We’d all like to live with our significant other and know that everyday will bring a new, fresh surprise.  Maybe we’d discover some new quirk like, “You love Tang?  Crazy,” or, “I didn’t know you listened to Oingo Boingo,” or, “You murdered a family of 5?  Get out! . . . NO, seriously, you need to leave.”

But I'm so handsome.

The thing is, after knowing and living with someone for a long period of time, most of those personality quirks have been revealed.  I believe that’s why people get married – you’ve reached a point where all those things, those little idiosyncrasies are so well known that you want to be with that person forever.  Sure, you’ll discover something new every once in awhile, and those surprises are very welcome.

Still, I think a lot of those new traits you learn have more to do with a person’s past – that pre-meeting period of someones life.  It has more to do with that then with how the person currently lives their life.  I should hope you have a grip on a person’s current state of mind before you marry them.  I’m looking at you Kim Kardashian.

She's subletting those things to help pay for the divorce.

So, for the sake of public transparency, Megan, here’s some things about me you never knew — or maybe you do.  Stop prying into my past, I’m putting it all out on the table for you now.

1) State Champion Rugby Player

Nothing like sticking your head in a pile of sweaty crotches and pushing to get a ball past your ass . . . they call it a SCRUM.

Back in high school I was somewhat of an athletic retard . . . fine!  My whole life I’ve been something of an athletic retard.  Happy?  Some people, my wife mainly, would argue that I run and cycle and exercise regularly – so I am athletic.  To that I say, bull honkey.  Exercising is not athleticism.  Exercise is going for a run.  Athleticism is going for a run, avoiding being tackled, catching a ball and speeding up to make a touch down.

Being an athlete also means loving coke.

In high school, I did make some failed attempts at playing sports.  I was on the swim team my freshman year – and I was good.  Could have been great.  Except I had an ass-hole coach gave the last spot for the state qualifying 50 Meter Freestyle to another freshman . . . whose best time was 29 seconds.  Mine?  23 seconds.  Then, my sophomore year I joined an inter-mural basketball team.  They had two steadfast rules: I could play when our team was 10 points ahead and, even then, I had to stand under our basket.

Supposedly Muggsy Bogues had to do the same thing his first year in the NBA

Then, my Junior year, my friend Joel Frenzer convinced me to join the track team.  The coach, however, wouldn’t let me in the locker room.  he thought I was screwing around – so even though there were no tryouts, I was cut.  Only person ever cut from the track at Creighton Prep.  Thanks Mr. Groff.  It was then that my friend, Sameer Bhatia, another non-athlete, invited me to try Rugby.  And boy did I like it.  I wasn’t necessarily talented, but we had two coaches from Creighton University who’s main goal wasn’t to win — it was to teach us a love for this relatively new sport to high school athletics.  So, I felt I was learning and was supported.

The thing is, I wasn’t necessarily a strong guy – I was fast – but not big.  In fact, I was a lot like Scrappy Doo from the Scooby Doo cartoons: small, scrawny and way over zealous.  So I would hang on for dear life while the biggest guy on our team dragged me to the goal line.  Also, there were only 5 teams in the state, so when the State Finals came, we won and I received a medal!  Another catch, I couldn’t make that match because I had to set up for Prom . . . I was student council president.  I had to.  Still got that medal though.  Still a champion.

2) Looney Tunes Knowledge Overload

What's Opera, Doc? Voted #1 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by 1000 members of the animation field.

There’s obsession and then there’s fanaticism . . . and then there’s young Timmy Tamisiea and his Looney Tunes.  For most of my tweens and teens, I was beyond obsessed.  I used most of my paper route money to buy comics, figurines, books, VHS tapes, lithographs, — anything.  I even saw Space Jam on its opening weekend.  I know, right?  Weird.  It was a huge contributing factor to me wanting to be an animator.  The closet I got was working at The Warner Brothers Studio Store.

Buying Looney Tunes paraphernalia does not make one an expert, though.  My obsession went into actual research.  I did research on Termite Terrace (the nickname for the Warner Brothers Studios Animation Lot) and the rise of Looney Tunes from Merrie Melodies just so I could refute claims that Disney was inferior.  I studied the voice actors and the actual directors and animators.  Friz Freeling (my favorite), Chuck Jones (who had this awesome haphazard drawing style), Bob Clampett (who did the best Daffy Duck cartoons), etc . . . I knew a lot.  I knew that in 1944 a survey was taken among American GIs serving abroad on what cartoons they liked the most, Disney or Warner Brothers.  (It was a landslide WB win because they said that more than Disney, WB cartoons made them laugh when they needed to laugh.)

