100 THINGS ABOUT ME:
1. My name is Gregory Robert Jaimes Swan, I was named Gregory after the apparently handsome partner of the woman who was in the next bed to my mum in the maternity ward, other names up for consideration were Adrian (my preferred choice), Brett (rejected after my cousin told my mum it sounded like Brat, again Brett would have been a preferred option) My middle name of Robert comes from my uncle, second middle name is Jaimes .. long story, in a fit of boredom or more likely ‘Under the weatherness’ two friends and I decided we would officially change our names as we figured ‘Why not, you can change everything else, why be stuck with a name?’ so we grabbed a book and opened the pages randomly and put our fingers on the page and whatever was first or closest would be our name, my friend Phillip ended up with ‘Bentley Race’, my friend Marc had ‘Charlie Speed’ and I got ‘Jaimes Dylan Conran’ I was pretty pleased with this as I had wanted to add James to my name for a long time, it was the first name of my great x lots grandfather who first landed in Australia, the others pretty much forgot about the official part of changing there names but I went as far as going to the dept of ‘Births, deaths and marriages’ but when I found out it was going to cost about $100.00 to change my name on paper I balked, but later found out you only have to sign your name for so long and it becomes official anyway, thus for the last twelve years I have added Jaimes to my name. Equally as twisted is my last name of Swan, it appears changing names in this family is somewhat of a tradition as when we had our family tree traced we found out our real last name isn’t Swan but was changed from ‘Hornsby’ after a ‘family scandal’.
2. I don’t like being called Gregory, it just sounds too posh and gay, and I’m only called that by my mother when she is antsy with me.
3. I have various nicknames most common is Spud, Reg or Tammy and Liz.
4. I just break 6’0” in height if i tease my hair, I have no idea how tall that is in cm but i always thought i was much taller, maybe everyone’s just a lot shorter than i thought.
5. I am a sook who has been known to cry at an episode of the Brady Bunch and most recently an episode of ‘Extreme make over’.
6. I was born in 1965 and I’m now happy to admit that, I have the runs on the board and I appreciate each and every one of them.
7. My family have been in Wollongong for as far back as anyone remembers, I was born in Sydney but have never had any other postcode besides Wollongong.
8. I don’t smoke, tho I can.
9. I love to laugh, and live to laugh, I think if I spent less time laughing in school I’d be in a really cool job now, but I also believe laughing is a way we get through things.
10. I am prone to absurdist statements, which many people take as me making a serious comment, this cracks me up even more as so many things in life are so beyond out of control and deeply bad the only way I can cope with this fact is to joke about it, to emphasise the absurdity of what is confronting me.
11. I sleep lightly, and can’t sleep in, no matter how long I’m on holidays for I always wake at the same time, sort of like Kramer’s internal alarm.
12. I always feel I need more sleep, and I probably do I just have to get to bed earlier which is easier said than done, also stoning the Koal that lives in the tree outside my bedroom window would help.
13. I used to have to sleep with earplugs when I lived literally between six lanes of traffic.
14. I don’t drink coffee.
15. My handwriting looks like a child’s.
16. I have a social phobia and can’t write when people are watching me; I misspell and leave out letters.
17. All my family have beautiful handwriting.
18. I have two sisters and a brother who I get along great with, I don’t see my brother and one sister that often as they live in another state, I also live in another state but that’s another story.
19. I consider my brother in law and sister in law as my siblings, I can’t remember a time when they weren’t part of my family, I feel equally close to them as my blood siblings and when asked i tell people i have two brothers and three sisters.
20. I play the drums, I had lessons when I was a kid but the teacher told my dad that I was better off teaching myself as the theory was holding me back, I was a more natural player.
21. I can’t read music.
22. I have driven since I was a child, my father would sit me on his knee and let me drive home the last half a kilometre or so whenever we went out.
23. I was twelve when I drove solo for the first time, my sister in law convinced me to drive down the beach by myself to pick up my brother, not sure where my parents were.
24. I was once busted by an off duty police officer driving around and around in a car park, my dad was with me and the cop told him I should give it a few years.
25. I just cant do Sci Fi, the world is weird enough.
26. I have a strong creative drive but lack the confidence to push it’s limits.
27. I have been in the same job since I was eighteen.
28. I used to be amazingly lucky on chocolate wheels at fetes and fairs.
29. I adore the smell of hardware stores.
30. I adore the smell of many things, in fact I really am quite ‘Nostro’ like Divine in Polyester I love to smell things, and I remember smells and can relive them in my mind, I vividly recall the smell of the jelly printing tray in my first year school class, i guess you could call me a snifter, people have.
31. I secretly wish I was Jason Falkner.
32. I collect ‘Little golden books’ I find the illustrations and artwork in them, especially the older ones amazing.
33. I love Thai food and if i could only have one type of food for the rest of my life it would be that.
34. I have been vegetarian for fifteen years.
35. My mother still thinks my teeth are going to fall out and that I will fall to pieces because I don’t eat meat, and people still ask me “So you’re still vegetarian?” as if I’m an alcoholic fighting the urge not to drink, ahhhh let me assure you there are no urges or deep seeded desires to eat flesh.
