Biographical Trivia

April 28, 2003 - 9:29 p.m.

Last Five Entries:
The Party's Over
July 11, 2004
The Next Day
2004-03-31
My Nervous Breakdown
2004-03-30
True Confessions: My Life as a Female Impersonator
March 15, 2004
Bite Me
February 29, 2004

Contact:

Have you ever had that dream where you seem to be in slow motion, and it takes you forever to do the simplest things, and the day ends before you even get your clothes on in the morning?

I don't just have that dream. I live it every day.

Part of the reason that my day passed without me accomplishing much is that I spent most of the day driving places. A total of five hours and 175 miles in my car today. I spent some of that time thinking about what to write in my diary today.

Today I'm borrowing an idea from someone else. I hope she doesn't mind; it was a good idea.

1. I am a 32-year old caucasian heterosexual man, never married and with no children.

2. At least five of those things could be subject to change at any time.

3. Though it's unlikely that marital status will ever change. A wise paralegal once told me that when a lawyer does divorce law before getting married, that lawyer will never get married.

4. Degrees conferred upon me include a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Juris Doctor. Unless something bad happens, I will add Master of Science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution to that at the end of this year.

5. I formerly practiced law full-time, now I'm only practicing part-time while I go to school. I don't know what I will be doing after I get my degree, but God willing, I will never practice law again.

6. In 1997, while working for a Legal Aid office, I was the lowest-paid attorney in my state, according to a trade paper. (I wasn't mentioned by name, of course, but my salary was listed exactly.)

7. I currently live with my parents. This saves rent. I'm also sure that living with my parents makes me attractive to women.

8. I have a phobia of driving.

9. I drive about 2,000 miles per month, mostly to school and to work.

10. I hate talking on the telephone. The ring of a telephone causes me severe anxiety.

11. Potential blind dates to whom I have talked over the phone have often told me that I have a great phone personality. This doesn't help.

12. I was fifteen years old the first time I called a girl to whom I was attracted to talk to her. I scripted most of the conversation on notebook paper beforehand. When I was through the script, I hung up and I never talked to her again.

13. I am also afraid of spiders and large bodies of water.

14. I never learned to swim.

15. When I was six years old, I had one sip of beer. When I was thirteen years old, I had one sip of champagne. When I was twenty-four years old, I had one sip of plum wine. This is the only alcohol I have consumed in my life.

16. It is my experience that no bartender knows how to make a good virgin mixed drink. I know how to make several good virgin mixed drinks.

17. I have one sibling, an older sister. My mother is one of seven siblings. My father is one of seventeen siblings.

18. My father is obsessive. My mother is compulsive.

19. I take after both of my parents.

20. My father has held the same job for 52 years. My mother's work experience is more erratic, as she has only held her current job for the past 30 years.

21. I've never worked at any one place for more than three years.

22. I have a cat. He's two years old. He's black, with one small white spot on his neck.

23. My cat refuses to cuddle with me. He wants to play all of the time. Typical male.

24. When I was in first grade, my behavioral problems prompted school officials to place me in the "slow" class. After languishing there a while, my mother vehemently complained about the placement, and I was bumped up to another class. If there was ever one pivotal turning point in my life that led to me practicing law rather than pumping gas, that was probably it.

25. My first boyhood celebrity crush was Kristy McNichol.

26. My favorite childhood toy was a Batgirl doll.

27. When I was twelve, I ruined my Batgirl doll by trying to make her more anatomically correct using construction paper and model glue.

28. My extra-cirricular activities in high school including playing trombone in the marching band, and competing in speech/debate/student congress competitions.

29. If student congress were real Congress, James Brown's Living In America would be the national anthem of the United States of America. That was the last bill I ever presented at a student congress, and the only one I ever passed.

30. I still believe that Living In America should be the national anthem. And, instead of placing one's hand over one's heart while singing, that singing should be accompanied by James Brown's foot shuffle. I think we'd be a much better country for it.

31. The first time I submitted a story for my high school's creative writing magazine, my story was one of the most enthusiastically received by the students running the magazine. The story was called, "Cheerleaders from Hell." However, school administrators had final veto over content, and my story was the only story chosen for the magazine to be excluded. Without comment.

32. The second story I submitted to the magazine was called "Administrators in Hell."

33. I published my own literary magazine when I was in high school, with the help of a copying machine. I published it anonymously. A friend told me that the school principal had a suspension slip filled out with everything but the name, for the person behind the magazine. School administrators interrogated some of my friends to learn my identity, but none of my friends sold me out.

34. For three summers, when I was a teen, I went to a very liberal writing camp. If the students wanted to write about sex and suicide, they were encouraged to speak their mind, and profanity was encouraged as appropriate. Except when it came to me. One of my songs, "Danger Man," was considered to have crossed the line when it came to collecting and publishing the student works. The offending lyric in the refrain was, "I want to fuck life in the face." I agreed to have the song printed without the refrain.

35. At the same writing camp, I met the granddaughter of a nationally syndicated columnist. Several months later, that nationally syndicated columnist referred to me in his nationally syndicated column, in an annual piece in which he writes about his granddaughter. He mentioned the that she met over the summer, who was a real "downer."

