100 Random Facts

1. The closest I’ll get to skydiving is when I jumped out of a second story window onto my porch roof when I was 8.
2. My arms are ever so slightly double jointed. Once people notice, I make them uncomfortable just by sitting comfortably. lol
   
3. My first “paycheck” job was a bus boy at an Italian restaurant. Soon after I graduated high school, it closed and got demolished. In fact, it was the first in a long string of places I've worked that not long after, would also be closed and demolished. So if I work for you ever, you should be nice to me :)
   
4. I’m chill as can be in high-stress jobs but smaller responsibilities make me super anxious. WHYY!!??
   
5. I love to swim but the thought of wading in the ocean or super deep water terrifies me.
   
6. I passionately hate sweating unless I'm exerting myself on purpose. Sweating while sitting doing nothing or just after getting out the shower is just about the most disgusting feeling. Ugh.
   
7. My first time traveling alone was by bus at 15 to see if I wanted to go to a certain school out of state after I graduated.
   
8. My favorite flowers are sterling roses. They’re a pale lavender.
   
9. My least favorite color is that 60's shade of green that was seemingly everywhere back then and nowhere now thankfully.
10. Ever since I saw it in a movie, I’ve wanted to go see a blossom in the mountainous region of Japan. I don’t think it’ll ever really happen but its one of those things that I’ll never take out of my “someday maybe” folder.
    
11. I’ve never smoked a cigarette, been drunk, or done drugs of any kind and can confidently say I never will. If you grew up around nearly everyone you knew doing all of that too, you understand. That said, I find pot-smoker humor ridiculously hilarious.
    
12. I don’t indulge myself in this, but most of my waking hours, I’d identify myself as extremely introverted by nature. Because I love people, I may come across and look comfortable appearing to be the opposite, but given the choice, I’d stay at home and away from everyone pretty much most of the time.
    
13. The only album that has never left my CD player (or Spotify playlist) since I first discovered it at 16 is “Fumbling Toward Ecstasy” by Sarah McLachlan. It was life changing the first listen-thru and somehow keeps getting better the older I get.
    
14. I’ve battled near-constant neck and back discomfort since I was twenty. I’m constantly shifting positions and self-adjusting trying to find that elusive sweet spot where it doesn’t hurt for 5 minutes.
    
15. I love animals. My aunt worked for the SPCA and brought home any unwanted animal in danger of being put down. Every weekend I visited I was surrounded by dogs, cats, lizards, spiders, fish, ferrets –even a monkey and a boa constrictor—that she built habitats for in the “guest” rooms of her house. I still remember all their names…
    
16. I almost died twice in my life. First, at 16, when I came down with lobar pneumonia and struggled to breathe for almost 8 months. The second I was in my 30’s and was rushed into emergency surgery for necrotizing fasciitis. Don’t google it. It's gross and awful.
    
17. My stepsister taught me how to take care of myself, cut my nails and comb my hair, when I was little. She went on to have her own salon, which she kept open while also going to school to become a nurse. Ironically, I would eventually go on to marry a nurse much later in life… Its no coincidence that they get along like sisters, right?
    
18. I worked at a bank long enough to realize I never had any business working at a bank.
    
19. I wrote screenplays, poems, and ideas for video games and filled up six trapper-keepers (remember those?) with all of my notes till I decided to burn them all when I turned 20 in a desperate attempt to focus on things that mattered to me more. Ask me if I wish I hadn’t and the truth is no. An uncluttered mind is so much more valuable. If only mine stayed that way…
    
20. When I was 5, I would go outside and play cop, directing pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk in front of my house. I must've been incredibly annoying...
    
21. I’ve wanted to do something different with my hair so many times but was always too chicken to have to live with it and give people another reason to gawk at the fat guy in the store. So I got a hat :)
    
22. When I get so old that I cant do much in the way of productivity, I think I’ll go back to school and learn something that I cant possibly do for money anymore but just have the satisfaction of saying… yeah I have a doctorate in blah blah blah… lol
    
23. I’ve never had a professional massage. Freaks me out.
    
24. I wish I was one for puzzles and crosswords. But I’ll never be.
    
25. I was once hired to do voice prompts for a company.
    
26. As a kid, I was obsessed with fire. I rolled up newspapers, lit the other end and blew into it to make huge billowing ropes of flame. Where did I do this? In the “safety” of the WOODS behind my house, which I’m happy to say is still there and has no fire damage of any kind. You’re welcome, present occupants!
    
