Good grief...if I'm not the most boring person in the universe to read or write about I'm not sure who is. I was pretty sure it was me. Shows you what I know.

When I was a boy I watched too much television and thought reading was just about the most boring thing ever. I wish it weren't true, but it is. I'm not one of those virtuous long-standing book-loving smarties who grows up to write books because they always loved to read. I'm a closet dullard who loved watching The Electric Company and School House Rock and The Three Stooges and Julia Child and Star Trek and Monty Python and Columbo and The Rockford Files and "professional" wrestling and Solid Gold and I didn't learn to love reading until I was much older. Like twenty. Maybe twenty-two.

I'm not proud of it, but it's true and there would be nothing more boring than my writing something boring about myself that wasn't even true. Or maybe I'm wrong? Maybe that would be less boring? In any case, it's out there and you already know I'm a dope so there's nothing I can do about it. And I do love to read now. The one consolation I take from not being smart enough (or awake enough) to love reading when I was young is that there are now that many more books I get to read and discover for the first time. Which is actually a totally bogus consolation since I can never remember anything I read anyway and I could be marooned tomorrow on an island with two or three books and I could read them over and over again and still feel like I was reading each for the first time. Did I already mention how boring I am?

Why you're still reading this is beyond me. Makes me think maybe I know who the new most boring person in the world who stole my title must be. I'll give you a hint--it rhymes with "you," but that's all I'll say and I hope I'm wrong. I usually am. So I wouldn't worry, Snoresby.

Let's see... my favorite color is purple. It always has been. Although I've been told there was a brief period before purple when my favorite color was brown. I like brown too. But it's no purple. I think I changed my favorite color to purple around the time I wanted my name to be changed to Fred. It's a long story. Suffice it to say, no one ever called me Fred. No one calls me Bob either. If you call me Bob—which you are welcome to do—I will know right away you have no idea who I am. Consider yourself lucky in that case.

My favorite food is chicken kiev with rice pilaf. Or at least it used to be. If you've never had my mom's chicken kiev with rice pilaf your life is 30% less tasty than it could have been otherwise. Sorry. Life's not fair that way. I don't make the rules so don't blame me.

I am the shortest "grown-up" man I know. Am pretty sure that's true, but it might not be entirely true, so don't quote me. Anyway, I'm not short enough to be interestingly short so it's hardly worth mentioning.

My Grandma Lucy was the first real person I knew who wrote poems. She wrote them for birthdays and holidays and stuff like that. She also was a really great drawer. I'm sure she's a big reason I started to write poems when I was a kid. I still write and draw birthday and holiday poems/cards for my family. Grandma Lucy also wore turbans and feather boas and Candy high-heeled pumps. Why I grew up to write poems, but dress so boringly is a mystery.

I don't think I ever had any idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was too busy just being a kid to worry about anything like that. But I always liked drawing and burning holes in leaves with a magnifying glass (still one of the best smells ever) and taping Estes rocket engines to the bottom of my skateboard to make it go faster and collecting things: baseball cards; coins; stamps; puffy-changy-boobly-eye stickers; Dannon yogurt tops.

Jamey Delaplane had the best collection of Dannon yogurt tops. He also had the best hand writing. But that was a long time ago and I haven't seen a vintage Prune Whip Dannon yogurt top in over 35 years. Prune Whip was the rarest of the rare. Two-tone purple cardboard disc. Only teachers ate Prune Whip. We used to hover around the trashcans and wait for them to dump their trays and leave the lunchroom so we could snag the tops. Apricot was also rare. Or maybe it was mango? And Coffee. Which was two tone brown and the second rarest. Are you still reading?

Right now I guess I collect plants. Or more specifically, I like to garden. And dig it the dirt. And watch things grow. My daughter likes to pick flowers. The neighbors' trees block most of the sun in our back yard so I mostly grow shade plants and there aren't that many flowers to pick. Just interesting leaves. I would have never believed it if you'd told me gardening could be this mind-bogglingly satisfying. But it is. If you are not already into ogling plants your avocational life is at least 17.5% less interesting than it otherwise might be. Them's the breaks.

I also like to make pizza. My daughter likes to make pizza too. That reminds me...I'm hungry. I would dazzle you with more details about my life, but it's hot today and somewhere out there there's a chocolate milkshake with my name written all over it.

I'll tell you about the lederhosen another time.