Recently, I got ‘tagged’ in a ‘note’ on Facebook, whatever the hell that means. I only found out about it because Facebook emailed me to that effect, and the tagger was an honest-to-god person who I have seen at some point in the past six months, not a high school acquaintance who I probably said a total of 75 words to throughout the course of four years but who still made me feel enough of a mix of guilt and nostalgia to add them when they friended me.
The note was ’25 Things You May Not Know About Me.’ I was one of 25 tagged friends (thanks, Jill: I thought I was special) who now are supposed to compile their own lists and tag 25 more people. Apparently it’s only a pyramid scheme if money is involved. But I haven’t done one of these in a while, and I am remarkably self involved, so here we go. Feel no compulsion to make your own list, unless of course you want to.
1. I used to be nigh-obsessed with this type of meme in high school. I’d fill out as many as people sent, even if all the recipients already knew my status on Coke v. Pepsi.
2. It’s Pepsi, by the way, not that I drink much pop anymore.
3. It is pronounced pop, you know. I’ll call anyone who says otherwise a Communist or race traitor or whatever other inflammatory non-sequitur insult I can think of at the time.
4. Re: #1 When my wife was just the girl I had started dating, and I didn’t know all of the rules like ‘only hard fruit, not softened and ripened,’ I needed a gift for her. Not knowing what kind of jewelry she liked, I forwarded her one of those surveys and added ‘Gold or silver?’ I’m still probably too proud of that maneuver.
5. I think the number five is more even than two, four, six or eight.
6. That’s unrelated to the Law of Fives, but I’m a believer in that too. Exactly how much is belief and how much is tongue-in-cheek is a mystery to everyone, including me.
7. Without the game Halo I wouldn’t have my job now, though the explanation is more than I’d care to type now.
8. There is a depressing fact involving a man from Glasgow and the number three, but I’m not going to tell you what it is.
9. I love snow more than anyone else I know. They think I’m crazy and I return the favor.
10. When we got a big snowfall this past Christmas, the fact that I’m 24 and a reputable citizen and all that went out the window as I seriously considered jumping off my roof like I did when I was 16.
11. Re: #5 I still remember the day that Gary Hoffmann (with two fucking n’s) handed me a copy of Illuminatus! that he had found at a used book store.
12. I like school, learning things and being forced to learn things. I had a bachelors by the time I was 22, a masters by 23 and am seriously considering going back in the fall for another. Whenever anyone tells me what course they’re taking, unless it’s law, medical or accounting based I generally wish I were taking it too.
13. I always wished I had skipped a grade, just because it would have proven how smart I was. Despite this, nearly all my friends growing up were a year younger.
14. On that note, I’d say I’ve made three friends since high school.
15. I was firmly in my 20s before I had seen a Sylvester Stallone movie. Now, of course, I’ve seen plenty.
16. I just coughed loudly. I don’t really think that’s interesting, but there you go.
17. I spent a few months using British spelling and grammar because I was convinced that, upon graduation, I’d be moving overseas, or at least to Canada. I’ve given up on that, but still use single quotes because I think they look nicer.
18. I’d listen to a person with an English accent read me the phone book.
19. The farthest east I’ve been is Aberdeen, but the farthest west I’ve been is… Chicago.
20. I know that 60652 is a zip code for Chicago, thanks to Scruff McGruff.
21. I don’t consider something to be lost until I’ve searched everywhere I think it might be. If I haven’t looked upstairs, and I may have taken it there at some point, it’s not lost. I just don’t know where it is.
22. I liked Wesley Crusher and don’t see why everyone hates him. But it’s been a while since I’ve seen TNG, so maybe I was missing something.
23. The Next Generation, by the way, is the best Star Trek series.
24. For some reason, I just realized that I’ve always mentally associated Jonathan Frakes with Frank Reich. I don’t know why that is. Number two, I guess.
25. In first grade I remember giving numbers personalities. Two was a young boy, three was a young girl, four was a teenage boy, five was a young man in love with six the young woman. Seven was slightly older than five and competed for six’s affection. He was a jerk. I also visualized math problems that way, ie to get to 12 seven and five had to work together to climb over a wall.
Well that was an interesting bit of introspection.
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