27. My great grandfather was a small-time mobster.
    
28. I’ve been full-on punched in the face, bloody nose and all, by a bully who hated me because I was fat. He actually went to the principal and said I started the fight. Never mind that he was 14 and I was 8 and he didn’t have a mark on him. Not exactly bright.
    
29. Because I was mostly estranged from my real father, I used to daydream I had a famous dad. Even though I was older, I ugly cried when Robin Williams, Sean Connery and Fred Rogers died.
    
30. Back to bullies, I once stood up to a good looking but total jerk of a guy in a bar I was DJ’ing at. He had too much to drink and was getting obnoxious and aggressive. I walked up to him and said, I know I’m fat and a good foot shorter than you, but you see how fast I mixed those records? Not all of me is slow. So maybe I make it, maybe I don’t, but if you don’t sit yourself down and chill out, we’re gonna find out if I cant sucker punch you in the junk before you can figure out that the DJ threatened you in front of a bunch of people who are gonna fill up my tip jar either way. Okay? He smiled, shook my hand, and sat down. I went to the bathroom to hide and recover from the panic attack that ensued when no one was looking.
    
31. For a few years when I was young, I had some compulsive disorders that included kleptomania. I would pocket things in plain sight and spend the whole time walking through the store, hating myself for not even giving it a thought or trying to stop myself. I didn’t even want these things I picked up, seldom even knowing what they were. I would go up to the manager before cashing out the things I was there to buy and say “These weren’t where they were supposed to be.” I don’t know how I worded that so perfectly that I didn’t have to suffer the shame of admitting what I did, but I was never so grateful as when the day came that I didn’t feel or give in to those random tendencies anymore. Its awful how easy it is to do wrong things. But not as awful as listening to the manager thank me for bringing it to them instead of just leaving it somewhere in the store, knowing in my heart that they somehow knew what I was doing.
    
32. I worked very, very briefly in radio, just as corporations started to buy up all the local stations. It was heartbreaking watching a business dismantle an entire industry I had spent my entire childhood treasuring.
    
33. I started to fight the habit of swearing when I was in my early to mid 20’s. The only thing harder to break is the tendency to voice negative thoughts, which I’m still trying to do, 20 years later ☹
    
34. I love being barefoot. But ever since I became diabetic, life played a cruel joke on me so that now I not only have to wear shoes, but also socks, all the time. I hope you never know the pain of being denied such a simple joy in your everyday life. Every time I put on a fresh pair, I literally have to fight back tears.
    
35. I hate math even though I’m good at it.
    
36. I used to not mind doing dishes. Now, it’s the one household chore I thoroughly detest and absolutely refuse to do. Paper plates, bowls, and red solo cups FTW 😊
    
37. I’m a maximalist who dreams of being a minimalist but accepts, with an ever-increasing melancholy, that it’s just never going to happen.
    
38. I hate reading. And unless its for others or to make a word pretty, would you believe I also hate writing!?
    
39. I love the taste of coffee, but I prefer caffeine much more in its other forms, like soda (yes... SODA!) Pop is a type of music. lol
    
40. I had someone break in and vandalize my home once. I wasn’t home for it though, thankfully.
    
41. At a certain low point in my life I was suffering from awful insomnia and feeling pretty friendless. I would spend whole nights in a booth at a local Denny’s. I ended up making friends with the cook, the manager, and all the servers, many of whom reached out when they got jobs elsewhere and said they missed me and to stop in to see them at the new place. These places weren’t open all night though, so I would help them clean at night when they closed up, have a meal with them or something after, and then go back home refreshed. It was this close-knit group of strangers-turned-friends that helped me kick my insomnia and have a sense of belonging at a point in my life where I had none.
    
