I’ve been tagged for the first time ever by the witty Kate, over at Eucalyptus Pillow, to list 6 Things You Don’t Know About Me. Kate lives and works in Columbus, Ohio - which was my birthplace and where I may still be on record as being the third biggest baby ever born at University hospital (but my brother stopped checking years ago, so I’m sure there’s been some strapping little chunk or three who have knocked me out of the top 5.)

Ah, shit… I coulda used that as one of my things! Damn. I was 25.5 inches and 11 pounds, by the way. And my mom was 42 years old!

1. I love cars. Not the Pixar movie. The real things. I own three of them right now - my Jeep, a 1980 Indy Pace Car Trans Am, and a 1968 GTO. I used to have a ‘67 Firebird that L.A. Mommy drove around in but we sold it. I do all my own work on my cars, when I can. I didn’t know how to work on cars until after I graduated college. Once, I had to pay a couple hundred bucks to fix my starter and I got pissed about that - I asked the mechanic why it cost so much. He said it really shouldn’t cost that much - it was basically two wires and two bolts. So, I went to a junkyard, bought an old Buick and completely rebuilt it from the ground up, learning as I went along. The car only ran for about 5 minutes after that… but I knew how to fix ‘em. To pay for my trip to LA, I fixed up and then sold about 9 cars for a profit. They told me at the DMV that if I sold one more car I was going to be considered a dealer and would have to pay income tax!
2. I’m a closet metrosexual. One of my favorite shows is What Not to Wear on TLC. I can actually go to a mall, buy clothes for L.A. Mommy, and she doesn’t have to return them. I subscribe to GQ and I look at the ads. And… I have a cat.
3. I was an uncle the day I was born. My mom had me 20 years after my brother was born and he had two daughters by the time I came along - “Hey, lets go see Uncle Tim at the hospital!” I always say that I was an accident. My mom always says that I was a surprise.
4. I used to smoke. When I lost my sense of smell, my doctor said I couldn’t drink anymore (that lasted about 8 months, but…) so I took up smoking. I really enjoyed it, too. I smoked from when I was 20 until about 26. I had always said I would quit smoking when I didn’t enjoy it anymore. And it took another year after that to kick it. Back in 1995, I had to sign a “non-tobacco users agreement” for my health insurance and I picked that day to stop. Cigars helped me break away from cigarettes and then I stopped smoking cigars. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
5. I have trouble learning everything I can about something before I start using it. If I get a new cell phone, I only read the directions long enough to figure out how to turn it on and off and how to make a call (apparently my phone takes pictures. I have no idea how…) If I get some new software, I only will learn enough how to do the basics and won’t delve in to get all the gizmos and wing-dings that come with it (for example, I use Wordpress to blog and didn’t bother to learn about the damn SPAM plug-in thingy they say works so well….) I usually stop reading when the instructions say, “Plug the device in.”
6. Uh, let’s see. One more. I’ll go with a downer. My dad died when I was 6 months old. I was always the “little man of the house” when I was growing up. As such, I never wanted to do “kid things” and always wanted to grow up waaaaay too fast. I kept busting my ass in school so they would let me skip a grade - each time they wanted to move me up, my mom would say no because she didn’t want me to “not have any friends his age.” I didn’t seen any animated films or “Disney classics” when I was growing up. The very first animated kids film I saw was The Lion King. I did see The Exorcist, Jaws and so many more “adult themed” movies the theater when I was a kid (I had a local theater that let me in to anything I wanted to see so that I could grow up real fast.) Now, I look back and wish I could go and be a kid again. It’s the one thing I want to tell my daughter (as I get to fulfill my lifelong wish and be something I never had… a dad) when she’s begging to be a grownup… enjoy being a child because it goes fast enough as it is.

And now I’m going to tag Kaz, over at I Hate Snaps to fill us in on 6 Things We Didn’t Know About Him. Okay, I’m off to go try to make another baby. (Sigh…) It’s hard work bein’ me…