30 facts you probably(?) don't know about me

Of course, some of you will be bound to know these facts. But hey, it's hard to think of 30 things about me in general. As I wrote this it felt very self-centered to do it, but how could 30 facts about me not have that feel?

Oh well, here we go, in no particular order.....



1. One main reason why I left private school in 4th grade was that I was deathly afraid of having a male teacher (or maybe he was just a jerk-historians will debate that one).

2. I have a strange fear of having people notice that my ears are completely different from each other.

3. I hate when others drive during road trips, but on routine trips I feel like a king when my wife (or someone else) drives.

4. I tip way too much, because I used to be a night shift waiter at Denny's.

5. From age 5 to ~10 I used to have a glitter sticker that said "I <3 Michael Jackson".

6. Flying insects of any sort terrify me-a hike at age ~12 led to me getting stung 13 times by yellow jackets. At night my friends made fun of me for being sure that one had crawled into my sleeping bag, and when I got out and held a flashlight on the inside, there was indeed one in there (though it didn't sting me a 14th time!).

7. When I was 19 I started using Rogaine and was obsessed about going bald. That didn't last after the first bottle, but it's true.

8. I have portrayed myself as being from almost every conceivable ethnicity and gotten away with it.

9. I absolutely love art but have no ability to draw.

10. I tend to cry almost every week and, like Bigfoot, these events are almost always not captured.

11. I am terrified of dancing or singing in front of others and will do anything to avoid these events, with very few exceptions. At the same time, these are things that I enjoy almost more than anything else.

12. I learned Spanish as a young child and completely lost memory of this fact until my high school teacher was tired of me thinking that I just magically "got" Spanish.

13. I complain about people taking pictures but probably look at them more than those same people who take them.

14. I shook O.J. Simpson's hand at a restaurant when I was 4.

15. 95% of jokes that I tell are made to make myself laugh at how ridiculous they sound, and usually leave people scratching their heads or (when I fail to live right) offended.

16. I have never rolled on a skateboard, and am quite proud of this fact.

17. I have never gone skiing or snowboarding, and this all began when as a child someone mistakenly said, "I'm going skiing, would you like to go? Oh wait, you went and you didn't like it, right?" I shook my head in a vague manner and went to a different room and cried, and since then have still not gone.

18. If I go out to eat and the order is completely botched, I refuse to say anything to the waiter. See #4 for clarification (though this tendency of mine was also true before gaining that experience-most likely due to life companions who have a tendency to complain at every opportunity).

19. I hate musicals but love the concept of them.

20. I am probably one of the ~0.05% of all husbands in married couples who dominates phone use for chatting, etc., as compared to their wives.

21. I feel but do not intellectually conclude that I have some psychic powers-I predicted such diverse events as my friend's car getting stolen (the day before I told him it would happen), I predicted that my wife would stop swimming in the middle of a high school race (she was on track to beat my best time and I couldn't imagine another way of her not beating me-she got out of the pool crying in the middle of the race and I nearly cursed myself for my powers), and others.

22. I check my e-mail on average 20 times per day.

23. Small errors such as spelling, grammar, pitch in singing, clinking in eating, cause my mind to obsess and get very annoyed. As for a hugely disordered pile of papers, etc., I almost expect this to be the norm.

24. I still insist (to myself, at least) that at some point in my life I will be an actor.

25. I pretend to not like dogs but they're not ALL so bad.

26. I am deathly afraid that people look at my right foot due to my mangled large toenail.

27. I think that my nose is my best feature, and when it was broken in high school I was terrified about it being ruined before finding out that the bone was not bent at all.

28. I'm not sure whether I am really left-handed, or whether it's simply a matter of convention.

29. I carry on extensive conversations with my cats, and change their names into odd nicknames all of the time. On that note, I change the names of my family all of the time as well.

30. I am very grateful for every person who has ever come across my life.

A corny way to end, but I was running out of facts that seemed interesting enough and I also wanted to say thanks to everyone for being around me despite all of these (and other unstated) quirks.