36. I discovered the column because my mother showed it to me. She said she was showing it to me because I knew the granddaughter in question. Mom didn't say anything about me being the "downer." But I think she knew.

37. I met the aforementioned granddaughter one time since. She didn't apologize.

38. The best piece of advice about writing that I ever received came from a college poetry professor. He told me, "Go with your obsessions."

39. I have written quite a few short stories, with quite a few more unfinished. I have one story on which I have been working for 18 years. But it will be my best one, when it's finished.

40. Every story I have written over the past 12 years has a character named Decker. It's a different character in each story.

41. The most frequent recurring theme of my stories is that someone is severely punished for having sex.

42. I like writing stories, because in a way it's like playing god. I am a malevolent god.

43. The best ten CDs I own are:
    

    Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes
    Basia: Time and Tide
    The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
    Sarah Brightman: The Songs That Got Away
    James Brown: Gravity
    Cyndi Lauper: She's So Unusual
    Parliament: Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome
    Red Hot Chili Peppers: Mother's Milk
    Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
    Was (Not Was): What Up, Dog?

44. The best five cassette tapes that I own that I must convert to CD:
    

    The Beat Farmers: Loud and Plowed and Live
    Kate Bush: Hounds of Love
    George Clinton: Hey Man, Smell My Finger
    They Eat Their Own: They Eat Their Own
    ZZ Top: Eliminator

45. Worst CD I own: Fem 2 Fem's Animus. This CD narrowly beats out 2 Live Crew's As Nasty as They Want to Be as my worst music purchase ever. (The latter has one redeeming song: Get the Fuck Out of My House.)

46. Guiltiest pleasure in my CD collection: Bay City Rollers' Greatest Hits.

47. The song that appears most in my music collection: Peter Gunn. I have versions by: The Art of Noise, The Blues Brothers, Deodato, Dick Dale and his Del-Tones, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Grandmaster Flash, Jimi Hendrix, and, of course, Henry Mancini.

48. Bootsy Collins isn't just the greatest bassist in the world. He's the greatest bassist in the universe.

49. When I sing along with songs, I correct lyrics that I don't like.

50. I was raised a Christian Protestant Methodist. I stopped going to church when I was 18, except for a brief run at a Salvation Army Church when I was in college (there was a woman involved). I do not read the Bible literally, though I do view Jesus as the greatest philosopher ever. I do pray every night.

51. Age at my first sexual experience with a girl: 17.

52. Age at which I started feeling guilty: 17.

53. The only compliments I have ever received on my looks were for my eyes (they're green) and my lush, long hair. I no longer have the lush, long hair.

54. I have two acquaintences who are gay men. Each has had more sexual experience with women than I have.

55. I'm a roleplaying game geek. I have played the infamous Dungeons and Dragons. The list also includes Call of Cthulu (horror), Paranoia (sci-fi), Toon (furry), Twilight: 2000 (paramilitary), Vampire: the Masquerade (angst). Currently, I play Fantasy Hero once a month with a group of friends.

56. I have no other regular social outlets.

57. I used to have another online diary, which I stopped updating about two years ago. None of my former readers have been informed about this new diary.

58. I have met three DiaryLand diarists in person. None of them were impressed.

59. It seems to me that brilliant stand-up comedians make lousy television shows (Wanda Sykes, Ellen DeGeneres), while lousy stand-up comedians make brilliant television shows (Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne).

60. If I won the lottery, I would probably get plastic surgery.

61. This is less ambitious that my previous plan of a sex-change operation. I gave up on that idea last year when a friend pointed out that if I don't make a good-looking man, then I won't make a good-looking woman.

62. The best food ever is peking duck from Peking Gourmet in Falls Church, Virginia. No other restaurant has ever prepared a peking duck half as satisfying.

63. My favorite ice cream is vanilla.

64. I'm allergic to chocolate.

65. However, I think men and women would be happier if men ejaculated chocolate.

66. Modern capitalist countries are headed for collapse under the weight of big finance. This is preventable, and it is possible to have a healthy capitalism. However, it's highly unlikely that collapse will be averted because reading Marx is taboo.

67. The three best nail polish colors for women are: electric blue, royal purple, and black.

68. I only wear clothes with solid colors. Stripes make me dizzy. However, I will sometimes wear t-shirts with logos.

69. I've been treated for depression with medication twice. I don't think it worked either time.

70. I suffer from colitis, which is controlled by nine asacol pills a day. Each pill costs $1.00.

71. I have no health insurance.

72. My penis is 6� inches long when erect.

73. I know this because an online friend asked me to take that measurement, and report the findings back to her.

74. She did not ask about the circumference, so I don't know that measurement.

75. My best celebrity impression is James Brown. I also do a decent Carl Sagan. I can do Beavis and Butthead's laugh- but I was doing it in 1987, before Beavis and Butthead was created. I had two friends who hung out with each other a lot, and they had very distinctive laughs that I mimicked. Beavis and Butthead stole their laughs.

76. The ending of The Jerk, when Navin's parents find him on the streets, makes me cry.

77. I like making lists.