Another Writing Prompt

10 Things You Probably Don’t (or want to) Know About Me

Because Barb Dalton 🇺🇦 forgot to tag me

There are so many prompts bouncing around Medium at any given moment it’s no wonder writers and prompts sometimes get missed. But prompts are a good thing. We all get stuck and need a kick in the page.

I would have missed this one but for Medium sticking Barb Dalton’s 10-things response in my ‘Recommended’ list.

Barb tagged a few bloke writers for this prompt because she doesn’t think we men share enough. Reasonable assumption. But writers will write.

So here’s my two cents, tagged or not.

One of the many powers of this here writing community is the relaxed freedom to share and write about anything. Which makes coming up with 10 new, unknown things more difficult than it first reads.

Perhaps I’ve shared too much already.

But I digress.

Here are 10 more things you probably didn’t need to know:

I. Fear of heights

Want to see me freeze up in fear? Stop the creaking, rattling Ferris wheel of the travelling carnival when I’m in the car, high up top, overlooking the parking lot and cornfield.

There’s a stereotype that says tall people are more afraid of heights than regular folk. There’s a kernel of truth in every stereotype.

I’ve overcome this fear. Mostly. I’ve sat on the edge of the Grand Canyon (no safety rails or gear), jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, and will take on any rollercoaster nowadays. But I can’t bring myself to bungy jump — something about whiplash and free-falling from a great height, not once but twice… 3x… 4x… 5x… 6x…

II. I’m a minimalist

Material things don’t do a lot for me. Which is lucky, as money has never been a driving force either.

I can honestly say, if the need arose, I could pack all my worldly belongings into just a couple of suitcases. When I moved overseas decades ago, I left most everything behind. Sure, I accumulated more stuff along the way once I settled here in Australia, but over the last decade, I’ve embraced minimalism and have shed most of my material things.

I’ve learned just how few things I need, material wise, to be happy, healthy and content.

Read some of my travel blogs here on Medium and you’ll start to get a picture.

III. I should have been a drummer

As a kid, I took my arthritic knees and played catcher in baseball. It now takes all my strength and a good few minutes to stand up from such a position.

I should have been a drummer. I’m big, tall and sweat like a pig. Plus, watching a band play to a stadium crowd, all dancing and singing to their music — that looks like the ultimate rush.

IV. I now feel more Aussie than Yankee

I’ve still spent more of my life back on homeland soil in the U.S. of A. than I have in my adopted home of Australia. But that fact will flip before too long.

In my early years as an ex-pat, life felt like I lived it in two separate worlds. Occasionally I’d jump from one back to the other and then back again.

Then there were those years of having family or friends with me. A strange dichotomy of ‘I’m home, but what are you doing here on my planet?’. I wonder if all ex-pats share this feeling?

Now, after more than two decades, time and death have cut most of my ties to ‘back home’. This is now home, as it has been for 25 years.

It’s an interesting road, life.

V. As a city boy, I used to judge rednecks and hillbillies

I’m a city boy, born and raised. At home in the crowded urban sprawl and freeways of Southern California. Small town country folk were bumpkins, cow tippers, less educated. Poor.

Before you write me off as a bigoted ass, I say this from the misguided viewpoint of schoolyard jokes and youthful ignorance. Travel has educated me in ways no school book ever could.

I can’t wait to drive the highways and backroads of the Deep South again and Virginia may just be thee most beautiful state in the Union, particularly in the autumn.

Ironically, I now live in an old gold-rush town in country Victoria outside of Melbourne, Australia (one of the greatest cities in the world). Want to see real Australia? Get out here beyond the trams and cafes of Melbourne or the harbour of Sydney.

VI. I had an affair to end my marriage

I didn’t consciously connect those dots in my head when I was living my dual life. I was too busy juggling and chasing excitement, trying to recapture some false ideal of immortal youth — societies laws and rules didn’t apply to me. Karma? Pffft. Life is good.

In the end, it got me where I needed to be. But I went about it all wrong.

VII. I don’t own a car

That’s right, this city boy from SoCal who now lives ‘out in the sticks’ doesn’t own a car. See II. I’m a minimalist.

I may again one day, never say never. But then again, most everywhere has a better public transport system than SoCal.

VIII. I want to be a successful writer, but can’t be bothered with Social Media

Think ‘sustainable’ when you read ‘successful’ writer. That’s more to the point. I want what we all here want.

But social media? Hmmm… I have my Facebook, I’m on Insta (the gram), I’ve Tweeted a few times and I’m Linkedin but all those accounts are all but flat-lining. I just can’t be bothered chasing what’s on trend or who likes who.

High school is so 1985 for me.

Any suggestions? I’ll read ’em if I can be bothered.

IX. Seeing that Wil Wheaton is a writer here on Medium makes me an even bigger fan

I’m no Sci-fi geek but, beam me up Wesley, I love reading his posts. I watched very little of the original Star Trek series (in reruns). Even less, any of the Star Trek movies. Lesser still, anything Next Generation.

I only know he played Wesley Crusher thanks to ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and know him more from Stand By Me or a sitcom appearance where he was popular because he could make his upper lip move like Elvis whenever he said the word “Indians”.

Write on, Wil Wheaton.

X. I’ve never smoked or touched drugs. Alcohol however…

Nope, nada, never. Didn’t touch the stuff. When peer pressure pushed, I dug in and pushed back. Not so much out of some moral code — though the sticks, tabs, the whatever, didn’t interest me — more that I wasn’t going to give the peers doing the pressuring the satisfaction of me caving.

The drink however… come to mama! Anything and everything (‘cept peppermint schnapps). At times this fact has made me think thrice; alcoholism runs in the family tree, including my branch.

But you’ll still find me at a bbq (beer in hand), a music festival (with my hip flask), a steak dinner (and a glass of red) or at my laptop (with a glass of whiskey).

Thanks for reading.

To follow this prompt back to its origins, start here:

Can you come up with 10 new things we haven’t already read about you? Dave Logan, Raine Lore, Roo Benjamin, Penny Grubb, Sadie Seroxcat, kasey sparks, Carlos Garbiras, Jessie Waddell, Jess the Avocado, Christopher Robin, yesnodunno, Reece Beckett, Angelina Der Arakelian, Darius