I love to write.  I love to write almost anything – poetry, journal entries, blog posts, photography prompts, essays, to the point of preferring essay questions to fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice on a test.  Why? Because I’d much rather find and use my own words to answer a question than try to do a mind meld with a teacher where I have to prove my understanding by finding the words that they are looking for, which does not prove that I understand a concept.  It merely proves that I am capable of observing how the instructor understand it.  For this reason, as a teacher, I always have essay questions on my tests.  My love of writing doesn’t mean that I am good at it; it just means that I love the process.

The one kind of writing I loathe is that which requires me to write about myself.  I realize that any kind of personal writing can be distilled down to writing about oneself.  That’s not what I mean here.  I’m talking about the kinds of writing that require me to list all of the things I do and have done.  Curriculum vitae, resumes, any kind of biographical sketch.  When asked to write a biographical sketch, my preference is simply to write, “I am who am I am and I do what I do.”  I suppose this appears a bit flip on first reading, but that really is not my intention.

We are able to accomplish all of the things that we do because of the person that we are; because of how we think, how we feel, and how we interact with the world.  At least this has always been my experience, though I know there are way too many people out there who receive credit for things because of the people they know.  That is a topic for a whole other blog post!  Back to my point.  The tangible things that we include on any kind of biographical statement are manifestations of our inner self.  They do not really say much at all about who we really are.

Case and point:  My CV lists many academic papers that I have presented.  “Symmetry and Parallelism in the Serial Works of Igor Stravinsky”, “The Sacred Geometry of Chartres Cathedral”, “You Are What You Listen To: How Music Affects You”, “Words, Words, Words: Building and Assessing Student Vocabulary”, “Antonin Reicha’s Cours de Composition: A Czech Contribution to the French Theoretical Tradition” and so on.  Do you feel like you know me any better by having this information?  Having written these things does not negate the fact that I could indeed be some kind of sociopath.  Some might even say that if this is the kind of stuff that interests me, it is quite likely that I suffer from some kind of mental disorder.  The truth is that what we do is not nearly as important as the why and how of what we do in showing who we truly are.

Are you wondering what sparked this particular piece of writing?  

I was asked to share “three fun facts about yourself” for an icebreaker activity at an upcoming event.  Ugh!  Two things that make me want to crawl under a table – writing about myself in this way and icebreaker activities…both forced and uncomfortable, mostly because people really don’t want to know the truth.  

This type of writing throws me into an existential crisis.

Here are some truthful (though perhaps not fun)  facts about me:

• The majority of my friends are gay.  I’m not.  We have many things in common, the most important being respect and love for one another.   We enjoy long walks, breaking bread, theatre, and traveling together.  Our differences in sexual orientation don’t matter. And no one has tried to “convert” us.
• I don’t care what your religion is or isn’t as long as you are a kind person.  Remember what I said about my CV?  I can present as a gifted academic and actually be a serial killer just as many people present themselves as believers and act in ways that are totally antithetical to the faith that they profess to follow.
• I loved the COVID Lockdown lifestyle.  It was heaven to an introvert.  There were not many people on the roads so I could get up in the morning and run without feeling like I was risking my life.  I taught online so it didn’t matter what I wore, or didn’t, or if I’d showered after my run.  Food was delivered to my doorstep.  Luxury at its best.  And I had lots of time to read.  I’m still trying to figure out how students lost ground academically when we had so much time to spend with books.  Speaking of books, why in the hell do we even have something called banned books?  Another fun fact about me, I believe that this term is totally unnecessary.  If you don’t want to read a particular book, don’t read it!  It is as simple as that.  You may not want me to read To Kill A Mockingbird, or The Great Gatsby, or The Diary of A Young Girl, or The Handmaid’s Tale…and this ridiculous list goes on and on…but, if I suggest that my local library ban The Bible or any kind of pro-hate literature, the book banners will surely rise up and assert their rights.  Another thing about me, i cannot tolerate hypocrisy.  It literally makes me physically ill.  How’s that for a fun fact?  Probably one that I should not include on my list of icebreaker fun facts.  (I wrote about my feelings on hypocrisy here.)

My point in all of this is that these three things tell you much about who I truly am.  You may not like me after reading them and that is OK with me. At least you are making that decision based on truth rather than fiction.  That said, sadly, I can’t submit these three things as my fun facts so I’m still left with a “writing assignment” that I don’t want to do, but have to.

So, what fun facts can I (reluctantly) write about myself that are meaningful, truthful, don’t make me feel like I am a character in some kind of role playing game, and most importantly, don’t offend anyone?

Here are some possibilities.  

1. I enjoy the math problem involved in figuring out how many days I can eat an apple and a bag of Peanut M&Ms for lunch and still keep my weight below my IQ.  (Size bag of Peanut M&Ms may vary.)
2. I think it is kind of cool when my email inbox number and my street address are the same.  *NOTE: My street address is a five digit number.
3. I use the phrase parametric incongruity regularly and some people actually know what I mean.
4. My favorite color has not changed in fifty years.  I kind of miss that orange shag rug and bean bag chair of my youth, but not the twin bed.
5. In 1986 I helped code a music sound and graphics package in Apple Assembly language.  Now I can barely keep my phone updated (or my Inbox cleaned out).
6. When we built our greenhouse, everyone would ask, “what are you going to grow?”  Instead of saying, “We have no clue,” I would respond with, “As soon as growing weed is legal in Texas, we’ll have retirement income.”  Weed still isn’t legal in Texas and the greenhouse is filled with coffee plants, spider plants, bonsai, hibiscus and a few other random things.
7. I have more Lego bricks in my studio than there are real bricks on all the houses on my mile and a half long suburban street.
8. I am 61 years old and to this day I have never done most of the things that my mom assumed I was doing in high school…but, I do have an ongoing bucket list.  (See #6 above.)

Look at that.  Eight fun facts about me.  Which three should I use?  Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

I’ll tally them and determine the top three right after I go see how many people have deleted me from their friends list on Facebook.