Prologue

Boyfriend-person :: “Whatchu writing about?”

Me-person :: “Remember back in the early days of blogging, when it was totally acceptable to post 25 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT MEEEE-esque posts? Like, totally navel-gazing and pointless? No lesson, or call-to-action, or social benefit? I kinda miss those days.”

BF-P :: “You could join Facebook, and be narcissistic and boring every day. And be perfectly accepted.”

ME :: “Burn! Or…I could start an International Self-Absorbtion Rally, where everybody on the Interwebz gets to gaze deep into their navel and write introspective drivel, but just for a day.”

BF-P :: “I’m pretty sure everyone’s already doing that…on Facebook.”

ME :: “This is like, totally different. Trust.”

* * * * * * * * * *

22 surprising (or perhaps mildly intriguing) facts about me:

:: I have a fake tooth, due to a genetic anomaly. It is destined to fall out in the next 3 – 5 years, and I’ll be Gappy McGee till I get a replacement.

:: I grew up in Los Angeles, and lived in four different SoCal ‘hoods from age zero to 20 :: Santa Monica (toxic beaches), Topanga Canyon (trippy hippies), Eagle Rock (damn fine pizza) & West Hollywood (GAYS! GAYS! GAYS!).

:: At 14, I wanted to be a ballerina — a shattered ankle and severe eating disorder swept that dream away. (For which I am very grateful.)

:: At 17, I wanted to be a journalist. My theater teacher told me that “journalism is a dying profession.” You could argue that she was right…

:: At 18, I wanted to be a massage therapist. I completed about half of a training program, and then realized — to my horror — that not all of my clients would be clean-shaven, pleasantly-scented specimens of human perfection (like in the massage school brochure). There would be coarse hair. There would be bacne. (I bolted.)

:: At one point in my life, I could provide the title + a detailed synopsis of every single episode of The X Files. Excluding season 9. Which wasn’t even a season, since Mulder was gone. Honestly.

:: I’ve made two major geographic moves in my life – both to locations where I (a) didn’t know a living soul and (b) had no job, professional connections or support network. The first was New Zealand. The second was Minnesota.

:: My nickname was “Ali” till I moved to New Zealand in 2005. Then, folks started calling me “Alex.” It stuck. Today, I prefer “ALX.” All caps. No E. More efficient.

:: I’ve never felt particularly attached to the name “Alexandra,” to begin with (no offense, mom ‘n dad.) If I could’ve named myself, I’d have chosen “Hazel,” “Wellesley,” “Sapphire,” “Maddox” or “Wish.”

:: The first time I met public radio personality Garrison Keillor, I was so nervous my knees were buckling. I gave him a copy of a rare Raymond Chandler novel, and stammered out something like “I like you lots wow wow hi.”

:: I once bought a ticket to Burning Man, and gave it away to a random woman who wrote me an email about penguins. I like penguins. And I don’t like sandstorms.

:: The best compliment I’ve ever received? “You look just like Elton John. Are you…a man?” (I was in costume, but still. Legendary praise.)

:: I have private conversations with Oscar Wilde. He’s sort of my patron saint of…everything.

:: I do not have any tattoos or piercings (except for my ears). When I do commit to a set of tattoos, they’re going to be exclusively geometry and text-based.

:: My parents didn’t allow me to play video games when I was a kidlet. And if I wanted to watch more than one TV episode per day, I had to justify the program’s educational merit in a short-form essay.

:: Now that I’m a grown-up, I joyfully gorge myself on television programming of questionable merit — like Transylvania Television (TVTV), a self-proclaimed “retro monster comedy series that’s really not for kids.” Being a grown-up RULES!

:: I am child-free by choice, and cat-free by necessity (allergies, man, allergies). I desperately want a magical dachshund that will never soil my abode, and also speaks English. For those lonely winter nights.

:: My eyes are gray-green. I used to wear bright green contacts, because I thought it looked “striking.”
(I got over it.)

:: I am the worst trivia player you will ever meet. My mind becomes a pure tabula rasa, at the start of each round. Once, I forget the name of the U.S. national anthem, and timidly offered, “God Save the…America?”

:: I loathe “gummy” and “sour” candies with a slow-seething rage. But give me a box of frozen Junior Mints, and we’re jim dandy.

:: I was engaged once, to a very beautiful woman with bright purple hair who loved Salman Rushdie, Twin Peaks and her little pet mouse. That was the most agonizing breakup of my life. I still have the ring.

:: I fall asleep almost every night listening to ambient electronica mixed with archived NASA space shuttle updates. This explains…nothing. And everything.

* * * * * * * * * *

Where’s your gaze pointed?

If you’re a world-saving, vision-driven, full-throttle-crusader kinda human who never stops striving for the Next Great Solution, give yourself the gentle gift of navel-gazing. If only for a day. You might recall something…fascinating. Or better still, you might burn all that self-absorption right outta your circulatory system, to clear space for higher levels of service.

Or maybe it’s just fun, and that’s enough.

Another gloriously molten oil painting by the extraordinary Theo Altenberg.