15 Random Facts

I was tagged by The Constantly Dramatic One. I almost never respond to tags, and I've been feeling a little guilty over not responding to the first coupla' times she tagged me.

Plus, this tag really appeals to the narcissist in me.

15 random facts about me that you may or may not know.

1. I prefer to pee sitting down. Yes, I can aim if I'm standing up, but not perfectly every time. There are too many unpredictable angles in the stream of pee, with mine anyway. And what doesn't end up on the toilet rim - or beyond - ends up spotting my boxers when I pee standing up. Comedienne Margaret Smith says that if women had wieners, "you know we would daub 'em." That's me.

2. I was Purple Peter for over two decades. At first it was just a ploy for attention, an easy way to be different. But I genuinely liked the color purple. I wore something purple every single day from 1981 to 2001. Sometimes it was just purple socks, or only my purple watch. On other days it was just purple underwear or purple shoelaces. I had an entire purple suit with a double-breasted blazer.

3. I was enrolled at UCLA right after high school. I started out as a biology major, which was a big mistake. I dropped out after a year, and started working at Disneyland. My parents were really mad at me.

4. I am a former band geek. I played trumpet for eight years, from the fifth grade to my senior year in high school.

5. I am estranged from my father. He has stated that he cannot accept my homosexuality. The estrangement is mutual. He was a great parent, and he has the ability to be a great human being, but I do not miss him.

6. I was a contestant on two T.V. game shows - "Win, Lose, or Draw" (kind of like Pictionary) and "The Grudge Match." Richard Simmons was my celebrity team mate on the first one.

7. I was born in California but I lived in Japan and Saudi Arabia while growing up. My father teaches ESL (English as a Second Language) so we moved around a lot. People thought I was an army brat.

8. I don't mind if my dogs lick me in the mouth. I have never died or gotten sick from letting them do that, even though it grosses out everyone around me.

9. In addition to being a band geek I was a drama dork in high school. Musicals were my favorite. My first musicals in high school were The Fantasticks, Grease, and Godspell.

10. I won my first trophy in the fifth grade. I was one of the winners in the school district's safety poster contest. My poster's slogan was, "Don't be a litter bug - feed the trash cans (I stole it from McDonald's - I was ten). My dad framed the poster and displayed it in the living room.

11. I cried when I brought my school pictures home and my dad said, "Oh, Peter, this is terrible," because I had a closed-mouth smile. Neither of us knew, then, that you were allowed to retake your school picture if you didn't like the first one. I made damn sure to show teeth in the following year's photo.

12. I first had sex when I was 15, and only once. I didn't have sex again until I was 19 (and working at Disneyland).

13. I believe that being angry is better than feeling sorry for yourself. Anger can move you to action, at least. I wasted too many years in self-pity.

14. When I was involved in ex-gay ministry, I tried being celibate throughout most of my twenties. I wasn't very successful.

15. I saved over ten years' worth of fingernail clippings and then gave them as a wedding gift to BFF Kathy when she got married. True story.

Consider yourself tagged, if you are so inclined.

This One's for Louise on the Left

Dear Louise,

Thank you for indulging my constant-need-for-attention (you must be an experienced parent!), and for stroking my ego.

I adore being stroked.

I would ride proudly as your Curly-passenger to your Laurie driver,if you were to drive a sparkly, metallic purple golf cart with the white "fringe on the top."

I was Purple Peter for well over two decades, so the former me - the Artist Formerly Known as Purple Peter - cheered triumphantly when I saw a metallic dark purple smart fortwo car on the freeway last month! (it's not a standard color choice; those are custom made).

Also, I have been meaning to post a rather lengthy blog entry during this past busy & hectic week (after being tagged by The Constantly Dramatic One). So, I also thank you for giving me a time-efficient entry to post.

Mm-M'WAH!

And to my Iowanian cohort, Sunshine, here are the poses with 'the guns,' just for you! Thank you for stroking me, too.

Who else wants to stroke me?

Lookit Me! Lookit Me!

It's here! It's finally here!

Less than nine months after putting my name on the reservation list, I received my brand new smart fortwo car.

WOO HOO!

It has been great driving around the southern California freeways, already! It is very satisfying to simply see this big little car parked in the garage.

YAY!

First impressions: the automatic option is slightly jerky in the first two or three gear shifts, but using the manual option - which is clutch-less, by the way - makes for a much smoother ride.

The smart fortwo has three cylinders. Is it lacking in power? Not as much as you might think. I live near a huge hill of a freeway. When making my way up the incline, downshifting one gear from 5 to 4 gave me enough power to pick up speed and pass a few other motorists. I was weaving in and out among cars, going up that hill in my tiny little space egg, until I remembered that I forgot to put the new insurance policy in the glove compartment.

Whoops.

And the attention it brings . . . YEAH, BABY!

As anticipated, my candy-yellow micro car turns heads. I have enjoyed the looks I'm getting, everywhere I drive. People point from their cars and smile. Pedestrians try to look as if they're not staring, with little success.

The gas mileage is great for a non-hybrid car. I'm getting well over forty miles per gallon on the freeway.

I'm still driving my scooter into work five days a week. As small as the car is, it would still take an hour and a half in traffic to get to work, versus thirty-five minutes or so on my putt-putt. Maybe I'll leave an hour earlier for work on rainy days.

