I was perusing Twitter yesterday, when I saw this trending #truefactsaboutme.
As you may have noticed, I have no problem talking about me, so here are
Five True Facts About Me
1. I’m right-handed but I throw a Frisbee left-handed. I don’t how this came about—maybe I thought it’d feel like someone else if I did it that way.
2. I was born with a birth defect. Pyloric stenosis, actually, which is a thickening of the pylorus or the valve that allows food to go from the stomach to the small intestines. It manifests itself in the first few weeks of life—lots of vomiting is usually is the first sign—and can cause all sorts of issues, including severe dehydration. Once diagnosed, it’s easily corrected with a simple surgery; even though it now is done with minimal invasion, back in the day when I got it, they had to make a good-sized hole in my abdomen. If you ever were to see me with my shirt off (you’re more likely to get hit by lightning while riding on a unicorn with Bigfoot and Amelia Earhart during the Derek Jeter Appreciation Day parade in downtown Boston), you’d see the three-inch scar on my abdomen that runs along the bottom of my ribcage.
3. I have never seen Titanic or Avatar. Nothing against James Cameron (I really liked Aliens and The Terminator), but something about those other two movies just turned me off, possibly all the hype preceding each of their releases, or possibly just knowing beforehand that [*SPOILER ALERT FOR AN EVENT THAT HAPPENED A CENTURY AGO*] the fracking boat sinks.
4. I used to collect matchbooks. I don’t when this started or ended exactly, but for about a decade (from the ’80s into the ’90s, I think), I took matchbooks from all the places I visited. What’s even odder is that I’ve never smoked (although I do have an unabashed love of fire) and never had a job or a glaring need to have fire on the spot. But yeah, somewhere in my house is a good-sized case with dozens of matchbooks in it. Weird, but true!
5. I have a personalized autographed letter from Dolores Hart hanging in my cubicle.
Who is Dolores Hart, you ask? Well, she was an up-and-coming actress in the early 1960s—she starred alongside Elvis Presley in King Creole and Loving You as well as in the original Where The Boys Are—who suddenly gave up her career and ran off to the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, for a life of secluded religious reflection. It was a stunning story at the time: a young starlet abandoning a life of fame and fortune in Hollywood to become a cloistered nun (as in “You’ll have ‘nun’ of that now!”), which seems even more remarkable in an age where everyone and anyone is trying to be a “celebrity.”
According to Regina Laudis’ site: “I just knew that this was what God wanted from me,” she said years later.
Mother Dolores continues to live at the abbey, and has risen to be its prioress. She also has stayed involved in the motion picture industry, regularly voting for Academy Awards.
So the letter you see above—yes, she misspells my last name in it—she wrote to me in appreciation for sending a message along to her. We had written an article about her, and afterward some fan wanted to contact her; rather than giving her direct info out, I just sent it along to her.
It’s a nice little souvenir, and puts me only a degree of separation from Elvis. It’s true!