I did, I swore I wouldn't write "25 Things."

But that was last year.

1. I believe there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy. As proof, I offer the name of my dog when I was a kid: Trouble.

2. The people I have met who think they are pretty much like everyone else could not be more wrong about that one thing; and the people who proclaim their uniqueness are far more like everyone else than they think.

3. I can explain almost everything, in an interesting and superficial way, with the Bell Curve, the Three Laws of Thermodynamics and the Law of Gravity.

4. I can explain almost everything else with Chaos Theory.

5. I never thoroughly read Shakespeare, Milton, Joyce or many of the other classic authors that they make you read when you're an English major, though I can quote them as though I did.

6. I wasn't an English major. Everyone thinks I must have been, but I wasn't.

7. The best year of my life so far was spent in Africa when I was all of 21. I don't feel bad about that. I've had a lot of great years. That one just happened to be off the charts.

8. Most of my best friends have always been women. I don't think they're necessarily better than men. I just like them more.

9. There were two times in my life when I did everything I was told. One was when I was too young to know better, and my mother cherishes those years. The other is when I quit drinking. The rest of the time, I pretty much questioned everything.

10. I smoke chick cigarettes -- long menthol Virginia Slims, and the like. I am aware that I should quit.

11. I've had straight people guess I was gay, but I've never had a gay person guess that I'm gay. So I have to conclude that gay people have better gaydar than straight people, which figures, doesn't it?

12. I never wrote anything for publication until I was 27, when I became a newspaper reporter by walking into a publisher's office, cold, and persuading him that I'd be good at the job.

13. I can actually prove I knew in 1994 that the Internet was going to become what it is today. I can also prove I knew that going to war in Iraq was a bad idea. Not that it matters. No one really likes a smartypants.

14. I have been fired four times that I can recall. Two of them, I probably would have fired me, too. The other two were really blessings in disguise.

15. I would rather write something funny than write something serious, even though it is much harder work.

16. I have a rule about writing for free -- never do it for more than 30 minutes at a stretch. I am coming up on 30 minutes.

17. I misspelled the word "xylophone" in the New Jersey state spelling bee when I was 12. I started it with a "z." I'm still embarrassed.

18. I thought, until I was 14, that I might become a pro football player. I thought until I was 22 that I might become a rock music singer-songwriter but finally concluded I had no real talent. As though that ever stopped anyone.

19. I have been in a straitjacket in a hospital, though only for one night. I don't recommend it.

20. I've been arrested way fewer times than I have broken the law. Hasn't everyone?

21. Though I've made my living at a keyboard for most of the last 25 years, I can't touch type. Nor can I play the piano, and I think they are similar skills that are simply beyond me in a learning-disabled kind of way.  I've really, really tried, too.

22. However, I can play guitar. And I bet I could play the fiddle. And I can hunt-and-peck thousands of good words on a good day. So I'm not really complaining.

23. I've met famous people who have a reputation for being assholes and, you know what? They weren't.

24. Then again, I'm the only person I know who went to Paris and came back saying that the French are just, you know, as NICE as could be.

25. I'm half sorry I wrote this. The other half will post it. If you got this far, you have legally agreed to all my terms and conditions. I'd tell you what they are, but your time is up.