100 things about me

This is based on pages I've seen by Bret Holmes and Jessamyn West.

1. I have a very good memory.
2. Most important, I can remember how I thought and viewed the world when I was a kid. This keeps me sane, and dangerous.
3. My mom says when I was a little kid I could get absorbed for hours in some little thing. Then I had to go to school, from which I am still recovering.
4. The first book I read by myself was Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl, at age five. To this day, I have the value system of Fantastic Mr. Fox.
5. I consider myself at the core of Generation X: I was 2 when Sesame Street started, almost 10 when Star Wars came out, and 15 when MTV got big.
6. I'm descended from some of the first French people to come to Canada, and some Irish and Germans who came more recently, and a few Algonquins who came much earlier.
7. I could pass for a quarter Indian, but it's more like a thirtieth. (It's too complicated to be 1/32nd.) Somehow those genes came through strong. I was born with a tan.
8. I was baptized Catholic, and when the priest said "Let all evil spirits now leave him," I burped.
9. I was born and grew up in Pullman Washington, except ages 4-7, when I was in Rockville Maryland.
10. In Pullman the first time we lived in the smallest crappiest house in the entire town. Our house in Rockville must have gone over a million dollars in the bubble.
11. The nicest thing about growing up in the upper middle class is that I burned out on consumerism. I'm not sure why so many other people didn't.
    
    
12. I have two BA's, in English lit and Philosophy. They don't mean much to me. Other students said English was an easy major and Philosophy was a hard one, but for me it was the opposite.
13. I have a lifetime 4.0 grade point average in math classes, from seventh grade to two years beyond calculus.
14. Spelling and grammar are also very easy for me.
15. But even in stuff I'm good at, I'm a slow worker.
16. I always had an easier time, and got higher grades, on tests than on papers. Every paper I ever wrote for a class was at or below the minimum length.
17. I think I'm not a great writer, but a great editor. I can make anything shorter but it's very difficult for me to make something longer.
18. I only ever wrote three papers that I really enjoyed, and two of them got me my two lowest grades in college. That pretty much explains why I didn't go to grad school.
19. I've had many nightmares where I'm back in college and the quarter is almost over and I suddenly remember I've completely forgotten about one or two of my classes. I know one person who's been to college and never had that nightmare. He says, "I actually did that in college."
20. The nice thing about going through the school system without ever having status, is I know in my bones that status is not necessary.
21. I was shocked in the eighth grade when a not-quite-popular girl said she wanted to be popular. I always thought the idea was to rise up and kill the popular kids. Does a Jew want to be a Nazi?
22. When I hear about school shootings, I always feel relief.
23. For me, the 9/11 spectacle was like a near-death experience. It made me loosen up, live for the moment, take more chances, because I could die any time. I don't understand why it had the opposite effect on everyone else.
24. September 11, 2001 was the day I started going barefoot in the city. Now I go barefoot everywhere I can. I even installed rubber pedals so I can go barefoot on my bicycle.
    
