My century plus one

A few years ago several people listed 101 things about themselves. The idea may be ready for a little revival.

I started worrying that I don't have much to say about myself at the moment. I wondered what relevance noting what I have done in the past has to do with who I am now. I was thinking categories: physical characteristics, likes, dislikes, recreations, vocations for example. I think I just need to make a list , one of many possible lists . . . this might take a few days.

1. I have acted in amateur community theatre productions.
2. I practise playing various musical instruments.
3. I have short legs and a long back in proportion to my height, otherwise known as a short arse.
4. I weigh 12st 12lbs or 180lbs. Don't ask me what that is in kilos.
5. I like to read - almost anything including cereal boxes.
   
6. I hate repeatedly starting sentences with the first person singular.
7. Blue is usually my favourite colour.
   
   
8. My favourite shirt is red. Black, pink, yellow, purple and blue shirts are in my closet.
9. People remarked on my blue/grey eyes when I was younger. A cousin of my mother noted that I had the blue eyes of the Gaze family.
10. My work does not define me as I have no career BUT I have:
11. Pollinated maize/sweetcorn at a seed company's trail grounds
12. delivered newspapers
13. made bricks
14. delivered mail
15. operated small offset printing presses
16. manned a level-crossing
17. driven a taxi in Los Angeles of all places
18. delivered documents for a land tile insurance company
19. been an hospital orderly/physical therapy technician
20. conducted opinion surveys by telephone
21. cared for the developmentally challenged in various capacities from sheltered workshop to group-home management.
22. helped out in a used book store which is about to close . . . what next?
23. My oldest friend I've known since we were five years old
24. My singing voice started off treble and is now not quite high enough for a proper tenor but not low enough to be truly baritone.
25. My prolonged silences make some people uneasy
26. I am hopeless at small talk
27. but I don't know enough to engage in deep conversation
28. I compensate for this with flippant remarks
29. My brown hair is turning grey
30. I use British spelling (usually)
31. pronunciation: schedule -  shedule or skedule? I get confused
32. My books are my own; I rarely use a library
33. a fault: I interrupt conversations.
34. I bounce up and down when I walk. I attribute this with keeping up with dad when we went walking across the fields when I was much younger than I am now.
35. I miss the crowded pavements (sidewalks) of English country towns on market day.
36. Change-ringing on church bells is an avocation
    
37. as is singing in a church choir
38. serving as sacristan in the past
    
39. Scouting in the past
40. walking for charity in the past
    
41. I have only once, uncharacteristically for me, abruptly left a job otherwise I think of myself as
    
42. loyal to a fault - once my loyalty has been earned.
    
43. I have only once been asked to leave a job.
44. I think I can remember all the names of the children in my class at primary school.
    
45. I remember very few names of people from secondary school.
    
46. I have no idea how many books I have about the house
    
47. I am equally vague about how much money is in the bank
    
48. Now I'm just getting silly, what did I say about flippant remarks?
49. I'm not particularly fond of large crowds of people.
50. I'm the sort of person who will talk to one or two people at a party; I am not the life of the party.
51. I won a fancy dress competition at a village fête dressed as a clown. This was about the time Grock died (1959) so I was eight years old.
    
52. Roller skating, I haven't mentioned rollerskating, just something kids do.
    
53. American slang was anathema at primary school. Kids are young goats!
    
54. procrastination: I had a copy of Huckleberry Finn in my school desk for almost a year and was terrified I'd be in trouble for keeping it so long . . .so I kept it a little longer.
    
55. I don't habitually use bad language out loud. I find the effect on others when I do most amusing.
    
56. My sister's first husband would use foul language all the time but not in his native Serbo-Croat "Someone might hear me" In England?. That isn't about me.
    
57. I usually don't sleep much: bed at ten awake between three and four in the morning - not quite six hours usually. I spend far too much time here.
    
58. Fortunately I am not allergic to cats - we have eleven about the house.
59. When I was a child I had a couple of severe bouts of urticaria - possibly a reaction to eating fish. I liked my smoked haddock on a Saturday morning.
    
60. Talking of urticaria I fell into stinging nettles several times. A friend's mother lathered me in calamine lotion the first time this happened . . .
    
61. When I was about six I ran into the road into the path of a bicyclist. I still remember the sink full of watery blood at the doctor's surgery; and waiting for the ambulance to take me to the general hospital at Colchester. The scar is barely perceptible now. My head was x-rayed to rule out skull fractures. I received five stitches and was given a sweet for being so good. A young brain is quite resilient - but I do still sometimes wonder . . .
    
