25 Random Things About Me

About 25 people have tagged me in a note on Facebook regarding 25 random things about themselves. I have resisted up to this point, thinking that people who don’t know 25 things about me probably don’t really know me, hence the difference between “actual” friends and “FB Friends.”

Let me be clear: If you are my FB Friend, you are my friend. I love that people want to connect with me electronically, and even as I aspire towards having 1000 FB Friends there are still some people who I ignore because a) I don’t know who they are or b) I don’t like them and don’t want them seeing my stuff. And yet, there is a difference between knowing someone on line and knowing someone through experience.

Regarding tagging people in notes with 25 random facts, it is intriguing and I have enjoyed reading most of them. Here are mine:

1. My number one is and will always be my family. Natalie, Gabriel, and Alexander are the three best things that ever happened to me, and I love them with all my heart. No list about me should ever have them anywhere but #1.

2. I love my job. I get up every day excited to go to work and see what new things are happening at Temple Sinai. I love rejoicing with people when they have simchas, and I am honored to be there for people who are down. I adore the children I work with and most of their parents. My boss is an inspiring leader and a model for the kind of rabbi I would like to become when I am a senior.

3. My favorite part of my job is officiating at simchas (baby namings, and weddings especially).

4. I am not dumb enough to mention my least favorite part on the internet.

5. I love to cook. It is such a thrill for me to watch people enjoying food that I have prepared. I treat everyday cooking like a miniature work of art that I carefully craft for a limited audience.

6. I just stopped to think for the first time and this is only #6.

7. I am a superhero fan. I have been reading comicbooks since I was a teenager, but I have only been purchasing them regularly for about three years. I am not the biggest comicbook geek I know.

8. The biggest comicbook geek I know is Michael “Cap” Canaan.

9. My thesis title was “A Study of Heroic Characters in the Bible and Comicbooks.”

10. I spell comicbooks as one word intentionally, because that is how it should be spelled.[1]

11. I have written enough about comicbooks.

12. I practice zymurgy. The first time I tried it was with Ian Bannen, who I have known longer than any of my other friends.

13. I have a tattoo.

14. I want another one.

15. I am currently one of four chaplains for the North Miami Beach Police Department. I have a badge.

16. My favorite color is purple, but as I type this, I am not wearing anything purple.

17. I am a pescetarian, which some people call “fish eating vegetarian.” I think “fish eating vegetarian” is an oxymoron. I believe people should eat what they like, and I simply do not like meat. It began as an awareness of the connection between dead animals and what was on my plate, but now it is all about eating what I like. I was a vegetarian for about ten years, and started eating fish when my girlfriend (now wife) required sushi two or three times a week. Sick of vegetable rolls, I tried fish and liked it. Every once in a while I try chicken or beef. I still don’t like them.

18. I spent most of my entire freshman year of college barefoot, except when I was in the theatre building or when it was too cold (in which case I usually dis-shoed once I was indoors).

19. I have had some of the most interesting jobs I can think of without necessitating a reality show based on there extreme nature. The rest of this list is an incomplete list of said jobs.

20. I was a nude model for art classes for two years in college.

21. I was a lifeguard at a college pool, which is another word for watching elderly professors swim laps—they actually let me read magazines while I worked!

22. I was the West Coast PR Bear from “Bear in the Big Blue House.” That means live appearances only, no speaking. It was probably the easiest job I ever did compared to what I was paid.

23. I was a Showtender for Marvel Mania (among other things), and I got to flip bottles and throw things at people. It was a lot of fun, and I broke a lot of glasses.

24. I worked in a scene shop for all four years of undergrad, which is like being a construction worker but everything you build is only supposed to last two weekends. Kind of like a government construction job.

25. I was the Assistant Brewmaster for Watson Bros. Brewhouse for exactly two weeks. (While I waited for them to agree to train me as a bartender.)

[1] In agreement with comicbook writer/publisher/guru Stan Lee, who explains in the introduction to Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics that the use of the modifier “comic” in front of the word “book” implies some sort of triviality and humor, like the funny pages in a newspaper, whereas “comicbook” describes a genre of literature, unmodified. Les Daniels, ed. Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics (London: Virgin, 1991), iii.