This is only here because something about oneself seems to be mandatory for one's web page.
  Odds and ends, in random order
-- My left eye used to be legally blind. This may no longer be the case; with age and increasing farsightedness, it has improved.
-- I was deaf for a couple of years of my childhood.
-- A blood vessel burst in my brain once. It hurt. A lot.
-- Bones I've broken: heel, kneecap (still broken, 25 years later), wrist, and 3 ribs.
-- Musical instruments I used to play: piano, guitar, flute.
-- The saxophone is the only instrument I've never learned to play that I'd like to learn to play.
-- I couldn't learn how to diagram a sentence.
-- I didn't understand the subject/object distinction until college.
-- I taught a guy to climb and later found out that he knew George Lucas and invented the word "wookie".
-- I'm supposed to be a math genius. I'm not.
-- I'm sexually attracted to vegetarian women, even before I learn that they're vegetarian. This, and other experiences, have convinced me that sexual attraction is chemical, like pheromones.
-- I've had more nicknames than anyone I've ever known.
-- I was the only ROTC cadet in college who couldn't put his rifle back together. (ROTC was required; I mostly skipped going.)
-- Chainsaws are my favorite tool.
-- My earring hole closed up so fast (twice) that I gave up on getting it re-punched, and I can't wear an earring any more.
-- I will try any food in a restaurant, no matter how exotic.
-- I have zillions of moles and am very likely for various reasons to get skin cancer.
-- Is the big hand on a clock the fat one, or the long one?
-- I never chose a career. It chose me by accident.
-- I can't stand to wear a ring, and it took years of trying before I could tolerate wearing a watch.
-- I've pulled so many stupid dangerous stunts it's a miracle I'm alive.
-- My wife and I were married outdoors in Yosemite, and I sobbed uncontrollably through the entire ceremony.
-- For a while in my thirties, I looked like William Shakespeare (people actually told me this). I was born on his birthday anniversary. I can't read his plays - the language is too archaic for me.
-- No woman I've met in a bar has ever taken me home. Parties are another story.
-- I dislike all domesticated animals - cats, dogs, horses, you name it.
-- Good posture is a most attractive trait in a woman.
-- I bought my first car, a used van, a few months before my 27th birthday, to move my belongings back from L.A. to K.C. (That's right, I lived in L.A. and didn't own a car, only a motorcyle - which, by the way, fit in the back of my van with my other stuff when I bought the van.)
-- I talked early, walked late (at least, I think this is right).
-- I would be happy if I never had to work on another computer, ever.
-- I had very bad hay fever and asthma as a child, which I've grown out of.
-- For much of my rock-climbing career, I was afraid of heights.
-- I want to be a vegetarian, but lack the discipline.
-- I want to stop indulging my sweet tooth, but lack the discipline.
-- I don't think, I know, that most Hollywood movies are worthless crap, and that this problem is getting worse all the time.
-- Classical, opera, rock, blues, most ethnic music, are mostly good. Metal, country, rap, and techno are mostly crap.
-- I believe that our country is seriously screwed up, but in different ways than most people think. Mostly, people think I'm a lunatic when I vent my opinions on what the real problems in the U.S. are, because they don't fit neatly into the usual left/right categories, and because they seem like odd things to worry about.
-- I flush urinals with my elbow.
-- I can't remember the last time I danced.
-- I don't think, I know, that Bill Gates is the soul of evil.
-- I am less organized than I used to be.
-- The bikini is the greatest invention of our culture, except the electric light and the flush toilet.
-- Every motorcycle I've owned has been approximately twice the cubic centimeters displacement of its predecessor. This means I'm only allowed to buy one more bike, my fifth, before I die, because then I'll be maxed out (they don't make bikes of 2600 cc).
-- I dislike taking photographs.
-- The first good operating system has yet to be written.
-- We haven't learned to do philosophy properly yet.
-- Science is just as much bullshit as anything else. The only exception is mathematics. All other human endeavor is inaccurate, at best.
-- I used to be able to do one-arm pushups, but I've never been able to do one-arm pullups.
-- All else being equal (which it never is), I prefer a woman to have earlobes, rather than lack them. The bigger the lobes, the better, especially when they turn hot and red during sex.
-- I have never cheated on my wife. (The above comments on women and sex are true, but mostly apply to my single days.)
-- I used to dislike my big nose, but until today, hadn't thought about it for decades.
-- There are three scars on my hands from occasions when they were seriously cut: by the top of a hurricane fence, a coffee can lid, and a broken piece of glass.
-- Kindness is the supreme virtue, and patience is second.
-- My ancestry is mostly German and English, not that it matters.
-- Overrated, untalented entertainters (let the misspelling stand): Madonna, TAFKAP. They're both from Minneapolis. Coincidence? You be the judge.
-- The only sexual disease I've ever had is crabs. If you can call it one.
-- I have never understood why rock concerts are so loud. Maybe it's because I'm subconsciously afraid of being deaf again. Or being deaf made me unable to adjust to loudness.
