From Rhubarb's Journal:

Each player of this game starts with the 6 weird things about you. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says you are tagged in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

This is an interesting exercise but rather difficult for me. The only weird stuff in my life has been what goes on in my head. Can that be weird thing number 1?

1. I may seem be cheating already by copying rhubarb but this is definitely a weird thing about me. When I was in college in the late sixties and early seventies I was an avid fan of rock n' roll and that whole sixties thing...except I never even smoked pot. I didn't know anybody else who didn't, so because I am perverse and determined never to go along with the crowd, I refused. I still wear my hair down to my shoulders and tend to have a glazed look in my eyes but believe it or not I don't smoke.

2. During the same era I wrote anti-Vietnam and anti-Nixon diatribes in my column in the local newspaper which qualifies as weird because the publisher who encouraged me to do so was to become a Republican politician and Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania.

3. My ex-wife dated Marky Ramone. Unfortunately we were still living together. (Umm, my ex and I, not me and Marky)

4. I was a science fiction fan for at least 15 years, and I still dabble a bit, but I have only been to one sf con and only spent a single hour there. That was where I met my current wife, in person, for the first time. We had been corresponding and some friends drove me to Chambanacon to meet her.

5. I've had a little success writing books and stories. Some people seem to find the stories I make up interesting, which I find weird because I'm sure that practically everyone who's ever read my writing has had a more eventful life than I have. For instance, the only foreign country I've visited is Canada, I haven't ever been 1,000 miles from where I was born and I've only been on a plane twice. I often find myself wondering how I can have anything to say that would interest anyone.

6. In gradeschool I drew a cartoon character called King Cotton (rather than learning long division). Years later I revived King Cotton for some mini-comics I was drawing. A friend, who had been hired to do a few issues of Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles stuck a drawing of King Cotton in one. So my fifth grade cartoon character had a cameo in a Ninja Turtles comic 25 years or so after he was crayoned for the benefit of my classmates.

Isn't all that weirdly unweird? I will now beg off nominating others because I am too shy to impose upon anyone.

Actually, it may say something about me that some "weird" things that spring to mind tend to be the few times I have had some sort of brush with those who have not led such obscure lives as I have. Guess I should've been famous!