    
25. I love personality tests. In Myers Briggs, I've shifted over the years from INTJ to INTP to INFP.
26. I don't understand why people crave final answers and certainty. Nobody wants to go into a physical space and stay there for their entire life. They want to move around and see different things. So why do they feel any different about mental spaces?
27. I've doubted many things about myself, but I have never doubted my sanity. And no, that is not a sign of insanity on any serious list of diagnostic criteria.
28. I'm a Virgo slob, messy with full awareness and intention. I see that oat on the floor and I want it to stay there until the floor gets to a level of messiness that interferes with use value.
29. I enjoy making filthy things somewhat clean. But no farther.
30. I don't use shampoo or soap, except on my hands when they're greasy from cooking or bike repair.
31. Sometimes I wear the same clothes for an entire week. Only if I'm not sweating much.
32. I shave my armpits, to reduce the smell enough that I don't have to use deodorant.
33. I also don't use shaving cream or toothpaste. I shave by softening the hair first in a shower or bath, and I brush with baking soda.
34. Calling a stranger on the phone frightens me more than speaking in front of a huge audience.
35. I have never had an overdue library book, returned a video late, or been charged interest.
36. When I was a kid, I would untie my shoes before taking them off, when all the other boys squeezed their feet out and then untied them before putting them on. Maybe they were expecting a nuclear war, so they could say to me, "Ha, you untied your shoes for nothing!"
37. When I'm walking and going around corners, I always feel like my left and right turns have to balance out. For example, if I'm going down a stairwell, I should spin around the other direction on every other landing. As an adult, I overrule this impulse but it still bugs me.
38. I have never deeply smoked a cigarette, been throw-up drunk, or taken any hallucinogenic drug.
39. I've smoked pot a few times, but I don't like its effect on me. It just makes me stupid. I much prefer the experience of eating it.
40. I never understood addiction until I got addicted to computer games, especially Civilization II.
41. You know when you have to do something you really dread, like writing that application essay, or washing the dishes, and when you finally force yourself to do it, it's like pushing through a wall of nails? When I was getting off Civ 2, I felt like that all the time, for three days. Now I would never tell an addict, "Why don't you just quit?"
42. My all time favorite games are Zelda Ocarina of Time, Heroes of Might and Magic II, and Lords of the Realm II.
43. I like the taste of alcohol, but I don't enjoy being drunk, and I really dislike the alcohol universe.
44. I have been single for almost my entire life. They say "it just happens" but for me it just fizzles out before it gets anywhere. Now I think I have something like colorblindness for the spectrum of seduction, and the people who see it can't imagine how anyone else can't. My only serious girlfriend liked me enough that she didn't care that I did everything wrong.
45. When I see couples touch each other, I always wonder how they decided to do it at that particular time and place, and whether they really feel like it or are contriving it.
46. If I'd had a long-term girlfriend in my twenties, I would have had no motivation to go to parties and social events, and I would now have a lot fewer friends. In fact, many of my friends have been women it didn't work out with.
47. I'm attracted to bratty pouty women. Luckily, they're not attracted to me.
48. I'm much more attracted to people I know than to famous people.
49. I never thought Angelina Jolie was anything special. Amy Adams and Zooey Deschanel are hot! Cate Blanchett is beautiful but oddly not sexy. Sometimes I feel the same way about male beauty.
50. When I was a little kid, I got sexual feelings from two bits on Sesame Street, a cartoon of a girl who fell off a fence into the mud, and a film of a river kayaker who flipped upside down.
    
    
51. Traveling is good for me, but I don't like it. I read zines and emails about how much fun it is, and then when I try it, I get cold, hungry, tired, sick, and deathly thin. An open and optimistic attitude just makes me fall harder. Then I notice that people who are "lucky" traveling are all pretty girls or magnetic personalities.
52. I've always wanted to travel across North America on foot, with a group of friends, after civilization collapses.
53. I've driven tens of thousands of miles, all around the country twice.
54. Still, when I'm driving a car, I constantly feel like I'm about to crash. Everyone's going much too fast. I think I have good attention and coordination, but slow reflexes.
55. Being a passenger is OK. I still think we'll crash, but it's not my responsibility.
56. I drive obsessively for fuel economy. I once got 16mpg going cross-country in a Ryder truck, I've got as high as 50mpg in a 1990 Honda Civic, and I now average 31mpg in a Ford Ranger.
57. I hate owning a vehicle. The insurance payment feels like an elephant on my back and the possibility of breakdown feels like a sword hanging over me by a thread. If insurance were optional, and I were a master mechanic, I would love it.
58. I have zero athletic talent. I didn't learn to throw with my wrist until I was 30 and someone gave me explicit instruction.
59. But I'm in really good shape. I once rode a single-speed bicycle, loaded with all the gear I needed to survive, 100 miles in a day. (Took me a week to recover!)
60. My legs always get tired before my heart and lungs. I have to run fast to get my heart and lungs tired first.
61. I am on a path from kid to old dude that does not pass through middle age. I have never had a puffy face or a beer belly, and I never expect to.
    
    
62. I have never had any condition where I needed medical attention to survive.
63. I got my wisdom teeth when I was 16. They fit in my mouth nicely. I use them for chewing. I almost have room behind them for four more.
64. When I was a kid I had ten fillings that I might not have needed, because when I got them replaced later the dentist kept saying they were suspiciously shallow.
65. In my 30's my teeth started decaying again, maybe from fermented apple juice. In summer of 2007 I got more fillings and had to have one pulled.
66. I have thick leg hair and almost no chest hair. As you would expect, my legs seldom feel cold and my chest often does, even under many layers.
67. I like to sleep in a cold room with a lot of blankets and my feet sticking out to radiate excess heat. I get really cold around midnight, really hot around 4am, and cold again at sunrise.
68. I've spent some time practicing meditation, and can now get my pulse down to 44 and my blood pressure to 90 over 50 in a few minutes, but I still can't get vivid imagery, dammit.
69. I'm a light sleeper, yet I can sleep through light and background noise. The one thing I can't sleep through is intelligible words.
    
