A Filthy Pack of Lies, Numbering 25
1. This list was initially 50 items long and all composed of actual accusations made against me by people I went to high school with.
2. Technically, I'm not the first Michael Van Vleet in my nuclear family. I had an older brother who passed away before I was born, so my parents just used the same name again.
3. I have three tattoos so far. One is a set of Chinese characters that say "I don't read Chinese." Another is a hula girl whose grass shirt covers the immensity of my belly and who I can make dance, horribly. The third, I have only shown to intimate friends, or by appointment.
4. I have an allergy to squid, but a few times a year, I eat it anyway, just to see if I'm still allergic. I choose Chinese restaurants that are near my primary care provider's office, and during office hours, so it's never been a problem.
5. While in college, I was a member of an unsuccessful comedy improv troupe that performed once a semester. Our "freeze" exercises always seemed to go from a comic scenario to a fist fight of some sort.
6. Among the jobs I have had in my life are paperboy, score-keeper at a skeet-shooting range, gas station attendant, and assistant to a blind stock broker.
7. My favorite American writer is Washington Irving and I read through his collective works on average about once a year.
8. My father told me I was born with two noses, but that he removed the second one. He could remove my current nose as well, at will, though once removed from my face it looked like a human thumb sticking out from inbetween his other fingers.
9. Quarters appear in my ears, though I am unable to find or extract them myself. My grandfather had a knack for getting them out.
10. I believed in the tooth fairy all the way up until 2001, where I lost a tooth during a period without health coverage, post dot-com boom, and the tooth stayed beneath my pillow for a week.
11. Daily, I wear three socks, one on my left foot, two on my right, as it tends to get colder and sweat more.
12. I was contacted by the Secret Service over a song I wrote called "I Am Going to Kill Bush the Younger and Let Me Tell You How" that was receiving regular airplay on KALX. I got a warning, we talked about free speech and satire laws, they admitted they thought the song was catchy, and I was warned again.
13. I have dual citizenship with both the United States and Germany, via my father. This means I can live and work in the EU and should only lead to trouble should those two countries ever find themselves in conflict, and what are the odds of THAT happening.
14. When I was a child, for Halloween I would dress up as Batman, Dracula, a Musketeer, or Jack the Ripper, because I had a fondness for wearing capes. The one year I dressed up as Swamp Thing was unintentional. "Friends" pushed me into a brackish set of weeds, which were difficult to get out of, and I didn't have time to clean up before trick-or-treating.
15. My favorite concert experience was to see Dean Gray performing American Edit live. It was one of the rare occasions I was moved to pay the ridiculous price asked for a concert t-shirt.
16. I've had three root canals and they're not a big deal. Maybe stand-up comedians just go to mediocre dentists? They can't have good insurance plans.
17. I had an ex-girlfriend who claimed she could see ghosts and went on a vision quest, fasting and not doing much of anything in her room. When her spirit guide arrived, she said, he mostly just seemed to be confused that she was white and wasn't sure what she actually wanted. After that awkward spiritual experience, she ate fast food every day for a week.
18. I have a Word document where I keep track of everything I've ever loaned out, every meal I've picked up for friends, every favor done. I store them up, planning to burn the karma if I ever get cancer or something. I will be the biggest dying prick ever.
19. After the attacks on September the 11th, when our President recommended that we return to our lives and shop to help America, I went on a CD buying spree. The terrorists struck a more personal blow that way, as I ended up with albums from Destiny's Child, Jennifer Lopez, Nelly, Linkin Park and Dido.
20. I saw my first childhood dog struck by a car and it had a profound affect on me. It was my first personal encounter with the fact that people and creatures I care about will not be around forever.
21. I convinced my younger brother that there was a Tabasco Fairy who visited children and put drops of hot sauce on their eyelids while they slept, or in their mouths if they snored. But it was just me.
22. Most recipes taste better with tears added, so when cooking, I usually try to think about what a failure my life has been and that I could turn it all around if I could just get dinner to turn out, but I know I won't manage it, it will be one more disaster. The tears come easy then.
23. All the books on my bookshelves are arranged chronologically, in the order I read them, forming a sedimentary document of my life.
