My pal Will has tagged me. So I respond, albeit a bit late. Here are the rules:
*Let others know who tagged you.
*Post 8 random facts about yourself.
*Post these rules.
*Tag 8 others to continue the meme
1. The first time I ever sang with a band I realized I didn't know all the guitar parts I was supposed to play. I didn't want to throw the other guitarists off, but I felt it would be awkward to sing without a guitar, so I turned the volume on my guitar all the way down and kept on playing (silently) and singing (loudly). It was like lip-synching, except on a guitar.
2. I don't like going to sleep. I look for any excuse to not go to bed, and can usually fend off the slumber until 2 or 3 every night. It's not that I'm depressed or an insomniac or guilty or anything like that. I just prefer consciousness to unconsciousness.
3. I used to be a volunteer counselor at a rescue mission. I grew to believe that a person could tell rather quickly which residents would be or would become regular fixtures at the local missions and which ones would soon be back to normal life, never again to return to the mission. What those most likely to recover had in common was a will to survive and a sense of personal responsibility. If they could accurately assess the magnitude of their situation (i.e., recognizing the lifestyle changes necessary) and had something to keep them going--a job, a loved one, a sense of dignity that kept them believing that they were destined for more than crack pipes or empty bottles of Southern Comfort--they would probably get back on their feet eventually. A great number of them "saw the light" or claimed some sort of religious conversion, and nearly all of them had plans to change, but without an accurate self-assessment and without the will to keep on kicking, they would usually remain unchanged.
4. In junior high suffered multiple fractures in my sternum in a sledding accident. The bone didn't heal properly, and to this day I have a hole about the size of a quarter in between my sternum and my ribs.
5. I'm absolutely terrified of jumping into water from anything taller than me. It's not that I'm scared of heights. I jumped off a mountain in a parachute when I was in the Alps. That didn't scare me. I rode on a 300-foot tall giant swing in Florida (they said it was the world's largest), and it didn't bother me. But jumping off a 9-foot diving board makes my knees turn into jelly. I once worked at a camp where there was a 22-foot jumping platform at the lake. I vowed to myself that I would jump off it every time I was at the lake (I usually avoided the lake for that reason). One time I stood up on the platform for an hour and a half, unwilling to climb down but unable to jump down. It may have something to do with the fact that I have, on many previous occasions of jumping from high jumps, caused myself intense physical agony by not landing properly in the water...
6.The few times in my life that I've met any celebrities I've stubbornly refused to get any pictures with them. I'm not entirely sure why; maybe it's because if I were a high profile figure I would grow tired of impromptu photo shoots. Maybe it's because I'm too arrogant to acknowledge any sort of social hierarchy that would place someone higher than me and thus worthy of impromptu photo shoots. The main exception was when I met Jerry Springer. It takes a certain amount of genius to contribute so greatly to the devolution of American pop culture.
7. Once in a rather gloomy stage of life I had a guppy named Lavinia. (S)he lived in a blender. I had the blender plugged in. Lavinia was my statement to the world about the world. However, I tinkered with the electrical wiring to preserve his/her life from sadists or sushi-puree enthusiasts. When people asked me why I had him/her in a blender, I shrugged my shoulders. I thought if I told them they might assume I was just a sicko or an incurable cynic or both.
8. I enjoy the following words: fisticuffs, plethora, wunderkind, schadenfreude, androgyny (in a non-literal sense), tomfoolery. I find the following words obscene: moist, supple, slather, masticate. And while I'm talking about words I don't like, let me also add that the quotation-mark gestures should be used ever-so sparingly, if at all. And if you do choose to use them, make sure you keep proper form. The index and middle fingers of each hand should be the only parts of your body that move. Your wrists should not move, and your arms definitely should not move.
I now tag the following, and woe to them if they don't respond:
Chris Sligh
Brannon McAllister
John MacInnis
Jordan Gons
Brad Garrett
Jordan Poss
Jon Eckert
Derick Scudder