10 Things You (Maybe) Don't Know

1.) My mom told me she thinks artificial grape flavor smells like cat piss, so I got a whole roll of the grape flavor Bubble Yum to piss her off when I was a kid because she wouldn't get off my back about less than stellar grades.

2.) My parents are huge Pink Floyd fans, as am I. As a result, I have seen Pink Floyd live twice in my life. Not many people my age can say that.

3.) I once consumed a whole fifth of Captain Morgan in two hours. Half of that fifth was consumed in a half hour. Those lucky enough to be in #eoff the night I told the resulting aftermath knows what went down after that.

4.) Based on how the song sounded when I was very youg, I interpreted the Pink Floyd song "Careful With That Axe Eugene" as "The Pumpkin Song." I gave my dad very brief descriptions of why I envisioned that. As a result, my dad wrote me a children's book that is read along to the song. The story is about a Pumpkin that was just chilling when a flying pig on the wing ominously came from the dark side of the moon claiming to be just going about its business. He then attempted to murder the pumpkin by dropping his axe at him, but luckily the pumpkin sprouted arms and legs and dodged in time. The axe proceeded to give chase to the pumpkin through a forest with various animals and even though a white brick wall. My dad chose to leave the story with an open ending. You never see what happens to the pumpkin, but one of the last pages features the pig eating pumpkin pie. My dad still reads this story to me every Halloween.

5.) My first memory is when I was barley a year old. I actually remember the feeling of grasping language, but being unable to speak it.

6.) I have been told I look angry most of the time. It's a defense mechanism that I unknowingly developed because I took being picked on as a child way too personally. When I saw a therapist a few years ago, she later confessed to me that she was legitimately thought I was going to yell and scream, or at least have some sort of epic meltdown during our first session before she got to know me. I rarely do any of those things. If anything, I think I am more laid back, and prone to simply bitching about a problem instead of exploding over it.

7.) I suck at eye contact. It's not a shy thing. It's a sensory overload for me. I can do it if a professional setting calls for it, but otherwise I feel like I am peering into someone's soul, and that makes me uncomfortable.

8.) I once had a bad day in school when I was in 6th grade. We were forced to keep a journal, so I wrote very negative things in blood from a picked scab and casually talked about suicide. I didn't know that I would miss half a day of school the following day. So my whole class thought I actually killed myself. To this day I think that's one of the unintentionally funniest things I have ever done.

9.) In a school yard fight I pulled off a Tiger Uppercut.

10.) I have dreams that connect years apart. Don't know why that is. For example I met two children in a dream when I was a kid. Years later, I had a dream as an adult where I met them and they, of course, were adults too. In shorter time periods, I will have a dream where a bathroom or something is under construction. Months later I will be in the same place and the room is fully furnished.