42. At age 3, I got dressed in full makeup and costume with my grandpa, acting out being “kid Dracula” at the State Fair, complete with a hearse and coffin that I would open from the inside and scare people when they came near. There are pictures 😊
    
43. I once worked as an overnight janitor at a theatre. You wouldn’t think so, but to this day, I remember it fondly as one of my favorite jobs ever --for so many reasons: No boss, no customers, just the A/C and the music on high, and the satisfaction that when I locked up, the whole dang place was spic and span! There's tremendous satisfaction in odd jobs that no career can replace.
    
44. When I meet a really nice stranger (which happens quite often), I buzz about it the rest of the day. It’s almost like it’s my reward for pushing myself out of my introverted comfort zone.
    
45. I once bought something off a 3am infomercial. Never again.
    
46. Ive always been big. When I was a kid and played hide and seek, I used to frustrate my sisters and friends by hiding in places they never dreamt someone my size could fit. So there! That’s what you get for underestimating the fat kid 😊
    
47. My childhood idol was Stringfellow Hawke, the character who was the pilot of the attack chopper in the TV show “Airwolf”.
    
48. My favorite Shakespeare play is Merchant of Venice.
    
49. I love poetry. My grandfather got me into reading and writing poems when I was in my teens. I was particularly fascinated with the works of Walt Whitman.
    
50. Someday I would like to visit the European city that is my name sake, whose meaning translates to “new city” even though it’s one of the oldest in that country.
    
51. My teenage crush was Moira Kelly from the movies “The Cutting Edge” and “With Honors”, and who voiced Nala in The Lion King. It was her voice, honestly, that I found more attractive than anything… She spoke at the same pace as my brain, which as much of an asset as you would think being quick-witted would be, it actually hurts trying to slow it down. So why would I not be attracted to someone I didn’t have to do that with?  No surprise then that this is also what I find most appealing in the person I married. So, sorry Moira. It was fun while it lasted 😊
    
52. I once drove across 13 states in a box truck with a friend to pick up a bunch of big stuff he won on eBay. We just happened to have to drive through New Orleans during Mardi Gras. No flair was acquired… I was afraid to roll the windows down lol.
    
53. I’ve hung out in no less than six piano bars my whole life. There’ll be many more.
    
54. A week after I got my permit, I was in a horrible accident that wasn’t my fault but it made me never wanna drive again.
    
55. I firmly believe that hospital gowns are tragically overdue for a drastic redesign from the ground up.
    
56. My wife calls me the Lord of the Microwave. She says I can reheat meals better than some can cook. Ironically, like art, its all about layers, timing, and experimentation. (Yes, Brother Wolf, I know... layers are my friend. I will use them. I promise!)
    
57. My favorite colors have evolved throughout my life. Childhood was emerald green, then purple. A decade ago it was sage and burnt orange. Now it hovers between the green and blue swatches that neighbor teal.
    
58. I used to LOVE to sing. After becoming a DJ, I set up a huge sound system up in a country house where no one could hear for a mile in either direction and cranked it up and sang along to 80s songs I grew up on. I remember belting out Elton John, Gloria Estefan, and the song “Don’t tell me lies” from the 80s boy band “Breathe”. Don’t Judge. I was good 😊
    
59. I grew up with so many pets, mostly cats… Bandit, Patches, Dink, Gizmo, Sherman, Shauna… And now, Doo, a chihuahua, who is more cat than any of them!
    
60. I wanted to be a ninja turtle when I grew up. Raphael was my favorite. It was his weapons... You just don’t mess with somebody who double fists miniature handheld 3 pronged pitchforks. Cmon.
    
61. I may be fat, but I once took karate. No, really.
    
62. The quality I most value in a person is loyalty. You cant be loyal without also being kind and honest. Its like buy 1, get 2 free 😊
    
63. I was once headhunted to become a DJ at a strip club. I went on the interview knowing I would not be taking the job, but didn’t want to snub the agent for fear it might cost me future opportunities elsewhere.
    
64. I was once approached by a military recruiter while I was playing chess who tried to get me to sign up because “the country needs good thinkers to strategize and keep us safe.” I shuddered to think that their whole strategy was based on watching a kid play chess, and losing, and he didn’t know the game well enough to know that…
    
65. I won an art contest in 3rd grade for drawing a school bus with Mr Sketch smelly markers. The prize was a free pizza… but all I wanted were more of those markers 😊
    
66. The second thing I ever won was an essay contest, which got me a meeting and a meal with the mayor. I stopped entering contests when that’s as good as the prizes got lol.
    
