Years ago, my friend Kate sent me a message entitled 25 Things via Facebook. It included a list of 25 random facts about her and a request for me to reciprocate.
I suspect it was a meme of some sort at the time.
I made my list as requested and posted it online, too. But I also held onto it, recognizing that it was supremely valuable. It contained stories I had never told. Personal anecdotes worth sharing at the right moment. Oddities that I had forgotten until asked to remember.
It’s been an invaluable resource to me over the years. Some items have become stories, and others are anecdotes and jokes for stories and stand-up.
Some just make me happy to recall.
It was a surprisingly useful exercise.
I’d recommend it to everyone. Today, I began my “25 More Things” list, thinking that if it was useful once, it might be useful again.
When it’s complete, I’ll post it, too.
But for now, here is the original list, slightly updated to reflect recent events. .
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1. I once owned a pet raccoon.
2. I haven’t thrown up since 1983 on the Music Express at the now-defunct Rocky Point Amusement Park.
3. I was once homeless for about six weeks before being taken in by a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses and sharing a room with their pet goat.
4. I met illusionist David Blaine at a charity event and repeated a story so he could record my performance on his phone. Then he performed a magic trick for me and a New Yorker reporter that convinced me he’s made a deal with the devil. Then he gave me his business card, with his contact information embedded in a playing card — the king of diamonds.
5. Touching cotton balls is like nails on a chalkboard for me.
6. I was once unknowingly fed my pet rabbit by a girlfriend’s father.
7. A small band of cowards tried to get me fired from my teaching job by writing a letter comparing me to the Virginia Tech mass murderer and constructing a 36-page packet of my blog posts — deliberately taken out of context — then mailing the letter and packet to the Board of Education, Human Resources, and 250 families in my school district.
8. I have died twice before being revived both times by paramedics — bee sting and head-on collision.
9. Despite my many injuries, I have never been bruised. The same is true for my brother.
10. I asked my wife to marry me at the top of the staircase in Grand Central, with more than two dozen friends and family secretly looking on.
11. I’m left-handed but play many sports right-handed or with both hands.
12. I grew up outside of Boston but am a Yankees fan because I hated my stepfather, who was a diehard Sox fan.
13. I am a wedding DJ and non-religious minister who marries couples, works as a substitute minister in Unitarian churches, and performs baby naming ceremonies.
14. I have entered four lip sync contests and placed first, second, third, and last.
15. As a drummer in my high school’s championship marching band, I marched in the Rose Bowl, the Macy’s Day Thanksgiving Parade, and down Main Street USA in Disneyland.
16. I was a district champion pole vaulter in high school.
17. I was once lost in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for almost two days.
18. I was carried from my burning home as a child by a firefighter.
19. I grew up on a horse farm and rode horses almost daily until my parents divorced.
20. My favorite food is ice cream cake, followed closely by hot dogs.
j 21. I was robbed at gunpoint and knifepoint on two separate occasions.
22. I worked as a McDonald’s manager throughout high school and college.
23. I competed in underground Vietnamese arm wrestling tournaments in the basement of an abandoned elementary school as a part of a larger illegal gambling ring.
24. I was arrested, jailed, and on trial for a crime I did not commit.
25. I was suspended from school for “inciting riot upon myself.”
