1. This list is in no order of importance and should be read with the knowledge that I wrote it during random free moments over the course of a year. It also makes a great substitute for those yearly "about me" updates.
2. I wrote number 25 first.
3. I wrote number 2 after number 53, but before number 30.
3.5 I like playing with numbers, but I'm lousy at arithmetic
4. I'm not very fond of the color yellow.
5. I love the song "Yellow" by Coldplay
6. I believe that when life gives you lemons, sometimes it's best to push 'em down the garbage disposal to get things smelling better and then go looking for some chocolate.
7. I love eating a spoonful of peanut butter as if it were a lollipop.
8. I love the idea of lollipops, but I'm not a big fan of your traditional candy pop.
9. Insert crude gay joke here....it'll probably be semi accurate.
10. If the preceding makes you uncomfortable, you shouldn't be reading this list.
11. I don't smoke in the car. (gave it up about 8 years ago)
12. I don't smoke at work. (gave it up about 6 years ago)
13. I don't smoke while walking along the street. (never liked doing this)
14. I generally only smoke if I'm having a drink.
15. I still smoke too much.
16. I've never really enjoyed cold pizza for breakfast.
17. My baptism as an early teenager was a last ditch effort on my part to thwart my evil gay self.
18. Not too much after that, I realized that God was actually okay with the gay thing, but it took me a while to accept the burden of being different.
19. My mom makes the best ice tea in the known universe.
20. I sometimes wish I could still curl up in my mother's arms and feel safe from the rest of the world.
21. I've felt strongest when I've held my mother in my arms and comforted her.
22. She is still one of the strongest people I know.
23. I believe that there are two types of families: the type you grow up with and the type you find out in the world.
24. I'm very lucky to have a biological family that is also part of my world family.
25. I have a tattoo on my upper right arm.
26. My brother has a matching tattoo.
27. My brother is one of the most important people in my life.
28. My dad is another important person. We don't talk as often as we could, but he helped shape me by allowing me to be myself. (No matter how much it may have hurt him at the time.) I love him very much for that.
29. My husband is the most important person in my life. I call him husband because it's my own truth, not because of some government sanctioned definition.
30. I still like to view life as a big "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
31. I have no desire to visit one, but the term 'Opium Den' sounds quite romantic to me.
32. My understandings of certain words are still colored by the context in which I first encountered them.
33. I first read about opium dens at age nine. I'd been given an English comic book, possibly a Tin Tin adventure story, by a cousin while visiting family in Germany.
34. If I could do it all over again, there's very few things I would change.
34.5 One change would be to spend a semester in Germany.
35. I'm happy with how it all turned out, but it'd be interesting to see who I'd be today if I'd come out at 18 or even 16 instead of at half past 21.
36. The best way to get me to ignore you is for you to say that you're angry that we don't see enough of each other.
37. I spent a lot of my life feeling as if I were solely responsible for other's feelings and ended up in some rather co-dependent relationships because of it.
38. I've worked through most of that now, but I still have a pretty harsh judgement about people who become too needy with me.
39. If you see me walking purposefully through the halls at work or typing quickly and intently, I'm very aware of you and probably on my way to make a personal phone call or writing a personal email.
40. In the past, when I had more time for the above, I'd often be commended for working so hard that day.
41. These days I really do work that hard, and sometimes wish I could go back to the old ways.
42. This number resonates for me. I miss Douglas Adams.
43. Work Mike and Home Mike have similar outfits, but different levels of acceptance for craziness in the world.
44. Number 43 is made possible by the letter C (for caffeine) and a paycheck every two weeks.
45. I hate being awake and alone at 3:33 am.
46. My favorite part of an icecream cone is the last bite. (sugar cone only please, none of those cardboardy cake cones)
47. Being outside in nature makes me horny.
48. G thinks this is silly, but realizes that it gets me to go camping occasionally.
49. Skydiving in Hollister, CA for a good friend's 30th birthday gave me the best high I've ever experienced.
50. I once spent a wonderful night in my early 20's helping two Canadian guys finish off a huge bag of pot they were afraid of taking into Hungary. (We were on the night train between Zurich and Vienna.) This was a more traditional high that I also enjoyed.
51. There was a Swiss girl and a German guy in the compartment with us. We smoked and talked throughout the night, and connected in the way that only young strangers on a train can. I often wonder what happened to all of them.
52. I've never been to England or Scotland, but made a promise to myself that I will make it there in the next decade.
53. I've never been to Australia and would love to go, but am okay with the fact that other things may take precedence.
54. I miss being able to drink gin. I love the taste, but sometime after my 30th birthday, I started having an allergic reaction to it.