67. I once held down four part time jobs at once, working each 15-20 hours a week. I don’t know how I was never late, but I was also never bored. And people say I can't multitask... HA!
    
68. After working a video store job for almost 3 years straight while still in my teens and never calling in once, the owner asked me why I never asked about vacation benefits. Little did he know I needed the money and couldn’t afford to. So before I could even say anything, he wrote me a check for $500 and told me to take two weeks off.
    
69. I once drove cross country with a friend to go meet a girl he met online, I ended up double dating with a girl from her dorm and we all went for Mongolian BBQ and played games all night at a 24hr outdoor arcade with pinball machines lining the walls of an old parking garage. #NerdLove
    
70. I once filled up an entire marble Mead notebook with lyrics to songs I wrote all through high school.
    
71. Sleep is overrated. But good sleep is severely undercelebrated.
    
72. One summer, I provided for my family by making homebrew board games and selling them on eBay. I also bought old Atari systems at garage sales, tested and repackaged them to sell. Between both, I made just shy of $4000.
    
73. I was a city kid, living on a busy street just outside of downtown till I was 11. At night I would put a tape recorder in the window of my upstairs bedroom and let it record while I slept. I'd wake up and listen to it on my way to school and hear the songs people played loud from their cars and boomboxes. That’s how I discovered hip-hop… because back then it wasn’t played on the radio and parents didn’t let their kids buy those records.
    
74. I once kept a notebook of songs I loved from music videos I caught on VH1 and MTV so I could look for and buy the albums when I found them in the used racks at record stores. Before the internet, it wasn’t easy at all to learn the names of songs and artists. #SpoiledByShazam #WaitingForTheMovieCredits #IWantMyMTV #IMissMyMTV #OldMTV #notMTVnow #BackInMyDay
    
75. Born mostly out of my grandmother’s fears which had a profound influence on me, I fought change my entire life. After she passed, I started letting things happen to me that I forced myself to have no input on. Its like… if being a driver is about control, and a passenger about acceptance, then the bigger truth about riding in a car is about making choices responsibly, not just emotionally. Doing so has made me infinitely happier and purposeful. I wont ride with just anyone, but if I do, it indicates confidence in who I let drive and awareness for when I drive others. Change happens both ways. You just have to treat it good.
    
76. I always loved the IDEA of working on puzzles, but I hate doing them. They make my brain hurt and remind me of my impatience.
    
77. I used to be a decent archer and aspired to learn fencing, thanks to Princess Bride and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but sure let’s keep telling ourselves we’re not influenced at all by the media LOL
78. I am neither a grammar nazi, nor a punctuation perfectionist, though I do believe wholeheartedly in clear communication and making things easy to read and understand. For instance, while I skip apostrophes entirely, such as when typing “I’m”, I insist on using commas, dashes, periods and ellipses when necessary… so that people don’t go full-on TLDR or stop out of confusion from a run on sentence... like this one :)
    
79. My life is good. I get to experience things because I’m alive. I get to contemplate and CHOOSE how to feel, regardless of whether the experience is something outwardly enjoyable or not. Sometimes (GASP) we have to wait in order to extrapolate joy from an experience. I strongly recommend reading "greenlights" by Matthew McConnaughey, which spells this out beautifully.
    
80. I hate that I am impatient, mostly with myself. I intentionally try to breathe and focus on myself and the moment I am in, but I also have a mountain of “moments” I want to be in and something has to lose for me to be in this one. The problem is too many choices. So I’ve learned to find joy in purposeful prioritizing and being willing to sacrifice things whose timing in my life has not yet come or promises to yield little fruit… to let those things that do not matter to me right now, or possibly ever, truly slide. Like poker, it’s about what you keep and what you throw away. And if you lose, you can play another hand. You can count later, or not at all!
    
