This was originally posted to Facebook, but since Facebook might not always be around, I wanted to have a copy on a digital property that I own.

This has taken me a week to write (see #14).

Christina threw me a party for my 35th birthday and it was fun and awkward at the same time. There are friends and family that know parts of me, but they all know different parts. At the party, these varied facets of my life were brought together. They met and in some cases compared notes. I suppose that’s what makes these lists of “25 Things” so interesting; they are ultimately an act of reconciling the parts of our personalities. So here goes …

1. I haven’t played in an organized sport since the 8th grade. That year I was however awarded Most Improved … for, according to the basketball coach, “finally learning how to dribble AND run at the same time.”

2. I enjoy coffee; I don’t drink it out of pure habit and I won’t drink bad coffee. There is a time and place for tea as well, but it’s simply not my hot-beverage-of-choice.

3. I married my grammar school sweetheart and consider that the single best and smartest thing that I’ve ever done. (She’s #3 only because it’s her favorite number.)

4. I have few favorites in life. I don’t have a favorite color, favorite food, favorite place, favorite movie, favorite band, or any of the myriad of other “favorites” that people normally express. I think this lack of favorites comes from both liking many different things, and generally speaking, being an easy-going guy.

5. My lack of coordination is most acute on my left side. I am easily beaten at foosball because I can really only turn the handles with my right hand. Christina recently taunted me by brushing her teeth with her left hand after I confessed to almost poking my eye out when I tried.

6. I am 6’3″ and have been since perhaps the sixth grade. When I graduated high school I was a whopping 128 lbs – as attested to by my driver’s licensed (which I was only able to change a year ago.)

7. I haven’t always remained so thin though as, for a time, I was 220 lbs. After running for a few years my weight dropped to 150 and people began to worry. Now I watch what I eat, making sure that I eat enough to keep my weight up around 165.

8. I dislike TV. It’s not only that I find very little to watch, but I come across things that bother, disturb, and upset me. For example, The Real Housewives of X, or My Super Sweet 16, or Bulging Brides, or Ann Coulter hurt my soul.

9. I hate chicken fat. It is perhaps the worst thing that I can think of having to touch – and eating it is not even imaginable.

10. I don’t want to have kids, but I want to be a grandfather. I haven’t figured out how to accomplish this yet.

11. I am very neat; at home and at work, I like things to be organized and clean. Clutter makes me itchy; no matter how clean it is, it’s the clutter itself that makes me itchy.

12. I’ve registered for two races but wasn’t able to actually run in them (due to a broken pinky toe prior to the 2008 Bay-to-Breakers, and a tear in my medial meniscus prior to the 2009 Kaiser half-marathon.) I’m signed up for the 2009 Bay-to-Breakers already, so we’ll see how I can hurt myself prior to that one too …

13. I have been to eighteen states and eleven countries, and I’d like to visit the others before I die.

14. I am by nature a shy and quiet person. Christina gets so upset sometimes at my lack of communication that she threatens to count all the words that I say in a day to her. I’m sorry, honey.

15. I love books and I love reading, but as much as I like the idea of libraries, I don’t actually use them. I just can’t get comfortable with a book that who knows who else has groped and fondled.

16. My Mom names things, like her car (“Bubbles”), a water jug (“Iggy”), an insulated picnic chest (“Blue”), but I do not. Or, rather, I name them what they are. So, for example, if we ever had a kid, I’d want to call the kid “Kid”; if we ever get a dog, I’m going to name it “Dog”; I want a boat just so I can name it “Boat”; and I’ve actually investigted it, but someone else already has the vanity plate “CAR”

17. I hate shopping. Shopping actually makes me sleepy because it is so mind-numbing. An interesting dilemma for me would be choosing the lesser of two wastes of time: tv or shopping?

18. I coached Debate for 10 years and loved every minute of it. Especially if there were speedbumps that I could drive the school van over. I have more crazy stories from those Speech and Debate years than even I can remember – like the state police holding one of my debaters for questioning, while we were at a tournament …

19. I am the primary cook for the two of us. Not only is it because I’m the first one home, but I genuinely enjoy it. I do not, however, bake as that requires far more patience and adherence to written procedure than I can muster.

20. I envy people who speak multiple languages, and I envy people that have musical talents. Being able to produce music still strikes me as somehow magical. If I somehow found a genie in a lamp and was granted some wishes, I would wish to know more languages (Spanish and Tagalog for starters) and be able to play an instrument (piano or guitar, I can’t decide).

21. I have talked students through their pregnancies and pregnancy-scares, and I once moderated a group of recovering cocaine addicts.

22. I am both spiritual and religious. I believe in God, and I see God in all things. I am far more religious, I think, than most people suspect. It’s just one of those personal things that I keep to myself.

23. I miss my dad more as time passes. There’s just so much to share with him now, so many things that I know he’d appreciate and enjoy.

24. I credit Sr Margaret Mary, Mr Art Cecchin, and Mr Matt Barmore with me becoming a teacher. They showed me that teachers can help students grow into their best possible selves, motivated to make the world a better place than they found it. I’ve never told any of the three just how much they mean to me (see #14).

25. While the second is perhaps more obvious, it’s a long story in the case of the first, but suffice it to say that I would not be who I am today without them. I credit two women with saving my immortal soul: Kate Denning and Christina. And I’ve never told them either (see #14).