Editor's Note: Since I already wrote this on Facebook, I figured that I'd post it here too, just because it's been almost exactly six months since I posted anything. Which is ridiculous, even by my standards of laziness and procrastination. So, being that this is a nice place to talk about myself, here's 25 things that I wrote about me that I think are pretty noteworthy, pertaining to the glory that is being me. I held a brief press conference with myself ten minutes ago and I agree with me, that this post relates to me in a way that only I can.
Me, me, me. I'm done now.
(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
1) My full name is James WIlliam Rockwell. If my middle name had been Edward, I would have been James Edward Rockwell III. So while my name racks up some serious WASP points, it could have been worse. I also come from at least three generations of Jims, which prompted my parents to give me the unisex nickname that I still go by today.
2) I have always had horrible eyesight. I started wearing contact lenses in 5th grade, which would have improved my confidence level as a kid if I could have avoided getting clocked in the face during 5th grade after-school Bombardment (Dodge Ball). When your whole grade has to stop doing something to crawl around on the floor looking for a tiny piece of transparent plastic you dropped, it's gonna be a little awkward.
3) Speaking of, when my friends are over and they put my glasses on, they say they can actually see through time.
4) My favorite movie of all time is The Big Lebowski.
5) My favorite album of all time is Radiohead's The Bends.
6) My favorite book is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
7) I once high-jumped over a bar at my actual height (6'1). I only did this once, but fortunately, it earned me second place at a conference meet, so I got to pretend to be really good in Track for a week or two. Which is ironic, because the primary reason that I did that event in the first place was so I could take a nap in the high jump pit after school instead of running.
8) I shaved off all of the body hair outside of my bathing suit area three times for swimming district meets in high school. I definitely don't recommend it. Inversely, I spent a lot of time in high school around girls who purposefully didn't shave their legs for months at a time for the same reason, one of whom was proud enough of her leg hair to keep me updated on a regular basis.
9) Some people have irrational fears of things that probably don't exist, like vampires or zombies. I have an irrational fear of aliens. I think it's because of too much research for a book report I did in middle school about alien abduction, and the movie Fire in the Sky, which reminded me of said book report. There's probably also a hint of The Last Starfighter in there, which bothered me because if I do get called upon to save the universe, apparently they would replace me with someone who has even more potential for social awkwardness than I already have. Get it right, alien android science.
10) I don't like clowns for similar reasons, mostly the movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space. I told this to a friend of mine in Colorado once, and she responded indignantly by saying that not all clowns are creepy, and that she had gone to clown school. I felt bad at the time, but now that I think about it, she was probably lying.
11) Apparently, I'm pretty gullible.
12) Speaking of, for some reason, there is such a thing as clown porn. Thanks, college roommates/the internet. Oh, wait...this is supposed to be about me.
Uh...when I was in college, I lived with the type of people who laughed hysterically at clown porn for at least the better part of an afternoon. Hey, it wasn't little people or farm animals. Well, that time, anyway.
13) It affects me emotionally when comic book superheroes die.
14) I keep wishing for superpowers, and I keep getting continuously disappointed when I wake up without the power to fly unaided or the ability to shoot concussive force blasts out of my eyes.
15) My brother and I drove an '87 Pontiac 6000 in high school named the Gray Ghost. The Ghost had all sorts of special features, such as stapled ceiling upholstery, a hilariously inaccurate fuel gauge, perpetually cross-eyed headlights, and one of the first, and certainly the most literal, prototypes for keyless ignition.
Since there was a snowball's chance in hell of getting the car all the way down to Oxford from Cleveland in one piece, my brother drove it in college at Muskingum, where it was more of a community car than anything else. When he was about to graduate, he sold it at a graduation party to one of his buddies for $27.61, which was the exact amount the kid had in his wallet at the time. The Ghost's new master had intended to paint the number on the side of her and put her in a demolition derby, but since she was too much of a rolling firebomb to make specs, the kid, s#!#canned out of his mind, put a brick on the pedal and drove her into a lake. So, the Ghost's final resting place is completely submerged underwater somewhere in eastern Ohio.
16) The Ghost wasn't the only car I've had a part in naming. There was also the Green Machine, the Red Baron, Black Magic, Black Beauty, the Toy Car, the Party Wagon, and my personal favorite, the Flying Swede, which was Mike Eshelman's grandma's Volvo.
17) I was an amusement park caricature artist in various levels of management for 14 consecutive seasons since I was 15. I'm still on the payroll, even if I only really go in to help out the rookies every once in a while. I can say that the customer service aspect of the job really showed me the best and worst that people have to offer. I still draw on the side at festivals, birthday parties, corporate events, wedding receptions, bar mitzvahs, etc. through a few different booking agents. While I'm pretty proud of my quick sketch, I feel like I've been standing on the same artistic plateau for years now, and the fact that I rarely make any art for myself these days doesn't help.
18) Because of my working experience with Kaman's Art Shoppes, working in climate controlled environments is still a pretty new thing to me.
19) Even though I like drawing them and it's a nice source of incremental income for me, I believe that caricatures are pretty much the closest that the visual arts can get to prostitution. The fact that I'm good at it only makes me a better whore.
20) My first concert ever was Nine Inch Nails at the CSU Convocation Center.
21) The last concert I went to was Ra Ra Riot at the Southgate House.
22) I regret that, even though I graduated with decent grades, I didn't apply myself to academics as much as I should have in college.
22) I've lived in ten different places in three different cities in 2 different time zones over the last ten years. Ironically, I hate moving.
23) I drank more malt liquor in college than you did. I didn't say that I'm proud of it.
24) The most important thing I've ever done was giving a eulogy for one of my best friends at his memorial service, written by his mother.
25) I can't do simple math in my head to save my life. When I was a senior in high school, my only non-AP class, besides gym, was Trig, which I took with mostly freshman. At the end of the first semester, when I found out that I didn't need to take the second semester to graduate, I told Lonchar that I was quitting. I was kind of expecting him to put up a fight and tell me to stick with it, but he said, "Yeah. That would probably be best." Trig and SAN 163 (the only class involving math that I took in college for a requirement) were the only Ds I ever got in school.
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