I wrote this on Facebook, for one of those 25 Things About Me things. Usually, I avoid those kinds of things, but I was free one morning and decided to give it a whirl...(FYI to people who already read this: the original was just 20 things, but I've added a few more, so you can just skip on down...
2. I am a night owl who always wishes he were a morning person. I envy the person who rises before dawn, goes for a run, makes breakfast, does some chores around the house, and then showers and goes to work. I consider that freakish. But I envy it. Going to bed has always felt like giving up on the day to me--so I do it under protest, and have ever since I was a child. Consequently, I average 4 hours sleep per night. At least 2 times a week, those early risers find me also outside in the predawn hours. walking the dogs--the difference is, I haven't slept yet.
3. I hate traveling. My curiosity about other places and cultures is astonishing minimal. Anyway, that's what Wikipedia is for.
4. I hated college back in the 80s, HATED IT, couldn't wait to drop out, even turned down a scholarship, I wanted out so bad. 30 years later, I dropped back in to erase that incomplete on my soul. And I found that while I have changed in many profound ways over those years, I still HATE COLLEGE! HATE IT!
5. I haven't read a People magazine in over 10 years, or any entertainment magazine for that matter. I haven't seen Entertainment Tonight, or any of those types of shows in at least as long. I read the Arts section of the NY Times maybe once a year. I never watch awards shows--it isn't an active dislike, I just can't work up the interest. I don't judge those who like that sort of thing--we all have weaknesses. I just decided long ago to divorce myself from popular "culture." I actually had to ask someone a year ago who Lindsey Lohan was, which I consider a small victory. Even my movie theatre visits have dwindled to 3 or 4 a year.
6. I am Midwestern and I embrace that. When I was young, I wanted to be a citizen of the world, like Hemingway, but ran into a fundamental problem with that goal (see #3). Now I believe if you can't get it in Ohio, you can probably do without it. I have cloaked myself entirely in Midwesternism: I refuse the offer of coffee the obligatory 3 times before agreeing to half a cup, but only if you've already got a pot going. I don't want to put you out. If a relative gives me money for a holiday or birthday, I refuse it the obligatory 2 times before reluctantly pocketing it. I am suspicious of NY and LA. I believe in stoicism. I want people to nut up. If I have fundamental doubts about the universe and my place in it, I assume -- rightly--that no one else cares, and get busy with my lawn care.
7. The death of the City Center Mall grieves me in ways I find astonishing. I can't pass the place without a pang of sorrow. I remember the optimism of its grand opening, how so many friends (some no longer living) worked there. I remember the interesting shops, the beautiful Xmas decorations, the constant activity. Now, when I walk through it, it reminds me of being in my grandmother's house a few weeks after she died--when it seemed as if the house died too, all motion having come to a halt.
8. I hate camp. I hate camping. Just pretty much anything with "camp" in it.
9. Last year I was mentioning Laurence Olivier to a group of my students, and saw the blank looks and realized none of them knew who he was. Didn't even bother mentioning Ralph Richardson. But I decided right there that though they say the world belongs to the young, I am not ready to cede it to them yet. Their horizons are much too narrow to given such a big thing. I am fairly certain I was aware of things not in my immediate orbit when I was their age. I am turning grumpy in my middle-age.
10. Having said that, I enjoy the company of my students, and young folk in general. I like their energy, and optimism--it helps mitigate my ennui and pessimism.
11. I believe if you hunger for fame, there is something elementally damaged about you. But I still hope to famous one day. The number of college theatre students who graduate and head for New York reminds me of WWI soldiers mindlessly going over the top to charge the Hun, only to get cut down a few yards from the trench. I am warm and happy in my little trench, and have no desire to face the fusillade--some call this cowardice, but I call it wisdom. I belong to no pack, no herd.
12. People say money can't buy happiness. The people who say that are idiots. Rich misery is much better than broke misery. I have always believed I have no problems that 10k in my pocket couldn't cure.
13. Having come from a family tree with many alcoholics dangling from its branches, I am amazed I have no taste for booze whatsoever. Or coffee, for that matter. My drink preferences sort of got set by the time I was 10 years old--Pepsi, iced tea, lemonade. Don't understand wine drinking. The making of a highball after work is an alien act to me. If I never drink another beer in my life I believe I'll be ok with that.
