Tagalicious

Got tagged by Greg. Wrote a song about it, like to hear it, here it go:

1. My first year trying to be a writer I made about $14,000. And a good chunk of that was for the part-time work I did at a preschool program at a rec center. It’s a tough business, writing. That year, my daughter and I didn’t have enough money to buy good ornaments for the Christmas tree (we lost a box of them, I think in a move, and had to replace them) so we made them. Out of things like milk jugs, toilet paper rolls and Star Wars figures. Those are still my favorite Christmas tree ornaments.


2. This is my dream possession:



Everyone knows that when you have kids you don’t have much money, space or time to buy a lot of things for yourself. This actually works out okay for me, because I’m not that into things. Thankfully, my wife is not shy about telling me when it’s time to buy a new pair of Levis. But this bike, man I’m aching to buy it. Tricked out, it’s only about six grand. That’s not so much, right? Right?


3. I can sleep pretty much anywhere at any time. If I’m tired and there’s nothing else I need to do and nothing else stopping me, I can take a nap anywhere.


4. I have a little bit of an OCD thing in that if I have to mail a bunch of letters, I’ll count them a few times in between putting on the stamps and putting them in the mailbox. This has become much less of an issue in the age of online banking. So thanks, Bank of America. Oh, also, I often do a countdown from 10 when doing a task with a definite ending –- like filling a glass with water –- pacing it so I start with 10 and hit 1 at the end. It’s kinda like I find the 10-beat rhythm of it. Weird, right? I don’t get it myself. I bet only my brother thinks it's cool, but he's a drummer and loves anything about rhythm.


5. Sometimes I think about becoming a physicist or a biologist – can’t decide which.


6. I think it’s shameful that I'm not bilingual. I mean, I can get by in rudimentary French, and I muscled through trips to Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica, but it’s terrible how monolingual I am. Arrogant American bastard. I so want and need to learn Spanish. Gotta get on that.


7. I am absolutely and utterly bewildered by this Bush-Cheney administration.


8. I donate to charity often, as requests come up, but for 15 years I’ve also been sending monthly donations to these people: http://www.splcenter.org/. My wife is friends with some of these people: http://www.mvpsacramento.com/ and now we also give monthly donations to them. But still, I don’t do enough for the world. There are so many people out there who have it off so much worse than me -– so much that we’re not even in the same game. I know this, so why don’t I do more? Actually, I should get on that before I go learn Spanish.


9. My junior year of high school, I got third place in the two-mile at the state champion track and field meet. Hey, you take your glory where you can find it. I was determined to win the next year, but then I blew my knee out training for cross country my senior year and so did not compete in track that year. Or ever again. So much for glory. Now I think back to when I could run two miles in less than 10 minutes and I weep. Openly.


10. I am neither smarter than, nor a better writer than, our friend Greg at the Web of Lies and Deceit. (See his tag post.)


Now, in terms of tagging others, I’ll just do Jeff of Gimpdom 149. He's new to the fold and we'll welcome him this way (plus I think most of the others have already been tagged…).