25 Random Facts About Me

Hey, you can do this too. If you don't want to, what am I going to do about it? I'm not your boss, your god or your mother. You will not be graded on this. If you do it, send me a link.

25 Random Facts About Me

1) The first erotic dream that I remember happened when I was 4 or 5 years old. Ruth Buzzi was sitting on my toilet in her underwear. That was all the eroticism of which my young mind could conceive.

2) I became an atheist suddenly in class at fourteen years old when I read that Neanderthals buried tools and objects with their dead. It was a revelation not necessarily based on logic.

3) When one of my dogs dies I'm very upset for about an hour. Then I mostly forget about them for the rest of my life.

4) As a child, I was convinced that I could become the Earth-Prime Batman.

5) I swing my arms around in the shower in case there are invisible people in there with me.

6) (Are you still reading this? Seriously?) My favorite food is the cheeseburger, which explains the shape I'm in.

7) I've had two hernia surgeries.

8) My former wife and partner of 20 years is black. Before I met her I had known maybe three black people in my entire life.

9) I was a hardcore Reagan Republican as a teenager. Now I lean Libertarian but Socialism doesn't seem like the worst thing in the world.

10) I count myself very lucky to have a wonderful mother-in-law. I've heard some real horror stories from other people.

11) The worst hangover I've ever had was worse than my two hernia surgeries. It followed a night of rum and Cokes and lasted about fourteen hours.

12) I wanted adventure as a kid. When I became a parent, I wanted no part of adventure.

13) Although happiness is nice, I see it as ephemeral. Instead, I'm shooting for fulfillment.

14) From about the time of the Big Bang until about 1969, I didn't really do much. Total slacker for, like, fourteen billion years.

15) Aaron Neville is my arch-enemy.

16) I was out on my own at eighteen. My minimum wage jobs worked better than any diet. I had to buy new pants because I was swimming in my old ones. Then I lost more weight and couldn't afford to buy any more pants, so I'd buy pints of ice cream and frosting and eat them from the containers just to keep some fat on my waist.

17) My nose runs like a leaky faucet. Always has.

18) I am not a people person. Except during job interviews.

19) Aaron Neville could beat me senseless if he knew I existed. Have you seen those arms? And besides, he has four brothers. That's ten Neville legs kicking my ass while they sing a song about it.

20) I was laid off at nineteen and moved to Florida to stay with my parents. I've been there ever since. (In Florida, that is. Not with my parents.)

21) When I was ten my blood would turn to ice whenever I heard a plane overhead. I was waiting for a hydrogen bomb to drop on my head. Because, of course, Plainfield, Connecticut was number one on the Soviets' list of targets.

22) I am at once a slob and a germophobe.

23) I think writing is one of the most powerful technologies we have ever devised. Little marks on paper or a screen can produce images and concepts in someone else's mind, thousands of miles away. We can listen to the dead. We can speak to the not-yet-born. We can make a solid thing of our memories. Nearly anyone can be taught to use it. It can move armies and elicit emotions in a person when no action has taken place.

24) When I was a teenager, my friends and I used to joke that I would be killed by a bus at the age of thirty-eight. For the year between my thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth birthdays, I was worried that my id would win out for just a second and I would step out into the path of an oncoming bus in order to fulfill the prophecy. Now I believe I am invulnerable.

25) I have never had sex with a white woman, though I might make an exception for Ruth Buzzi.

Wherein I Am Revealed To Be A Big Stoopidhead

See that church in my last post? That wasn't my church. I told you my sister, Deb, could explain more. She did. Also, she's actually seven years younger than me rather than eleven years older. I guess I had forgotten that as well.

Here's the deal: I looked up Plainfield, Connecticut Congregational Church online. Why? Because Plainfield is the name of the town it was in. Sounds sensible so far, yes? Okay, except the town is split into four parts. One of those parts is also named Plainfield. My old church was in the part called Central Village and there was another Congregational church in Plainfield. Why a town of 14,000 people needs two Congregational churches is beyond me, but there you go. I'm not the only one to make this mistake. Those National Registry people obviously thought I went to that other church as well.

Now here's the really embarrassing part. First off, the following pictures are from Jerry Dougherty's Connecticut on Fokti.com Check out the other pics in that album if you want to see my childhood stomping grounds. All right, here's a photo of my real church, taken from the same angle as the other one.



I know what you're saying. You're saying, "What are you, fucking high? This church doesn't look anything like that other church!"

And to that I say, "Well, it does, in that it's boxy with a big pointy thing on top."

So I'm an idiot. But the mystery of the Grange is solved. It is sitting there next to the church where it's supposed to be. Here's a picture of the Grange from the same site.