I recently came across this note from my Facebook account. I’d not looked at it in some time and actually found it quite interesting. For your reading pleasure, 25 Random Things About Me.

1. I am very nearly pathologically shy yet known to be a good public speaker.
2. I was holding my father’s hand when he died.
3. I have been known to be intuitive to the point of seriously freaking people out.
4. I can count the number of alcoholic drinks I’ve had in the past decade on one hand and still have a finger or two (and maybe a thumb) left over.
5. Of the hundreds of concerts I’ve attended and of the nearly one thousand live shows I’ve performed, the most moving show I’ve ever seen was Luka Bloom at The Club Cafe in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Tuesday April 11, 2006.
6. I hate watching television, but I am powerless to walk away from a Sunday marathon of Mythbusters.
7. As an adolescent and young adult I never cared for classical music. Now, it very nearly makes up half of my music collection.
8. I have three novels in various states of disrepair.
9. Of me and my five closest high school friends, I am the only one not dead or in prison.
10. I wanted to be a police officer when I grew up. I studied psychology and criminal justice my first semester in college. Then, I realized everybody else in the CJ program was an ex-military, Type-A asshole who just wanted a reason to carry a gun and beat people. I switched to English and Political Science.
11. I don’t think I’ve ever made a good first impression.
12. I am proudest of the things no one knows about.
13. When I was a kid I used to love to eat ketchup sandwiches. Bread and ketchup. I tried it as an adult several years ago and very nearly puked.
14. I didn’t take my first steps until I was almost three years-old. My parents were told if I didn’t wear corrective shoes and go through extensive therapy, I would be unable to walk by the time I was a teen. I never had the therapy and they never bought me the shoes.
15. There have been three specific moments in my life thus far wherein I was moments away from dying.
16. My two favorite authors are Kazuo Ishiguro and Haruki Murakami. While both are Japanese, Ishiguro is actually considered a British author. Born in Japan, his family moved to England when he was 6 years-old. Ishiguro and Murakami have drastically different styles, yet each speaks to me in very specific ways.
17. If reincarnation is possible, I think I was from the Far East in a past life.
18. In many ways I have the patience of a five year-old child on Christmas morning.
19. I have a scar on my forehead from where my older brother punched me while wearing a rather large, ugly man-ring. I believe my taunting about the same man-ring may have prompted the beating.
20. The last time I saw my older brother in person was the day before I graduated high school in 1983. I have only spoken to him twice since then. Once when I called to tell him our father was dying in the hospital and the second – and last – time when I called to tell him our father had died. He told me he couldn’t afford to fly from the West Coast for the funeral. It turned out he had a Las Vegas trip planned and didn’t want to be bothered. It’s been twenty-two years since that last phone call. I wouldn’t know the man if he passed me on the street.
21. My older sister and I attended our first church service because they were giving away free kites. We never went back. I’ve since been to services in an unusually large number of churches and synagogues – mainly with friends and/or past girlfriends/spouses. I maintain a rather unique perspective on religion and spirituality that I have never managed to fully explain to anyone.
22. I have a penchant for writing supplies. My desk drawers are overflowing with notebooks, pens, pencils, Sharpie’s, etc. Oddly enough, a clean, blank page can be almost paralyzing to me at times.
23. I have always preferred cats over dogs. People find this suspicious.
24. I very rarely discuss politics because even those with the best intentions can rarely do anything more than parrot back the same tired hyperbole of their favorite screeching head.
25. This was amazingly more difficult than I ever would have thought.