Nuff Said.

Which brings me to why I liked them so much.  In hindsight, when I was under 10, I had a mild appreciation for Disney cartoons – found them cute.  Then, when I was 13, my dad told me he was getting remarried.  I was really upset – pissed even.  Didn’t know this lady very well and from what I had experienced, I wasn’t on my way to liking her.  I remember turning on the TV and some old school Looney Tunes were on . . . and I started laughing .  And I needed that back then.

When Bugs Bunny turned 50 in 1990, the opportunity to buy kitsch quadrupled.  I have an unbelievable limited edition lithograph of the main characters in front of a lonely microphone when Mel Blanc passed away . . .

Then I got the ultimate gift; a leather bomber jacket with Bug Bunny leaning on a bi-plane stitched on the back.  the first time I wore it was when my friends and I went to the Westroads Mall.  As I was entering the food court, a bunch of high school guys drove past and screamed, “Nice coat, faggot.”  I never wore it again.

3) I Can’t Concentrate – Clinically.

I was a bright, imaginative young boy.  I loved drawing, building my own Lego constructions, pretending ordinary objects were spaceships . . . which got me into trouble.  I had my share of problems in 2nd and 3rd grade.  I have the record in 2nd grade for getting detentions for talking out of turn in class (16).  I also had trouble learning to write.  My mom and my teacher had to work every day to get me to write from top to bottom/left to right as opposed to the opposite.

That same teacher, though, Mrs. Klein, also had some vendetta against both boys and imagination.  Those 16 detentions I got, many of them should have been shared with a female counterpart.  But girls were perfect in her world.  That’s beside the point.  One day, during class, I was pretending my pencil was a spaceship.  I wasn’t making noise but was doing it quite subtlety.  Still, she felt the need to call me out in front of the class and make fun of me – eventually getting the class to laugh at me.  What a bitch . . . sorry I had an imagination and was born with a penis.

It was then that Mrs. Klein and the principal suggested my parents take me to the Boys Town Institute – a children hospital that could test me for learning disabilities.  The tests were fun . . . listening for beeps in a head set, drawing pictures, reading.  They thought I might have dyslexia.  However, I think the final test that tipped the scales.  It was a color blind test that probably tipped off the doctors that I had mild ADD.  The nurse brought me a series of flash cards that were filled with color dots.  Within those dots was a hidden number made of slightly different color dots.  The test?  Trace the number with your index finger.  Easy, right?  Maybe if you’re not an attention seeking whore like me.

I would purposely trace all over the cards, feigning (badly feigning) that I was having difficulty.  Just tracing the number seven looked like I saw the Star of David.  The staff saw through my ruse and told my parents that I had an attention deficit disorder –  I guess it wasn’t severe enough to warrant medication – I think this was way before Ritalin, but even today, it takes me a lot to concentrate for long periods of time.  I can only write for an hour before I have to get up for a walk.  I think I could use some Adderall,  but I’ve done good so — ooh, look.  A kitty.

4) 39 Steps

While not a personality trait, this fact may be a reason that I like writing.  Am I good at writing?  That’s for my readers (all 2 of you – all time low!)  What is known by most who know me is that I’m second generation American.  My grandfather was a Scottish national.  He was so proud of his Sottish heritage (UK – but don’t tell him that.) that he never became a US citizen.

The precursor to Thomas The Tank Engine.

When I visited Scotland, I found that our family (the Buchans) have a whole area in the north of Scotland dedicated to them,  newspaper, a province, etc . . . I even learned that my family is decended from Scottish royalty.

However, what is really cool is that I’m related to John Buchan.  Not my grandfather, John Buchan – of course I’m related to him.  I’m talking about the writer, John Buchan, who wrote the adventure novel The Thirty-nine Steps.  This was the novel Alfred Hitchcock adapted for his famous film The 39 Steps.  Does this really reflect on my personality?  Let’s just say yes.

5) I’m Black

Like Steve Martin dad in The Jerk, “I was a born a poor black child.”