I was born in Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach around 2 in the morning on a month called Gemini and a year called Dragon.

My mom met my dad in a bar, while my dad lived in a houseboat in Laguna Beach, California, and my mom was merely visiting from Japan for a year or so. They got married shortly after, and I was born while my grand-parents were rafting on the Colorado River. My dad stopped smoking when I was born but got lung cancer 8 years later and had to have a lung removed. It returned 10 years after that, and even though they were confident that he had a 90% chance of surviving, he died from complications that resulted from an allergic reaction to some of his medicine.

My dad appears in my dreams about once a month, usually explaining something to me, or telling me something urgently. They are always good dreams.

I wore blue corrective molds in my shoes from elementary school through my first year of high school.

I’ve never had braces, the chicken pox, the measles, the mumps, small pox, or the black plague. I’ve never broken a bone, but I have fractured my thumb and dislocated my shoulder and swallowed a nickle.

I don’t curse, unless it’s in context, like, “And then she said ‘fuck fuck fuck’.” or in a commonly used phrases for comic effect, like, “I hope this isn’t the cheap shit.”

I have about 5,000 options of amazon stock priced between $9 and $13, at one point worth a lot more than it is now, but don’t worry, I didn’t sell it when I should’ve and yet the regret sometimes kills me.

I currently make $60,000 pre-tax, much less post-tax. In my job previous to this job, I made $10/hour as a guard at the Seattle Art Museum, and before that I was a Pizza Hut Delivery Boy until I crashed my car, and before that I made burritos at Todo Loco (now called World Wraps) and before that I took care of an old man who died on my second day at the job, and before that I got paid $4.50 cleaning dog kennels at 7am, and before that I worked at the UC Berkeley cafeteria about 9 hours a week and before that, well, not much. Paper route, for a couple years, couple years of sporadic babysitting.

As a child I got weekly allowance of $1. One time I broke the antennae off of a neighbors car and spent three weeks paying that back. Around 3rd grade I started getting $10, and in highschool I got $20/week, plus money for grades.

Because my parents didn’t differentiate between As and A-minuses in terms of grade money, to milk the system for all it was worth I aimed for straight A-minuses all through my lower education career. And I achieved just that, no more, no less.

My first car was an ‘89 red Ford Mustang 5.0 convertible, which I crashed and sold after only 6 months. Disillusioned with speed, my next car was an ’89 Honda Accord, which I kept for about 3 years before crashing and selling. I went carless for about 3 years (enough time for all my accidents to fall off my record), then, just last year, bought my mom’s Honda Accord.

The worst nightmares I have are usually deceptively simple. While in Laguna Beach last month I had a dream where I could not stop thinking about blue. It nearly drove me mad. I was rendered into a shaking, restless, unfocused ball of madness and actually had to get out of bed and try sleeping in the living room under a fan, staring at the little cord you can pull, trying to think of THAT instead of blue. It made me realize that if I do go crazy, which everyone in their 20’s has a chance of, schizophrenia being something that emerges around now, that one, it would not be pleasant, and two, I would not (despite previous beliefs to the contrary) be able to ‘talk myself out of it’. When the brain stops thinking rationally, and obeying common thought commands, it really does. Scary. That dream has happened to me once again, this time only about a week ago. If they start occurring more frequently, I’ll be more than a little scared.

Most of the day, I face east. My desk is on the north side of the building and the window looking north (towards Capitol Hill, where I live) is to my left (even now as I type). When I sleep, my feet also point east. Funny, both the front door of my home and work face north.

I’m a white-belt in Karate, which I quit because I was getting continually beat up by this kid named Billy and I begged my parents that I would do anything if they let me quit. So then I spent three years in japanese school (every saturday between 3rd and 6th grade), where I learned virtually nothing. I played one year of Little League baseball and three years of Boy’s Club basketball.

I once hit my sister in the head with a baseball bat. I once missed a pop-up and got hit on my forehead with the ball. I once got beaned in the crotch. I once had a rubber-band shot in my eye. I once fell during the 300-meter hurdles. I once ran a mile in a toga and jeans. I once led a half marathon on my bike. I once slept in a bush at a park. I once ran across a 6 lane freeway. I once rode my bike off a hill into a lake. I once got kicked out of the mall for not wearing shoes. I once got out of my seat in The Pirates Of The Carribean. I once almost drowned, but was saved by my grandmother. I once got kicked out of Latin class.

Nothing spectacular. Nothing amazing. That really annoys me, at the moment. I hope it doesn’t really sink in.