24. There are bits of truth scattered throughout this list and one of the items is 100% true.
25. Coming up with a way to end these lists is the hardest part.
2. Technically, I'm not the first Michael Van Vleet in my nuclear family. I had an older brother who passed away before I was born, so my parents just used the same name again.
3. I have three tattoos so far. One is a set of Chinese characters that say "I don't read Chinese." Another is a hula girl whose grass shirt covers the immensity of my belly and who I can make dance, horribly. The third, I have only shown to intimate friends, or by appointment.
4. I have an allergy to squid, but a few times a year, I eat it anyway, just to see if I'm still allergic. I choose Chinese restaurants that are near my primary care provider's office, and during office hours, so it's never been a problem.
5. While in college, I was a member of an unsuccessful comedy improv troupe that performed once a semester. Our "freeze" exercises always seemed to go from a comic scenario to a fist fight of some sort.
6. Among the jobs I have had in my life are paperboy, score-keeper at a skeet-shooting range, gas station attendant, and assistant to a blind stock broker.
7. My favorite American writer is Washington Irving and I read through his collective works on average about once a year.
8. My father told me I was born with two noses, but that he removed the second one. He could remove my current nose as well, at will, though once removed from my face it looked like a human thumb sticking out from inbetween his other fingers.
9. Quarters appear in my ears, though I am unable to find or extract them myself. My grandfather had a knack for getting them out.
10. I believed in the tooth fairy all the way up until 2001, where I lost a tooth during a period without health coverage, post dot-com boom, and the tooth stayed beneath my pillow for a week.
11. Daily, I wear three socks, one on my left foot, two on my right, as it tends to get colder and sweat more.
12. I was contacted by the Secret Service over a song I wrote called "I Am Going to Kill Bush the Younger and Let Me Tell You How" that was receiving regular airplay on KALX. I got a warning, we talked about free speech and satire laws, they admitted they thought the song was catchy, and I was warned again.
13. I have dual citizenship with both the United States and Germany, via my father. This means I can live and work in the EU and should only lead to trouble should those two countries ever find themselves in conflict, and what are the odds of THAT happening.
14. When I was a child, for Halloween I would dress up as Batman, Dracula, a Musketeer, or Jack the Ripper, because I had a fondness for wearing capes. The one year I dressed up as Swamp Thing was unintentional. "Friends" pushed me into a brackish set of weeds, which were difficult to get out of, and I didn't have time to clean up before trick-or-treating.
15. My favorite concert experience was to see Dean Gray performing American Edit live. It was one of the rare occasions I was moved to pay the ridiculous price asked for a concert t-shirt.
16. I've had three root canals and they're not a big deal. Maybe stand-up comedians just go to mediocre dentists? They can't have good insurance plans.
17. I had an ex-girlfriend who claimed she could see ghosts and went on a vision quest, fasting and not doing much of anything in her room. When her spirit guide arrived, she said, he mostly just seemed to be confused that she was white and wasn't sure what she actually wanted. After that awkward spiritual experience, she ate fast food every day for a week.
18. I have a Word document where I keep track of everything I've ever loaned out, every meal I've picked up for friends, every favor done. I store them up, planning to burn the karma if I ever get cancer or something. I will be the biggest dying prick ever.
19. After the attacks on September the 11th, when our President recommended that we return to our lives and shop to help America, I went on a CD buying spree. The terrorists struck a more personal blow that way, as I ended up with albums from Destiny's Child, Jennifer Lopez, Nelly, Linkin Park and Dido.
20. I saw my first childhood dog struck by a car and it had a profound affect on me. It was my first personal encounter with the fact that people and creatures I care about will not be around forever.
21. I convinced my younger brother that there was a Tabasco Fairy who visited children and put drops of hot sauce on their eyelids while they slept, or in their mouths if they snored. But it was just me.
22. Most recipes taste better with tears added, so when cooking, I usually try to think about what a failure my life has been and that I could turn it all around if I could just get dinner to turn out, but I know I won't manage it, it will be one more disaster. The tears come easy then.
23. All the books on my bookshelves are arranged chronologically, in the order I read them, forming a sedimentary document of my life.
24. There are bits of truth scattered throughout this list and one of the items is 100% true.
25. Coming up with a way to end these lists is the hardest part.