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I refuse to post this on Facebook (seems like a bad idea) so I will do it here.

1. One of my biggest pet peeves, and I have no idea where this comes from, is that I am constantly bothered when someone else takes my seat in class. I always make it my goal on the first day of class to stake out a particular place in the classroom I want to sit, and because generally there are no assigned seating arrangements, chances are someone else will get to class before I do and I will have to find some other place to sit. This always bothers me a lot, although I never do anything about it.

2. One thing I am semi-consciously aware of is that I will often adopt the syntax or certain stylistic tropes of certain writers when having conversations. This usually happens when I am reading a lot of a particular writer I like, and it's kind of embarrassing. Thankfully, people don't notice when I do this most of the time. I noticed this particularly during my DFW phase back in September or so of last year, adopting a sort of meandering formalized style punctuated by lots of parenthetical jargony stuff (see what I mean?).

3. Lately, I've been thinking that I might have some very mild form of Asperger's Syndrome. I base this on the fact that I've noticed how bad I am in most situations where I have to hold a conversation, and also because of the sheer multitude of things I happen to not pick up on.

4. While others measure their life according to where they may be or the relationships they may have, I divide my life into a series of which albums I am most obsessed with at the time. Listening to certain albums after their prime listening period will always bring up a lot of associations. Right now, I think the album that most defines my life is either "Country Life" by Roxy Music or the Congos' "Heart of the Congos."

5. Despite the fact that I consider myself to be primarily a visual learner, I will almost always take a minimum of notes in class and in my day to day activities. I will almost never take notes in class unless it happens to be things written on the board, and I never do things like highlight readings for homework, and I never write in the margins of books. I noticed a year or so ago that if I think a phrase or point is notable enough for me to highlight, chances are that I will remember it anyway, so it doesn't make much sense to point out something I already know.

6. I'm not really one to play air guitar along to songs very often, but I am almost a compulsive air drummer, albeit mainly (not always) when no one else is around. This is probably because there are no actual drums for me to beat on most of the time, and sometimes I really feel a need to play them.

7. Unlike most of my friends, I have a larger appreciation and a wider set of knowledge of mainstream/superhero comics, and this has been the case since I was very young. As with anything else, I tend to choose the comics I read based on the writers I like. Some of my favorite comic writers include Alan Moore (of course) Grant Morrison, Brian Wood, Matt Fraction, Jonathan Hickman, Peter Milligan and Jason Aaron. These are the authors that I will read pretty much anything from, and you'll notice that they are pretty much all authors who divide their work between crazy creator-owned work with revisionist, high-quality takes on superhero comics.

8. I was remarking to someone not long ago that I think I have absolutely no concept of "cute." I almost never refer to anything or anyone as cute, and when I do, chances are I have no idea what I'm talking about. Cuteness, broadly defined, has no basis in my life, and doesn't really measure anything I would find valuable. This probably has something to do with my larger inability to gauge what is aesthetically pleasing.

9. I also think be a closet agoraphobe as well. I noticed this my freshman year of college, when I became supremely uncomfortable every time I was in the dining hall, although that has more or less passed. Still, large crowds of people probably disturb me more than they do most people I know.

10. I have completely excised the words "overrated" and "underrated" from my vocabulary, particularly when voicing criticism. I believe they are useless and overused words whose only function is that people (indie sorts of crowds specifically) use them as a shorthand for criticism. I don't find any criticism genuine that uses the standards of whether or not other people like or dislike it--chances are, you are just trying to to impress people with how novel your views are. When people tell me that, say, the Beatles are "overrated," chances are I will roll my eyes because (apart from how typical of a statement that is now) it doesn't seem to show any real thought or consideration to the actual music.

11. I have a preponderance for making lists, which used to be a lot worse than it is now. When I was bored in class, I would often make lists of favorite movies, books, candy, whatever. My friend Jim once remarked that if I were a low-rent Batman villain, I would be "The List," who would go around Gotham City committing petty crimes and leaving notes like "Top 10 Reasons Why Batman Can't Stop Me."

12. I have an extremely non-addictive personality. There have been many times when I have entertained the thought of, say, becoming a raging alcoholic, but I can't ever summon up the will to go through with it, because frankly I won't feel like it after not too long.

13. I took a jazz improvisation class last block and I learned just how much jazz was not for me. The continued emphasis of playing with a purely melodic sensibility, and the fact that I couldn't help but noodle, didn't help me. I am, however, starting to get into a lot of fusion artists, like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, Soft Machine, and stuff like that. I'm not good at it, though.

14. The one thing that I am absolutely, unequivocally positive I do not want to do with my English major is become part of the publishing industry. Unfortunately, it seems like that's where every single English major at this school ends up going.

15. I have no use for spirituality or religion in any capacity. It is completely beyond my frame of reference and something I just cannot understand. Notions of "spirits" and "souls," astrology, all that stuff, bores me just as much as mainstream religion. However, I do make an exception for what I call "convenient coincidences," wherein something poignant or unexpected might happen, generally for the sole virtue of what could be its literary value later. For instance, a song that plays that happens to specifically refer to something that is happening in your life.

16. Lately, I've become interested in the kinds of things people write in suicide notes, by virtue of how extreme (or extremely reserved) they happen to be. I read a book about literary figures who committed suicide, and personally I think the best suicide note I've ever read was from Vachel Lindsay.

17. Of all the mediums I gorge myself with on a daily basis, television is one in which I've never gotten around to devising my own particular canon. I simply haven't watched "The Wire," "The Shield," "Mad Love," "Battlestar Galactica," or any of the other stuff people talk about. I saw one episode of "The Sopranos," and I liked it, but I haven't ever had an urge to watch it in its entirety.

18.I've found myself in the unique position of defending Israel lately. In high school, I would often find myself arguing (particularly with my mother) the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause and the two-state solution. Nowadays, I find myself arguing with ultra-leftists friends who feel suicide bombing is a legit method of fighting for freedom and that Hamas' cause is righteous. My general feeling is that there is nothing about Hamas or Hezbollah that suggests that they would like to do anything other than enforce theocracy on others.

19. It is said that there are five stages of grief. I believe I have only one, anger, and I skip all the others. Of course, that means I am simply pissed off most of the time. Most people notice this.

20. Since I was very young, I've been in the habit of reading several books at once. This is still the case. Most of the time I have five or six books I am reading at any one time, mainly non-fiction, but I like to switch it up.

21. Whenever I'm nervous, I will often whistle the opening bass line of A Tribe Called Quest's "Excursions." This happens particularly when I run into people or situations that I know may be awkward. Chances are, if I happen to be whistling that tune, I don't want to talk with or be around you.

22. I'm absolutely terrible with money. Since getting my apartment, paying bills is a chore that I forget about a lot. I am often afraid to look at my bank balance for fear it is low. This is one thing about being Jewish that I never picked up on.

23. The movie I have probably seen more times than any other is "Touch Of Evil." A few years ago I would often just put on the opening 4-minute tracking shot because it was so exciting to watch, but I've seen the entirety of it more than 20 times. It has so many enjoyable aspects, mainly the novelty of Charlton Heston as Mexicon narc agent but also the weird camera angles and of course Orson Welles, a man whose voice is so beautiful, I would listen to him talk about anything.

24. The cat the I currently live alone with has a bunch of different names. Carlson calls him Beans, which I think is a sucky name, so I decided to give him several different aliases. To date, these include: Cat, Dawg, Veto 2.0, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Willis, Wallace, Oswald, DJ Oswald, and Steak.

25. The Youtube video I watch more than any other is this one: