Thirteen random facts about me.
1) Like many people, I learned to type from the early internet form of message boards known as "chat rooms" that were real-time. At first, I was a peck-each-key sort of fellow, but now not only can I type the correct way with the correct fingers and not look at the keyboard at all, but I can type nearly as fast as I can talk.
2) I have broken the following bones: Right navicular (wrist), left radius (wrist), left ulna (wrist), right 5th metacarpal (hand), right 4th proximal phalanx (hand), right 3rd proximal phalanx (hand), right first middle phalanx (hand). I have sustained second and third degree burns to the backs of both hands in a molten chemical accident, though my hand-hair grows in a slightly erratic pattern now and I have stripes on my hands when I get a suntan, there are no other outward scars from this. Also, I once cut my forehead above my left eye so deeply that I was able to see the bare white bone of my skull. This was from falling off of a bike wearing glasses with thick lenses.
3) I have played the guitar for approximately 12 years, and in that time, I have played for audiences of over 1,000 people.
4) I was a choral singer for approximately 7 years and I know the lyrics and vocal parts to hundreds of old songs, including several entire musicals.
5) I have two peculiar physical abnormalities of my hands. The first is a condition called "raquet thumb". You can see the difference in this image, where one thumb is normally proportioned and the other is rather short and stubby. Most people I have met with this deformity have only one raquet thumb, sort of like the fellow in the picture. I, on the other hand, have the more rare "bilateral" raquet thumbs. Not only does this pose me no physical difficulty, but it's actually a bonus in terms of massage therapy (less risk of arthritis in the shorter joint) and it makes me one HELL of a thumb-wrestler. The second deformity is that the two major palm lines of my hand instead of being distinct and normal are woven into a single large line that runs precisely horizontally across the palm of my hand. This, apparently is a simian trait that is often a signifier of Down's Syndrome, something that my mother's obstetrician probably scared the shit out of her about. As it is, this is a meaningless physical aspect of my hands, except for the fact that I have met no one else my whole life with this quirk. I don't even know if it has a name.
6) I have removed post-surgical sutures (stiches) from thousands of people. I have taken out plastic surgery sutures, facial reconstruction sutures, groin sutures, amputation sutures, and sutures made of monofilament plastic thread an eigth of an inch thick. If you had orthopedic surgery on the north shore of Chicago between 2001 and 2004, there's a pretty good chance I took your sutures out.
7) I was, for a time, a prosthetic technician. Prosthetics are manufactured by hand (using only medical versions of ordinary shop tools, no special die or equipment), and are made to extremely exacting specifications. I learned, during those 6 years, to be able to eyeball the width of more or less any small object to within a 16th of an inch. This is not an exaggeration. If you know me, you know I can do this.
8: I am terrified of spiders.
9: I once laid on a bed of nails, and had another bed of nails put on top of me, THEN had my good friend Sara Lepine stand on top of it. See the picture in the
Mark montage.
10: I once lived on a couch in someone's living room for a month and a half.
11: I knew I wanted to marry my wife after knowing her for only one weekend.
12: I am absolutely immovable on the subject of wearing seatbelts. I have been in four car accidents, none of which occurred while I was driving. I have never had a traffic ticket or been in an auto accident. I did once accidentally half-pull into someone's driveway in a snowstorm and undershot it, ending up in the ditch, but I was going very slowly and the car was unharmed. My dad heroically pulled me out with his pickup.
13: One of my new year's resolutions this year was to try and keep in better contact with my friends from college. I miss them, and college, bitterly. Though I have now been out of it longer than I was actually in it.