81. I may be impatient, but I’m also never bored. At any given time, I have 20 or so things on a list entitled "Project Carlo". Some are things others ask me to do. Others are things I want to do. Either way, there’s enough variety on that list to keep me busy in things I’ve said yes to. But, the list is also long enough that I have no trouble walking away from it to do nothing, recharge, do things that don’t make the list or that yield nothing productive whatsoever. I think this has made me, in an albeit strange way, somewhat balanced. Even though anyone else looking at my life and how I do things would probably panic seeing it or trying it 😊
    
82. I like activities but I hate sports. Playing kickball, volleyball, and shooting hoops with friends is one thing. But tracking scores, being overenthusiastic, nationalistic and competitive is something I will never understand about owners, teams or fans... But go Bills! lol
    
83. I love etymology –the history of the usage of words and why they even exist. The word “etyom” is Greek for “truest sense” which encapsulates me and what I choose to pursue across the board. And when you look into the construction of even common words we all use and have taken for granted, you find such rich meanings from their beginnings that are so mind-blowingly enriching, you wonder why its not taught in school. My favorite word-discoveries are “disaster”, “company” and “confusion.”
84. Closely related. My grandfather never told me what things meant. He always told me to look it up, which he would often do with me. He never indicated whether he already knew or not. He didn’t have to. He was teaching me HOW to learn. And that sparked my interest in collecting old books, especially dictionaries… before they got revised or made into new editions where original meanings were lost or omitted.
85. It took me being in my 40s to learn how valuable proper rest is, and that there is so much more rest needed than one can get from sleep. There are in fact no less than seven different kinds of rest, and, like vitamins in food, none of us get enough of all the kinds we need.
86. I love old people. They don’t have a capacity for B.S., they don’t brag. They don’t waste their time, and when it feels like they MIGHT be wasting yours, usually, that’s when we need to pay closer attention.
87. My favorite underutilized words are “rubbish”, “entendre” and “minutiae”.  My favorite word concepts are “sonder”, “genius” and “husbandry."
    
88. My favorite candy bar is 100 Grand, followed closely by King Size Snickers. The rice, caramel and chocolate combo in 100 Grand bars is just so yummified. But the ratio in a King Size Snickers is also so satisfying. 😊
89. I once took an improv class. I don’t want to talk about it lol.
90. Before I learned to walk, I was an accomplished “scoocher”, pulling myself forward with my legs, scooting my butt across the kitchen linoleum at such a speed, my family would die laughing. This was of course before the era of home movies (thank God!)
91. Several people have told me that my profile looks like Fred Flintstone. I still don’t see it, so I guess I can’t be offended lol
    
92. I wasn’t a dog person till later in life. Though I love all animals, it wasn’t until I had a chihuahua in my life that I stopped saying I was more of a cat person. I simply cannot imagine loving any cat half as much as I do my Doo.
    
93. I went over 20 years without taking a single vacation. I won’t make that mistake again.
    
94. I once had an almost hour-long  conversation with someone I dialed by accident. Before we hung up, they thanked me several times for making their day and taking the time to just talk and listen.
    
95. I can do the “knife thing” that Bishop does in the movie Aliens. Crazier still, I can even do it blindfolded. I don’t know why I can do this. I even did it showing off at a diner after the bar closed when I was in my early 20’s. A guy bet me $20 that I would miss. It was super stupid, but somehow I still somehow have all my fingers, and got more than one free breakfast 😊
    
96. I grew up on an assortment of horror movies and books on paganism… Things that, after gorging myself on and studying in my youth, I find repulsive having grown up. No judgment on anyone who still does, but once you find out the truth behind the core of such things, it makes you wonder why you spent so much time on the “packaging.”
    
97. I’ve been told many times that I have a great handshake. (it’s apparently “quite firm, yet comforting”)
    
98. When I ask people how they are doing and they say “good”, I always probe further, because I legitimately want to know. I’ve started whole conversations with people who expressed gratitude for doing that. And It’s always a compliment when someone entrusts you with an honest reply.
99. I once wrote contemplative poems on life and appreciation, signing them “- Beast” from Beauty and the Beast, the TV series, where the main character quoted from Byron and Tennyson and the like. I remember thinking if I ever decided to publish anything, my label would be “Magic Mirror” after the unrelated Disney production.
    
100. I hate beets. And Brussel's sprouts. Ive tried both repeatedly to see if anything’s changed. Nope. These are facts. Both are bad. If you disagree, you’re wrong. If you argue with me further on this, you’re even more wrong. So please, for both of us, don’t be wrong.