62. I was bitten by a dog I knew would bite me when I tried to stroke it. I still knowingly do foolish things sometimes.
    
63. A bicycle represented freedom for me to wander further afield. My first second hand bike cost £5. It was a Hercules with 24" wheels. It took me ages to learn to ride a two wheeler. Never had a little bike with training wheels. In later years when I had proper bikes (i.e. Reynolds 531 tubing, derailleur gears, drop handle bars, tubular high pressure tyres etc) I had one mishap at about forty miles an hour; luckily  I wasn't injured but the bike frame buckled.
    
64. I never answered the call of the sea as quite a few lads from the village did. Merchant and Royal Navy.
    
65. I still hold a British passport. I think some Americans would not qualify if they had to go through the naturalization process. I doubt I could pass any quizzes on my English-ness as some people ask me questions about England that they perceive I should know the answer to, to authenticate my accent.
    
66. I didn't learn to ski until I was in my thirties.
    
67. My wife said I should have no trouble listing 101 things about myself. My retort was,"You try it".
    
68. I keep a cheat sheet of extended character code by my computer so I can stick out my tongue without hunting in system tools for the character map,  þ so there.
    
69. Yes, I am one of those sad souls who puts up with a Windows™ based PC.
    
70.  I believe it was Will Rogers who said,"I never met a man I didn't like". If my first impression of someone is not favourable toward them I pray they may say or do something to change my mind. That's a bit harsh. If I make an unfavourable first impression (how do I know I have?) it's usually for doing something physically clumsy. For a great take on first impressions watch the first episode of Doc Martin with Martin Clunes.
    
71. Mine is a good name which I've read in various sources can mean rock or harmony.
    
72. It's a wonder my middle name hasn't become NMI. American forms always seem to assume that I have a middle name or initial.
    
73. When I was about six or seven I had a very un-PC golly-wog hand puppet I called Geoffrey. That was the only alter-ego toy I remember having; I used to make up puppet shows with it.
    
74.  I seem to rarely smile. I was always smiling and grinning when I was young. Nervousness? Shyness?
    
75.  I do not swim. I know how to. I can not swim strongly enough to save my life. Breathing is the issue. I can swim underwater. I hated the idea of being under water when I was young; I overcame that fear by myself when I was about eleven. I screwed my eyes shut took a deep breath and plunged my head under the water at a public outdoor pool in Colchester that was popular in the summer holidays. I lasted for as long as it took to pop my head up out of the water. Too claustrophobic so the second time I kept my eyes open; that was just fine.
76. My hair is unruly and shaggy.
77. Winter will soon be here; I shall be growing a beard again or as I say, "Time to stop shaving. I don't like shaving anyway."
78. My brain seems to function better when my feet are cold.
79. The voices in my head have Welsh and Scottish accents. The English Welsh of the Valleys and the soft Scots of the Gaelic speaking Highlands.
80. Am I really barking mad?  I just wonder sometimes if any one of us is sane.
    
81. I like to dream dreams in my sleep. What I really like is remembering them. I'm puzzled when people ask if I dream in colour. I can't imagine and don't recall ever having a monochrome dream. What I don't like is waking in a foggy dream state that continues into consciousness. Mum used to think she never dreamed,; we told her she just didn't remember the dreaming. That was about mum, not me.
82. This isn't about me either but about the relationship between my parents; I didn't know this until after my mother died. Each night before going to sleep dad said, "Goodnight, my love. You're the best pal a man ever had." Every night for over fifty years.
83. I no longer smoke. I infrequently smoked a pipe and twenty-five Sobranie Black Russian in the sturdy box used to last me a week if I didn't share; so when I did smoke I didn't smoke much.
84. I like the occasional pint of Guinness. But you know that if you've read the rest of the blog.
85. My friends used to describe me as the staid one.
86. I tend to procrastinate, which is why this isn't finished.
87. I'll now make a lie of number 86 . . .
88. I miss being close to the ocean.
89. I wear size 9.5 shoes; they have to be wide I have square-ish feet with a high instep so I can never wear cowboy boots.
90. I don't wear hats.
91. Or ties, usually.
92. I play the dulcimer daily
93. I try to write something daily even if it is only a note to my self.
94. I like bananas
95. And plain vanilla ice cream - together.
96. I spend too much time playing on this computer - get a life
97. I wear the same sweat shirt daily - it is embossed with a cross of Celtic design.
98. I like silver rings and have several but wear only one besides my wedding band of three colours of gold.
99. I like dark bitter-sweet chocolate
100. I have a cowlick which drives barbers spare.
101. There was an old man named Michael Finnegin, He grew whiskers on his chinnagin, the wind came up and blew them innagin, poor old Michael Finnegin beginnagin . . .
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