…corralled me into writing a post about myself. Perhaps some of you might also like to read it.

25 things you may have never wanted to know about me

1. I have odd minor food allergies (nuts, whole eggs), and even odder food dislikes (olives, pickles, canned string beans, eggplant, imitation meat, imitation cheese, and, emerging in recent years, hummus).

2. Despite occasional rumors to the contrary, I am not, and have never been, independently wealthy.

3. I was born in Olympia and raised in Marysville. Despite having spent most of my youth in Snohomish County, I never wore a mullet and pretty much always hated heavy metal.

4. I attended Oregon State University for one year. Once a Beaver, always a Beaver.

5. I don’t think I’m too cool to talk to you. I’m afraid you’re too cool to want to talk to me.

6. I’m lousy at hustling and marketing myself. This helps make the freelance writing career I’ve stumbled into precarious at best. That’s why I’m looking for some other line of steady work. (Yes, I am, really. Not kidding. NOT KIDDING!)

7. I wish I knew how to successfully woo the woman of my dreams (who, personality-wise, would be some mixture of Tracey Ullman, Amy Sidaris, Katherine Hepburn, Glenda Farrell in Mystery of the Wax Museum, Nina Simone, Adrienne Shelly, Kitten Natividad, Margaret Cho, Rachel Maddow, and Sonia Braga).

8. Miss Lily Banquette from Combustible Edison was my life coach.

9. I’ve gone to high school or college with people who’ve won Oscars (animator Brad Bird), Pulitzers (cartoonist Mike Luckovich), Golden Globes (Kyle MacLachlan), and local Emmys (John Kiester), and who starting-pitched a World Series game (Larry Christenson).

10. I like jazz, therefore I don’t listen to Kenny G. I like beer, therefore I don’t drink PBR.

11. I am completely indifferent toward penises other than my own.

12. Despite my self-appointed title of pop culture maven, a lot of it bores me to tears (celebrity gossip, wrestling, tabloid TV, Hollywood action movies, train-wreck divas, sword-and-sorcery novels, shoot-’em-up video games, and more).

13. After all these years, I still rebel against certain excesses of boomer-generation culture (white blues singers, Paul Simonized world beat, nature poetry, the Grateful Dead, the droning pomposity of NPR, stoner humor). Why do I even bother?

14. I’m always nervous and tense. I just am. It’s not because of anything you said or did. It’s just the way my brain works. I have a lot of what self-help author Eckhart Tolle calls “the mental noise.” It feels like a Soviet “jamming” radio station would have sounded.

15. I have a driver’s license but have never owned a motor vehicle. However, my brother the (until-recently unemployed) naturopath, owns at least six. Know anybody who’d like to buy a fully restored ’42 Lincoln?

16. My book Vanishing Seattle is the second-biggest seller in the history of the South Carolina-based Arcadia Publishing. They haven’t asked me to make any new books for them.

17. No, I won’t work for free for your for-profit Web site. No matter how cool it is.

18. I emphatically believe meat, television, sports, and male heterosexuality are NOT intrinsically evil. And don’t preach to me about veganism unless you get that fuckin’ cigarette out of your mouth.

19. Psychotic or reverse-sexist women occasionally expect me to become their submissive enabler. I invariably disappoint them.

20. I hate California. It’s cold and it’s damp. (Hint: This is a gag, based on a song lyric. Californians NEVER get it.)

21. I’ve never broken a bone, been married, been outside North America, been in a band, had a 401K, snowboarded, had an STD, piloted a plane, served in the military, killed anybody, used heroin, had my own cereal, or hosted my own commercial TV show. I’d like to do a few of these; others, not so much.

22. I have a sure-fire concept for my dream restaurant. I’ve let it remain a dream because I have no money and no management experience.

23. Fewer people confuse me with Wm. Steven Humphrey these days.

24. I was a born again Christian through high school, and attended various churches until I quit in 1978. I could accept the words of Jesus Christ. I just couldn’t accept the words of Pat Robertson.

25. Why would I want to get into S&M? I get enough pain in real life.