Syntax of Things: Me, Me, Me, Me, and Me

Seventy-five degrees today as I pushed the Marlie-filled stroller through the Raleigh Flea Market. Quite a sight all of those folks in shorts and tank tops and here it is the middle of January. Felt like a San Diego winter save for the fact that we didn't have to wait for a marine layer to burn off or watch our football team choke defeat from the neck of victory. That said, I'm a little ill after watching the Chargers lose that game to the Pats. Sure felt like their year, but whenever you have Marty Schottenheimer for a coach, you're chances in the postseason are pretty slim at best. If nothing else, now I don't have to make the tough decision that possibly awaited me come Super Bowl, assuming New Orleans gets there, the Saints being my favorite NFL team for as long as I can remember, at least up until my move to San Diego and my subsequent following of the Chargers. So with all of this heat and the disappointment of watching the Chargers come this close only to lose, I'm going to go light on the usual content today, opting for a couple of memes. This first one came my way through being tagged by FoSoT Geoff Young, the man behind Ducksnorts and Knuckle Curve and who may be escorting me up to Cooperstown later this year to see Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr.'s induction into baseball's Hall of Fame. So here's the meme:

Five Things You Don't Know About Me (and were probably better off not knowing)*

1. I wrote my first poem at the age of eight and believe it or not it was published in a national magazine. It was part of an assignment for a gifted student's class and the teacher liked it so much that she submitted it to some magazine for gifted kids. Unfortunately, to my knowledge no copy of the magazine or clipping of the poem exists today and my mom must not have found it worthy enough to save for the scrapbook. I do remember that it had something to do with a total solar eclipse that we had just witnessed and that the poem itself was short, maybe four or five lines, full of metaphor and complex imagery that helped unlock deep secrets of humanity, probably even explained the entire reason for our existence, I'm sure.

2. I think I've written before that I was offered a baseball scholarship by a small college in Montgomery, Alabama, but turned it down for various reasons, the main one being that I didn't want to go through some grueling rehabilitation that it would have taken to get my badly damaged knee back into playing shape. That said, I would have to say that my one claim to fame as a baseball player was drawing a bases loaded walk off a pitcher that would later go on to play in the Major Leagues for a few years.

3. I've broken my nose, at last count, five times. Twice in fights (thanks Scott!), once after running into some pipe that were sticking out of the back of my dad's truck, once when I didn't get my nose out of the way of a kicked soccer ball, and the last time after falling during a drunken stupor and hitting what I think was a trunk of some sort. As a result of all of this, I have what you would call a Roamin' nose.

4. I drank alcohol for the first time at the age of fourteen, a can of warm Milwaukee's Best that my friend Nick stole from his uncle. We were so afraid of getting caught that we actually poured the beer into an empty can of Dr. Pepper. I remember waiting for the buzz and being disappointed that nothing happened. Didn't take long to remedy that. The next weekend, Nick "found" three more cans and we both found out that warm beer consumed through a straw will do some interesting things to a young lad, namely, get him drunk.

5. I'm struggling to come up with five things, possibly a sign that my life just isn't interesting enough to make it beyond four. So I'll go with this one tidbit that I find somewhat absurd. For some reason, I'm having a tough time remembering our new home phone number. I still have to look it up when giving it out or ordering a pizza or filling out a form to preorder the new Arcade Fire album on vinyl (despite the fact that I don't own a record player any longer--Elaine having sold it on Craigslist to some guy in Pennsylvania). Yet, I still remember my first two phone numbers. The first one we had for the first twelve years of my life, so it might not be so odd that I remember that one, but I also can recall a number that we had for only one year. I didn't realize I remembered it until I started writing this and then I had perfect recall and to test it I'll have to ask my mom who will probably not remember but will have some way, I'm sure, of looking it up.

I think I'm supposed to tag someone, but I don't want to put any undue pressure on folks. So have at it if you feel up to it.

*I added the parenthetical.