-- I wish I owned an orchard.
-- Choosing betwen books and people would be very, very difficult.
-- These people getting tattoos because they're fashionable are going to be very sorry when they get old.
-- The only kinds of genre literature I'll read are murders and thrillers. The rest of them seem hopelessly inane. I've never read a romance novel, and only a few sci-fi novels. I have read dozens of Louis L'Amour books, but now he sets my teeth on edge. As a rule, genre fiction suffers from inexcusably bad writing.
-- Marilyn Monroe was attractive, but she should have spent some time in the gym toning that flab.
-- One of my ancestors was a general in the Revolutionary War who died in a battle he tried to prevent his men from getting themselves into. He predicted exactly what would happen, and tried to save his men, and paid for it with his life. His name escapes me just now. [Later: looked it up. Nicholas Herkimer.]
-- Driving makes me irritable.
-- People who talk on the cell phone while driving should be sent to jail: one day for every fifteen minutes on the phone. (I've done it myself, actually.)
-- I used to like the name Monica, until that airhead Lewinsky happened on the scene.
-- My handwriting has improved. It used to be very bad.
-- Intelligence counts for next to nothing in this world. Energy, determination, and character are much more important.
-- I started losing my hair at 19. Grass doesn't grow on a busy street.
-- Cybersex is a contradiction in terms. Ditto for phone sex. These are simply what used to be known as mutual masturbation, but now it's virtual mutual masturbation. This strikes me as rather sad, but what do I know? Maybe I should try it.
-- Woody Allen's short stories are much funnier than his movies.
-- My favorite director in high school was Ingmar Bergman. Man, I was pretentious. (May still be, for that matter.)
-- When did I stop singing in the shower?
-- Astrology is bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
-- Even after 20 years of knowing someone, they will surprise you.
-- I dislike my appearance.
-- I used to fall in love a lot. This stopped about the time I met the woman who would become my wife.
-- I hate being drunk, hate being stoned, hate all altered mental states except those induced by non-chemical means. I haven't taken drugs in nearly twenty years.
-- I'll stop procrastinating tomorrow.
-- Sometimes I dislike being touched, sometimes I don't mind, and sometimes I like it.
-- I'd like to learn to fly helicopters, but not airplanes.
-- A girlfriend of mine wrote stories about her imaginary lover and hero Zon DeElderway when she was a child. I thought then and think now that this is one of the greatest names ever invented.
-- American football is symptomatic of much of what is wrong with this country: short attention spans, too much complexity, and too hierarchical and specialized. It is boring and extremely contrived. Its dirty little secret is that it's popular because it's televised, and it's televised because it has so many interruptions that the networks can use for commercials. There are many other good reasons no one but North Americans play this game.
-- Soccer is a beautiful game, and very much like reality itself in the way it flows. It is uneventful for longer periods, subtle, and its sense of time is true to life. There are many other good reasons it is the world's most popular game.
-- I had no wisdom teeth, and one of my regular teeth never came in (there wasn't even a bud for it).
-- I've read Jude the Obscure and Marius the Epicurian and other half-forgotten classics for pleasure (not for school). (Are you listening, Nicole?)
-- Until a few years ago, I factored numbers compulsively. Driving along, I would factor almost every license number or house number I passed.
-- I talk to myself when I'm working, even when there are people sitting next to me.
-- I used to enjoy looking at things in office supply stores. I don't enjoy this any more, maybe because the little stores have been replaced by big impersonal ones.
-- "Ginger, or Mary Ann?" Tough choice. To quote the song, "Why can't we go on as three?"
-- The human race will be extinct before another 100,000 years pass, and probably much much sooner than that. It's almost certain to be our own fault, and we will deserve it.
-- I can't act worth a crap. I will never be in another play as long as I live.
-- My middle name is my mother's maiden name. It was my Dad's idea.
-- I smoked unfiltered Camels for a while, but didn't pick up the habit.
-- I believe that no one is special. Except my family. Sometimes I feel such love for them that it brings tears to my eyes.
-- It's embarrassing to live in Kansas, for a number of reasons. I still consider myself a Missourian.
-- I used to ride my motorcyle on the L.A. freeways while seated on the gas tank in the full lotus position.
-- I've done many bold things - hell, many hare-brained things - but the idea of bungee jumping scares me.
-- I used to volunteer for things all the time (a suicide hot line, teaching literacy, etc.), but haven't done any of this for many years. It's time to start again.
-- I'm not skilled with my hands, except at tearing things down.
-- I was raised Catholic, but my father was an atheist.
-- I sweat excessively.
-- I tried hard, but I could not master the Eskimo roll upside-down in a kayak.
-- I'm usually irritable for an hour after I wake from a nap.
-- Before you cut down a tree, you should always apologize to it and explain why you're cutting it down.
-- When I die, bury me in the mountains in an unmarked grave, with no coffin. Just pile some rocks on top, to keep the coyotes off.

Some things I like
Some things I loathe

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