14. Speaking of family trees, my mother's side came to America in the late 1600s, fought in Washington's army, got a large land grant to western Maryland, and established 10 generations of uneducated hillbillies on that ground, who had, by the time my mom was born, drank it all away, acre by acre. That side also seems to have had several profound brushes with law enforcement, the most sensational being my great Grandmother, who along with her lover murdered my great grandfather , was acquitted in a sensational trial, and lived to be run over by a train in her 90s. Through that side, I am related to JonBenet Ramsey.
15. As mentioned before, I am a midwesterner. I am also a liberal. These things are not, despite what the national media would have you believe, mutually exclusive. But I confess I am a liberal in the small town democrat mode--not for me the vegan, hemp skirt wearing protesters at WTO meeting. I cringe whenever I see Katrina Vanden Heuvel on the Sunday morning talk shows. I roll my eyes at Hollywood liberals like Tim Robbins. Woody Harrelson's lifestyle makes me guffaw with embarrassment, like watching Lucy Ricardo screw up the chocolate factory. I am green only when it is absolutely convenient, and can impact me immediately, like money. I believe in a woman's right to kill her unborn child (refuse to play semantic games)...I believe in government subsidies for arts, so long as they aren't Piss Jesus...I believe socialism is the most enlightened form of government, and though the world has never really seen it work well on the large scale, you see it all the time in small towns...
16. My favorite epithet for years was simply " Fuck You!"... lately it's become "Fuck Me!" Don't know what this says...
17. I find my belief in God leaking away, like brake fluid.
18.I believe every fight is a fair fight. To my chagrin, I am a hitter. If you hit me, I will hit you back. If you are a diseased 80 year old woman in a wheelchair, and you hit me, watch out, cuz I'm bringin' the thunder.
19. I wish I'd never started smoking, and I hope I never quit.
20. When I learned I was diabetic, my first thought--no kidding--was to all the books I won't get to read because of a shortened life span. When I turned 50, I actually counted the number of dogs left in my life, by relative sizes: I have maybe 3 large dogs left, maybe 1 terrier. The number of cats is nicely fluid, thankfully, cats being what they are.
21. Dogs live in two worlds: Good Dog, and Bad Dog. That's all they know. They assume their default position is Good Dog, but are constantly looking for your affirmation of that fact. Once they've been sentenced to Bad Dog, they do everything they can to get off the schneid, and get back to Good Dog. Most people are like this too, but labor under the delusion that they are more complicated than that. All most us really want is for someone to muss up our hair and ask "who's a good boy?"
22. Except for my parents, there isn't anyone left alive who remembers the little boy I was some 40 years ago. We disappear twice over the years--the last one of course is our own deaths, but before that there is the slow erosion of who we are and were, grains of our past carried off by the deaths of loved ones and friends. For many years there was a phalanx of biddy aunts and rough uncles, all of whom knew me from diapered ankle-biter to sullen teen. But they are gone now. Everyone except my parents knows only the grown Mark. Some day, sooner rather than later, that little boy will disappear forever.
23. Note to non-smokers: you need to get over yourselves. You cannot stop me from smoking. You cannot stop me from smoking where you are. If you don't like it, you must walk, silently, away from me. I am standing right here. I'm not moving. And I may have another while I'm here. And the same goes for vegans. That cig followed a thick, bloody steak. Not remotely interested in your opinion on the matter...and I may do all this wearing fur. Fuck those seals.
24. I am an unabashed watcher of TV, though my tastes are narrow. I like a lot of the shows cable is throwing up there now--Mad Men, Damages, Dexter, True Blood, Burn Notice, Rescue Me, and a few network shows: 30 Rock, 24, House, Law and Order. Hate the CSI franchise, hate shows that ripoff other shows, like The Mentalist (rips off Psych), the new one Lie to Me (rips off House, as did several other shows, starring an enigmatic self-loathing lead, and a supporting cast of people who comment on his self-loathing). No reality shows, ever! Also, refuse to watch any show with an FBI profiler, surely the biggest boon to TV in generations. I bet there were never more than a dozen profilers in the history of the FBI, but there have been hundreds on TV, all psychically damaged by their gifts and way too young (and most under 30, female, and beautiful)-- which is funny, because in the real FBI, you are dogshit till your 40s.
25. I hate contrarians.
So sayeth I.
So sayeth I.
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