55. I believe in a higher power, but I also believe that it's beyond comprehension.
56. Placebo effect or not, prayer and other forms of spellcasting have a tendency to work.
57. Religion isn't important in my life, but spirituality is.
58. I have several friends who'll be surprised to bump into me in the afterhere, but I'll never try to change their minds beforehand. Everyone has a right to hold their own truths about religion as self evident...unless they involve human sacrifice or suffering. I just can't get behind that.
59. It makes me sad that people are willing to fight wars and discriminate over silly definitions, but I do love to debate them. (Just to be clear, I love to debate definitions, not wars. War, in the surprisingly astute words of Boy George, is stupid. No need for debate.)
60. Walking the lava fields in Hawaii is a moment I will hold with me forever. Partially because of the surreal landscape, but mostly because of who I was with and who we were at the time. Oh, and the beach after dinner when she let me kiss her.
61. I've never been to Iceland, but I'd really like to visit.
62. I think that sex is like pizza. Even when it's not so great, it's still pretty good. (But oh when it's great, it's incredible!) But no anchovies please.
63. If it hadn't been for the gay thing, I would've looked into joining the Air Force.
64. I've always loved flying.
65. I sometimes make up or edit my own stories to make people feel better.
66. Over the years, I've found that telling a funny story on yourself is often all it takes to get someone to smile.
67. Being a bit of a klutz, I have quite a few funny stories, but none as funny as the ones I make up.
68. Over the years some of the stories I told as a younger person have entered into my personal mythology, and I have a hard time remembering how much of them is based in fact.
69. I love this number, and not just because of the sexual implications. It's the yin yang number and looks a lot like the astrological sign for cancer.
70. I don't believe in astrology, but I do believe humanities destiny lies in the stars, I just hope we figure it out after we figure out how to fix the planet we started on so that we don't ruin another one.
71. This list has been written over the course of a full year, but I feel like you already know that...you do, I sometimes repeat myself.
72. I once almost lost a friend because I started to crush out on his boyfriend. It's very important to me that I told him the truth and that we managed to work through it together. We're better friends now because of it.
73. Asked for my favorite food, I often say steak, but peanut butter might be a more honest answer.
74. I'm scared of being buried alive, so cremation seems the wisest course of action. It's also environmentally a better choice. No sense taking up space when you really don't need it anymore.
75. G's ability to care about the environment and the future of the planet is one of the things that made me fall in love with him.
76. I think that G's ability to make magical food out of the simplest ingredients is...magical.
77. I used to worry that I'd never find the right guy.
78. Now that I found him, I worry that he'll go away.
79. G is the most important man in my life.
80. I believe that I'm personally responsible for my own happiness.
81. I think people who say money won't buy happiness are using a cliche to avoid having to think too hard.
82. If I suddenly found myself a rich man, I'd be happy because I already am happy, but the money would certainly grease the wheels of the machinery which I use to run my life.
83. I believe there are times when drinking straight from the carton is permissible.
84. I secretly believed that Armegeddon would arrive in 1984, and was a bit disspointed that life continued on. I was very tired at 14.
85. I'm more alive now than I ever was as an early teen.
86. Sometime, when I am a very old man, I hope to go to Belgium and sit on a particular bench with a close friend.
87. I love long, hot showers. They give me time to think.
88. I used to love walking home in the rain with my head held high, but now that I wear glasses instead of contacts, I find it a bit annoying.
89. I am seriously considering Lasik, but loss of sight is one of my greatest fears and I'm not sure I trust it yet.
90. I don't like Starbucks coffee, but I drink it when it's my only choice because I'm addicted to caffeine.
91. I love Illy coffee. I get it at the little corner market on the way to work on mornings that G sleeps in. I'll miss that market more than the apartment when we move.
92. In college, when I'd find myself feeling bored, I'd sit by a window looking out at the campus and remind myself that there'd be many days in my future when I'd long for these good old quiet days.
93. I was right about #92.
94. I feel that our society is overly concerned with the external, but I still let myself worry about my own appearance.
95. My favorite breakfast consists of coffee, Nutella on freshly baked roll and a big glass of water.
96. Sometimes it's good to go to a friend's apartment and whine for a while, or, more pleasant for him, just chat. Especially when it's right above my old apartment.
97. I miss my maternal grandmother more than I realized I would. She told me, the last time I saw her, that she'd try to come back and say hello. I still keep an eye out for signs of her.
97.5 Sometimes I see them.
98. The funnest day I ever spent in Europe occured in 1996 when Mark and I ran around Paris taking pictures of every typical tourist attraction we could find, just for the fun of spending time together.
99. This list is almost finished, and it makes me sad. I may have to start another one.
100. I'm more connected to some folks now than I might've been had I not started this blog, and I'm very glad of that.
101. Number 29 and 79 are the same statement. It bears repeating.