    
70. As a kid I was into the paranormal, then around seventh grade I became a true believer in the objective mechanistic model of reality because it made me feel smarter than other people. Only in my mid-twenties did I get back into the paranormal.
71. I think UFO's and monsters are occult phenomena, but it's hard to explain what that means. Maybe different realities are like radio channels that can bleed into each other. My favorite author on the subject is John Keel.
72. If I could have any super power, I'd like to be able to shift among alternate worlds, just like in a Roger Zelazny novel.
73. In college I was obsessed with Emily Bronte, and to this day, if I could go back in time and meet one famous person, it would be her.
74. After that, I would like to meet Charles Fort and Ivan Illich. I think 90% of my ideas can be derived from those two guys.
75. I'm the best singer in my family, but still not a good singer.
76. In the morning, I can sing as low as Johnny Cash or Calvin Johnson. In the evening, as high as Tom Petty.
77. I like to sing while I'm driving. My favorites are "I Know It's True But I'm Sorry To Say" by the Violent Femmes, "Nebraska" by Bruce Springsteen, and "Sometimes" by Camper Van Beethoven.
78. I can lick my left elbow. It's because of a funny left shoulder socket -- my tongue is pretty short.
79. In my early 20's I wrote a lot of poetry, and I ended up with one great one and one pretty good one.
80. My favorite poetry writers are e.e. cummings and Swinburne. My favorite line is by Wallace Stevens: "We live in an old chaos of the sun."
81. My favorite vegetable is the avocado, which is technically a fruit. My favorite true vegetable is the artichoke.
82. My favorite fruits are blueberry and tart cherry.
83. I like the taste of meat drippings better than anything else.
84. I have made several hundred pies from scratch, possibly a thousand.
85. I do lots of fermentation, including kefir, kombucha, mead, sourdough, and sauerkraut in season.
86. I take a thermos with me almost everywhere full of body temperature water. If I have to drink cold water I get dehydrated.
87. I like to dance to fast music with the accent on the one beat (ONEtwothreefour, ONEtwothreefour), not the two and four beat as in common "dance" music (one, TWO, three, FOUR). A dance instructor friend told me I go up on the beat when other people go down.
88. I'm able to cry better as I get older. Lots of songs will do it now, especially Bob Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather."
89. Once a painting made me cry, one of Monet's Wheatstacks. And it raises an important question: how can a painting of wheatstacks affect a person more powerfully than actual wheatstacks?
90. I don't know a lot about art history, but I love Turner.
91. The first concert I ever went to was Gordon Lightfoot, and I think he was staring at me.
92. After all these years, my favorite film is still Brazil. Second favorite, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
93. I have seen every episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and I like Firefly even better.
94. I don't like Star Trek. I know it's a quality show but it's too clean. For similar reasons, I hate the metric system, fusion power, and Esperanto. It gives me great joy that Esperanto is now less popular than Klingon.
    
    
95. I've never had any kind of transcendent or religious experience. I have had a lot of synchronicity, and once I had a mild sleep-paralysis-with-entity.
96. The most unexplainable experience I've ever had was when I had a thread rigged up to turn the light on and off from my bed, and when the thread finally broke, it broke in three places at once.
97. The closest I've had to a transcendent experience was the first time I saw The Matrix, when Neo woke up in the vat on the tower. Still not that close.
98. Two other movies put me in a mental space afterwards where the world seemed unspeakably wonderful and anything I wanted to do seemed possible. This feeling lasted about half an hour before it went away. You'll never guess: the two movies were Point Break and Groundhog Day.
99. When I was about 15, I had the same idea as The Matrix for a science fiction story: A guy figures out by close observation that this world is simulated, and he manages to wake up, and he's in a kind of bunker, and he comes out to the grassy fields of an unpopulated North America, full of more bunkers of people in the simulated world.
100. A friend once told me that I look at the world as if I've never seen it before. I thought, that's a nice compliment... Wait! I never have seen it before! What -- did everyone else get a preview?