For now, the sun continues to shine. "Lookout, Weekend, cuz here I come!"

Milkin' Honey

I heard this riddle at work today:

Q: What kind of bee makes milk?

A: A boo-bee.

LMAO! No matter how old I get, there is a small but permanent part of me that will always be 8-years-old and get a kick out of those kind of jokes.

How did I go more than 40 years without ever hearing that one before?

Your turn. Tell me one of your favorite childhood jokes or riddles.

Favorite Peter

Orchids and gratitude go out to published author and blogger, Cheryl Klein, for sparking the idea for this post.

Cheryl had suggested, in response to the previous post, that one of my childhood nicknames - Peter Underpants - should be the name of a new clothing line, or at least, the title of a second blog.

She is automatically entitled to residuals when the profits start pouring in.

Can you imagine? Firstly, what the name 'Peter' insinuates, alone. Secondly, pair that with the word 'underpants' (get it?) and you instantly get a mental image. Or I do, anyway.

To me, 'underpants' is one of those words with specific gender representation, like 'panties,' or 'tighty-whiteys,' or 'thong,' although that last one has enjoyed increasing gender equality in the last decade or so.

Oh, and 'manties.'

Anyway.

Cheryl's comment reminded me of a clothing label I happened to stumble upon years ago while in Japan - "Favorite Peter." The tags on the inside of their sweatshirts said "Favorite Peter." The label tags also featured a little cartoon logo of a boy sporting spiky bangs and a backwards baseball cap. It was cute, it was youthful, and it was sooo Japanese. It was me! (back then, a dozen years ago, I was still able to pull off "cute and youthful." Now I'm just Japanese)

I must have bought a half dozen of those shirts, some that had "Favorite Peter" blazoned across the front, and some that merely had "Peter" above the cartoon-boy-logo. People thought I had them custom made.

And I found a souvenir sweatshirt in Japan for my brother, Danny. It also had a cutesy cartoon boy, which was more of a stick-figure drawing. Below the smiling stick boy was "Danny First" in large letters.

"We can't both wear our shirts," he said to me, once I was back home and as we were preparing to leave for a family get-together. "One narcissistic brother is amusing. Two is just obnoxious."

When people commented on my sweatshirt, I would usually respond with, "Everyone has a favorite peter, whether their own or someone else's."

Okay, so maybe that's being a little phallo-centric. It's likely that Cheryl doesn't have one, a favorite peter, that is. Unless she wants to count me.

Pete & Repeat

I used to hate my name. Even as a five-year-old I thought it was really nerdy.
I wanted to be called something more normal and mainstream (years before the extrovert's desperate bid for attention kicked in). I wanted a name that was more American. I started writing 'John' on all of my kindergarten art work.

"Look what I made for you at school!" I'd proudly announce to my mom.

She thought I had taken the wrong Crayola masterpiece home with me.

"You'd better take this back to whoever John is," she told me.

"No, that's me," I tried to explain. "I'm John, now."

"No," my father said, "you're Peter and you'll always be Peter."

Hell!

The name Peter is such an easy target for nicknames and teasing - Peter Pan, Peter Piper, Peter Rabbit, Peter Parker (although, being associated with Spiderman wasn't so bad) Peter-Peter Pumpkin Eater . . . Peter-eater.

Okay, that last one became a given. But back then, who knew?

Even in the suburbs of Tokyo, my Japanese classmates called me Peter Pan ("Pee-tah Pan"), which, in the Japanese language, naturally evolves into Peter Pan-tsu. The literal translation of that is 'Peter Underpants.'

I eventually learned to joke about it, myself:

"Peter-Peter, pumpkin eater
Had a wife and would not eat her
Put her in a pumpkin shell
'cause he did not like her smell"

There are worse things than being born a boy named Peter, however. My parents had names picked out before I was born. If I had been a girl, my name would be 'Arlette.'

Blech. No thanks!

(Thanks to Sunshine and her post on alternate names for inspiring today's entry!)

Former Band Geek

Before I became one of the Cool People in Life, thanks to my status and identity as a dancer, I was a Band Geek.

Starting in the fifth grade I played trumpet all the way through to my senior year in high school. I never played any sports, so Marching Band inadvertently - and thankfully - provided a built in social life in high school. I never would have attended a single football or basketball game, otherwise. Thanks to the other band geeks, I have good memories of going out to pizza, attending school dances, and toilet papering each other's houses.

It was a little harder playing trumpet when I got braces. There was a lasting imprint from the wire on my front teeth, on the inside of my upper lip, from the constant pressure of the metal mouth piece.

I would have rather been a cheerleader. Maybe it's better I didn't, though. One of my friends was the school mascot and got picked on, sometimes. At football games, dressed in the cougar costume, he would throw candy from a basket into the bleachers. Mean guys would grab the candy and pelt it back at him as hard as they could.

I might have gotten my ass kicked at that school if I had been a cheerleader.

When I did start getting work as a performer, I thanked my parents for making me play the trumpet. The years of musical training came in very handy for vocal auditions and singing rehearsals. Musical directors were always pleased with those of us who read music.

P.S. If you couldn't already tell, I just now finally learned to scan pictures, last week, so be prepared to see even more geeky photos from my past.

You've been fairly warned.