks both suck musically and have moronic politics…

54. I’ve been accepted to Harvard

55. But I didn’t go

56. Motherdear is pissed about that

57. …well, it was graduate school, so don’t be too impressed…

58. I played football in high school for two seasons before discovering girls and finding out the literary magazine was a hotbed of peasent-skirted hippie chicks…

59. I still regret quitting football

60. But not track – track really sucked

61. There was a girl on the track team who could throw the boy’s shot further than I could

62. But then again, she could throw it farther than 99% of the boys on the team…

63. I’ve had two stepfathers

64. I like #2 much more than #1, but just wish he’d lighten up and enjoy life.

65. My mother’s parents are still alive, but my Dad’s are dead

66. Unfortunately, I most physically take after my Dad’s mom…

67. Who died at 400 pounds,

68. But inexplicably lived to 75 or so (Lithuanians are too mean to die, I think…)

69. I have a cat, ooo pussy, pussy cat

70. (Five points for guessing the song)

71. I have two guitars, well, three if you count the twelve string I stole from my mom, and can’t play any of them

72. Well, okay, I can play three songs (if I have the sheet music for them); Love Me Tender, Greensleeves, and Jesu, Joy of Heart’s Desiring.

73. I sang in my church choir as a kid, and soloed (I was pretty good)

74. Then my voice changed…

75. I sing in my church choir now, but it’s more a baritone kind of thing.

76. My mom, bless her soul, thinks I sing lovely

77. She’s in the minority…

78. In high school, for a single three month period, I perhaps, maybe, and I’m quite possibly making this up, dabbled in slight herbaceous drug use.

79. And man, I know what all those politicians say, but I did like it, and it did do something for me…

80. Unfortunately that something was a complete destruction of my short term memory,

81. Which puts me at a huge disadvantage when I fight with Wifeypooh about whether she said something or not…

82. I could never figure out how to properly smoke a cigarette (probably because I smoked the other stuff first, and as you know, admit it, it’s a different mechanics)

83. I often verb my nouns…

84. 16 to go!

85. (see, here’s the desperation…)

86. I didn’t drink until I was 21, well, except for that single three-month period mentioned above (think of it as my rebellious stage)

87. I try not to drink nowadays because I have no idea why you’d drink, unless it’s to get drunk, so social drinking isn’t my thing…

88. I let myself go once a year on New Year’s Eve, usually with the result that I’m found halfway through the night, passed out on Cape Codders and sleeping on the guest’s coats (honestly, mother-in-law, I’ll pay for the drycleaning…)

89. The New Year’s Eve party is at my house, so I don’t have to worry about driving, but I do have to worry about Wifeypooh making me clean the kitchen, totally blasted. (On the plus side, it’s easy to wipe the counter, you just hold the sponge out and let the spinning room do the work… Oh, and the pink elephants clear the table)

90. I’m a big fan of Dr. Who (Tom Baker edition), and own several DVD’s – hopefully with more on the way – hint, hint Mom….

91. Yes, I’m a geek, I admit it…

92. Along those lines, I’m sitting here on the train writing this and just managed to hook into someone’s wireless connection and thought it was the coolest thing… Yes, I’m a total dork.

93. (home stretch now!)

94. Three years of French in High School and I can say “cherchez la vache…”, but I got that from a movie.

95. I tried Russian in college, but it’s a brutal language best left to people with a lot of phlegm.

96. Iraq: yup, sorry. That was me. Ooops.

97. I’m addicted to soduku.

98. I cry during E.R.

99. I aspire to a friendship like Denny Crane and Alan Shore on Boston Legal, although I think of myself as the Alan Shore character more than the Denny Crane (and I think other people see me as the Denny Crane… [fat, senile, sexist pig…])

100. I just finished a 100 Things About Me post!