"I Would Like To Take a Moment and Thank......"

It has been quite a long time since I have received an award of any kind. I was MVP of a tournament in college my senior year and I do believe that is the last time to date that I received a symbolic "atta boy" in the training log of life. Up until a few days ago that is. My good friend (and excellent blogger I must add) Hailey bestowed upon me a blogger award. This award is somewhat different from any award I have ever received, and since there have been precious few, I remember them all quite well. This award had no specific name; no "Coolest Blog I Have Ever Read", no "Most Improved", no moniker that would get me up on a stage, glowing with the shine of personal accomplishment, stammering my thanks to my 15 followers, only to be interrupted by Kanye West. So what. It's an award and I'll take it. However, this award comes with a requirement; I must create and post a list of ten things that people don't already know about me. I find this requirement to be an ironic requirement of a blogger because the whole point of a personal blog is to make sure that there is not a single interesting aspect of your life that is not posted on the world-wide web for the sole reason that the world has the right to know. Whatever, glory hound that I am, I'll do whatever it takes to receive a blogger award. So Hailey, here's to you...

1.) I have never been inside a barber shop. Now, this may sound funny due to the fact that I sport the aerodynamic chrome dome at present, but my father always cut our hair. I remember when the fad was to have "Nike Air" or some other logo/symbol carved into one's head and my father would never do this for us. He would always say that the only symbol he would cut into our hair was "Elger"...the toilet bowl manufacturer.

2.) I found out just before starting "real school" (see item #3) that I needed glasses and, to put it mildly, I was devastated. My dad had taken me to see a UNCC 49er's game and afterwards we went to Burger King where I proceeded to order …a Big Mac. "Son, can you SEE the menu?" For those of you out there who attended "real school" with me that first year, well, you know what kind of glasses I had. I could always "see what you mean"...literally. On sunny days, my glasses were considered a fire hazard and I was not allowed to sit at wooden picnic tables at lunch. Keeps me humble, even to this day.

3.) I was homeschooled until the middle of sixth grade. Home school has its advantages; setting your own learning pace, recess can be extended without fear of the principal's lowered eyebrows, and you are always the top student in your grade. However, when the homeschooler must enter the mine-field of "real school" with absolutely no clue whatsoever about the basics of middle school (i.e. fashion do's and do-not-ever-do's, common slang, and interaction with members of the opposite sex) things can get awkward. VERY awkward.

4.) I am a huge ZZ Top fan. My fascination with the " Little 'ol band from Texas" got started my freshmen year of high school when I bought the ZZ Top Eliminator album for $0.50 at a yard sale. I didn't have a clue then who ZZ Top was then; I just bought the CD because I had recently saved just enough money to buy a Sony Discman (Walkmans were sooo yesterday) and my depleted pockets could not swing the $13.00 for an actual new CD to put in my Discman. A musical "chicken or the egg, CD or the CD player" quandry introduced me to a great band. As a wanna be guitar player, I love Billy Gibbon's style; both as a guitarist and as arguably the coolest onstage personality still performing today. However, unlike Dusty Hill and the aforementioned Gibbons, I would have taken Gillette's million-dollar offer to cut my chest length beard...that mess has to itch. And while every girl may be crazy about a sharp dressed man, I am quite sure the fan base is much more scarce for facial hair of that magnitude.

5.) I took ballet/ worship dance classes for exactly one week. I was in seventh grade at Resurrection Christian School and on Wednesday afternoons, there were classes for worship dance. Every so often, those who participated in these classes would perform for the church. After one such performance, and with the "spirit moving me" I signed up to "dance as King David did" and become the only male member of the worship dance troupe. I remember my first class...leaping like a fawn over scarves laid on the ground and thinking to myself "My boy, you have gone and done it now..." I lasted a week; mainly because it was hard to leap and twirl with any real grace when you were constantly pushing your Steve Urkel Signature Glasses up on your sweaty nose. The merciless ragging by my male classmates may or may not have driven me to give up my quest into interpretive dance as well.

6.) Mom, it was me that broke the clear crystal ball Christmas decorations. I was in the heat of a rubber band-gun shootout in the OK Corral with Nathan and a shot from Old Besty that was intended for Nathan sailed clean over his head and broke the decoration. I know that decoration was pretty, but it was also pretty cool in the middle of a shootout- Nathan and I both agreed that it was just like the movies; bullets/ rubber bands flying, glass breaking just over the hero's head to let him know just how close to certain doom he had come....Please understand.

7.) I HATE the words "Moist", "Cuddle", and "Supple" with a passion. No clue why. Just do.

8.) I have only had one panic attack in my life and it was the result of some writing I had done my senior year of high school. The year before I had really started to try and write after seeing the movie Finding Forrester and, seeing as I was a basketball player just like the main character in the film, I decided to try my hand, or pen, at writing also. I was taking an AP Literature course taught by my favorite teacher of all time, a man dubbed "Zeus" by his admiring pupils and during breaks in the lesson, I would scribble makeshift poems on the backs of worksheets or loose pieces of paper. Well, one such bit of scribbling on the back of a class worksheet got handed in and my teacher decided that he liked it enough to turn it in to the fine arts council as a submission for the yearly fine arts display. I had no clue that such a submission had been made, and so at the assembly of the whole high school for the fine arts display, my poem was read aloud. I still can feel my throat constricting, I couldn't breathe, I felt like if I opened my mouth some terrible, non-human sound might squeak out, I thought I was going to suffocate and die. It was awful; the panic attack I mean. The poem did not receive any boo's and no vegetables were thrown at the reader, so I guess it wasn't as bad as my reaction.

9.) I have been playing basketball in Italy for two seasons and I have not seen Rome. And this does not bother me at all. I mean, I would love to see the Coliseum but to be completely candid, I really don't care that terribly much about seeing places just based on their historical significance. Looks the same as it does on the postcards. I appreciate that fact that these ancient cities were built without the use of modern technology and equipment; I just don't feel like making the trip to appreciate it in person. Sue me.

10.) Before every basketball game that I have ever played, I am seized by the sudden fear that I will walk out onto the court and not remember how to play. Like I will go to dribble or shoot or pass and just not remember how to make the motions or I won't remember the rules, etc. It's weird, but as soon as I touch the ball in warmups, that anxiety disappears and is replaced by a confidence that I have worked hard to be where I am now and I'll be fine. I love this game.

So there you have it. Hope you're happy Hailey. Now...about that award.....

Stereo

Love and you
Both move through
The speakers of my stereo
You and the melody make it hard for me
To shake your grasp from my soul.


When I dont want to let you go
I reach for the dial of my radio
Tune into something someone else wrote
About the story of my soul

It is not the beat
But you who moves
In the song, you are the rythmn
I would change the song
Turn off the music of my memories
If only I could find a place to put them

I can keep you far from my heart
But you find your way back in
Through a path we both have known
I could stop loving you perhaps
Keep my soul closed
But you know the way to my heart
Is through my headphones.