100 Things About Me

Here I go, participating in the blogger's right of passage, the "100 Things About Me" meme. Can you think of anything more self-serving than taking the time to make one of these lists? Yet I read them on every Blogger's site who has them.

So here's mine.

1. I’ve been in a relationship for a total of 20 years
2. With the same man.
3. My mother can’t believe someone could stand me for that long.
4. We have a son
5. Our son lives with his mothers in Hawaii and he visits us three times a year
6. I’d rather read than watch TV
7. I have a secret love for the music of John Denver
8. I had surgery when in 5th grade
9. I fear the dentist though I have healthy teeth
10. My Uncle is a dentist.
11. I’m not afraid of my Uncle.
12. I don’t want to try skydiving
13. If I could be any animal character it would be the black panther Bagheera from the Jungle Book – sleek, fast, beautiful, wise and deadly.
14. If I could be any literary character it would be Woodrow Wilson Smith from Time Enough for Love (and other novels).
15. I hate talking on the phone
16. I tend to be a wallflower at bars and parties
17. I have the same initials as my mother: KSB.
18. I’m lactose intolerant
19. I’m highly allergic to cats (making number 13 kind of ironic)
20. I’m a light sleeper
21. I love candles and fires – anything to do with flames
22. I was lucky enough to have all four of my grandparents living as I reached adulthood.
23. I even knew two great grandmothers
24. I totally get Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Mahler, Beethoven and Copland
25. Brahms, not so much.
26. I still love reading the actual hard copy Sunday paper while sipping coffee…even though I read the paper online the rest of the week.
27. Once upon a time, I wanted to be a marine biologist
28. I was in love with my best friend from high school.
29. I carried that flame in secret for eight years.
30. I would like to learn to scuba dive
31. I want to be cremated when I die
32. I taught Sunday school when I was in high school
33. Today I’m agnostic
34. I play the tuba
35. I used to be good at it.
36. Boxer-briefs
37. I was a Civil War re-enactor for a time.
38. I have a personal trainer
39. He likes to make fun of my feeble attempts to get in shape
40. Numbers make me nervous
41. I got to conduct the DC Capitol Pride Symphonic Band and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington at the Kennedy Center. It was one of the highlights of my life.
42. November and February are my two least favorite months.
43. I am a Gemini. I doubt that means anything. But then again maybe it does.
44. I hate beets and liver. Other than I’ll eat it all.
45. And often do.
46. I’ve been in David Duke’s house.
47. He was there.
48. I want to learn how to country western dance.
49. I’ve been to England, France, West Germany (there were two when I was there), Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Scotland, Peru and Costa Rica.
50. I’ve lived in Washington, DC most of my life.
51. I’ve owned two boats.
52. I’m boatless now
53. I want to get another one
54. I was born in a wagon in a travelin’ show…well, not really, but in the foothills of Appalachia so it’s kinda close.
55. I tried Little League. I sucked.
56. I tried Jr. High basketball. I sucked.
57. To the disappointment of my family.
58. They supported my musical interests, however.
59. I started playing the tuba on the day Elvis Presley died. I don’t think the two events are related.
60. I used to live in fear of P.E. in school. Now I pay out the wazzoo to go to a gym. Things change. Of course, if I could have taken a sauna with our high school quarterback, I might have felt differently back then.
61. I suck at math.
62. Actually, I suck at most practical, useful things.
63. I fear Oprah
64. I’ve done drag on stage.
65. But I’m really masculine, honest.
66. I wrote the speech Lee Atwater was giving when he collapsed, the event that led to his brain cancer diagnosis. Again, I don’t think the two events were related.
67. I’ve seen, in person, every US president since Jimmy Carter except George W. Bush.
68. The worst part-time job I ever had was shoveling horse shit out of the barn.
69. The best was watchman at an abandoned coal mine.
70. My favorite science fiction author is Robert A. Heinlein.
71. My favorite gay historical figure is Frank Kameny.
72. I’m lucky enough to know him.
73. The only musical I was in was Fiddler on the Roof. I loved it.
74. I’m told I learned to walk by grabbing hold of the back of a sheep we used to have and walk behind it around the yard.
75. I’m told I have a funny gait. Now you know why.
76. Other pets/animals I’ve raised: Four dogs, one cat; hamsters, an Egyptian sand boa, more rabbits than I could count, two cows and one bull, a groundhog, a raccoon, tropical fish, and a pot belly pig named Madonna.
77. She was a material pig.
78. My house it 100 years old.
79. It is haunted
80. By an elderly black/Portuguese woman and a cat
81. We have witnesses
82. I prefer to eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch Mon – Friday.
83. People who try to manipulate me with guilt trips find it provokes the opposite response.
84. My favorite condiment is BBQ sauce.
85. I love Thai food. I have yet to try BBQ sauce on it, though.
86. I live less than a mile from an apartment building John Kennedy lived in right after WWII, a club where Danny Pearl used to play Bluegrass; a diner called “Tryst” where Congressman Gary Condit used to hang out with Chandra Levey; the townhouse Shirley Temple used to own and the summer cottage where Abe Lincoln used to hang out during the hot months. I think that’s pretty cool being near all that “stuff.”
87. First celebrity crush: Valerie Bertrinelli. Seriously.
88. But also David Groh (“Joe,” Valerie Harper’s husband on “Rhoda”)(Holy Moley he just died!)
89. I have to take a valium before going to see the dentist.
90. My favorite TV shows growing up were Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore, the Carol Burnett Show, and, in high school, the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
91. I could get through any tough day knowing I would end my day with a laugh with Johnny.
92. I hated Country Western music when I was growing up. It was all around me.
93. Now I’m finding I kinda like it.
94. Kiefer Sutherland would play me in a movie about my life.
95. When I was 11 or 12 the older nephew of a neighbor took me into a field to try a cigarette.
96. Someday I want to have a horse.
97. But be wealthy enough that I can pay someone else to shovel out the barn.
98. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
99. I think kissing is the most intimate physical act.
100. I wish I could be a through-hiker on the Appalachian Trail.