36. I love animals, and I’m an animal liberationist but I just cant do the whole cuddly cat and dog thing.
37. I’m totally allergic to cat hair.
38. I have never lost a true friend.
39. I still have several friends from when I was a child, we don’t see each other every week but when we do catch up it’s like no time has passed at all, probably my two oldest and closest friends would be the two Julies I went to primary school with, even back then I had fag hags.
40. I am single, given the choice I would take a relationship; there is a lot to be said for them.
41. I am a very philosophical person, i’m amazingly insightful and deep, i’ve had many many amazing experiences and conversations that have led me on, and to a knowledge, understanding and belief that everything ages except the soul, it grows and becomes stronger and brighter when everything else fades .. oh, and i’m very humble ha ha.
42. I can’t play cards, although I used know a really cool card trick that people could never figure out, it was the one puzzle-ish thing I could do.
43. I could fly before I could figure out a Rubiks cube.
44. I’m learning Buddhist meditation, I got sucked in tho thinking it would be chanting and half of it is muscle busting Tai Chi!.
45. I find it hard to slow my mind and think of nothing, especially when my mind is saying ‘But you’re thinking about thinking of nothing!’.
46. My legs aren’t very strong, tho I have killer calf muscles that even bitter drag queens compliment.
47. I can sorta kinda sing a bit, and I used to be good when I was trained in a choir.
48. I seem to have a large number of friends, unfortunately they are scattered across the four corners of the globe, does the world have four corners? I mean its round.
49. I’m a pop culture freak.
50. I have no idea or concept of punctuation.
51. Dark chocolate is vile.
52. Olives are vile.
53. I like tea, my favourite being earl grey, chamomile and Lemongrass and chilli.
54. Milk makes me fart.
55. Soy milk doesn’t make me fart; you’ll be pleased to know I drink soy milk.
56. I cannot dance in a formal setting, in a nightclub yes, but once some formal choreography becomes involved I cannot for the life of me co ordinate myself, this baffles me, as a drummer I thought I’d have that co ordination sorted out.
57. I have never worn eyeliner.
58. I chose to celebrate my 40th birthday after much contemplation, I realised it was a landmark to get to a significant age.
59. I love to read, and I usually have about five books on the go at once, as well as heaps of magazines, my former partner nailed it when he called me ‘scattered’.
60. I love creative writing and I will allow myself that one concession that maybe it is something I’m good at, call me a wank.
61. I don’t like surf sandals and I don’t trust people who wear them.
62. I have good looking feet.
63. On my upper right leg is a large area where I have no feeling.
64. I firmly believe respect is earnt.
65. I don’t wear gold jewellery.
66. My hairdresser is fabulous and I have gone to her for over ten years now, she knows all my secrets and i hope she has deleted the sms i sent her from Mardi Gras by mistake.
67. I don’t have a particular ‘type’ I have learnt that attraction comes in all shapes and sizes and that ultimately it is the makeup of the individual and the connection between the ‘two’ people.
68. I have worn converse Chuck Taylor high side sneakers since I was about ten, I have photos from way back then of me wearing them, they are almost my trademark.
69. I always seem to buy jeans one season out of date, but then that’s hot as it makes them embarrassingly retro, to new to be old too old to be new, that uncomfortable fashion phase of not in and not out, people think I just don’t have fashion together, I do .. I just like to upset people who place importance on these things.
70. When I find a shirt I like I buy a heap of them.
71. I don’t like tight shirts, and they don’t like me (one exception here, i love my black Bonds wringer tight t shirts .. but thats it)
72. I’m a romantic who dreams of happily ever afters for everyone, tho I’m realist enough to know that there is no forever.
73. I love nice soap, honey milk and coconut will do it for me.
74. I love discovering the ‘meaning’ of things, mainly words and reasons.
75. I have never had a beard or a moustache, I don’t like prickles.
76. I have blue eyes that seem to get commented on.
77. I wish I was shorter.
78. I am determined to visit London one day.
79. I love architecture, and have reams of drawings and sketches and plans I have drawn up of homes and buildings.
80. I’m fascinated by buildings and structures and the construction and design of them, the sheer complexity of it all.
81. I only know about three of my times tables, I think I’m numerically dyslexic.
82. Maths is a mystery to me, I used to panic about that but now I just get out a calculator.
83. I have been to the top of the Empire State Building.
84. In my opinion two of the most underrated virtues are kindness and compassion.
85. I cannot understand or comprehend cruelty; I cannot grasp how mankind has not evolved from it.
86. I do not have an addictive personality, that is a gene that passed me by.
87. I don’t really get embarrassed, I figure that only happens when you let things worry you, I figure take ownership of the moment and be proud of whatever happened and just pass it off with a ‘Yeh, I did that’.
88. I don’t know the difference between ‘did’ and ‘done’ and I’m not interested in learning it.
89. I think I have invented a phobia, and that’s when you reach into the shower to turn on the hot water and your arm is sprayed with the cold, I cant stand that and it freaks me out, I have mastered all manner of manoeuvres to whip my arm in and out before the icy splash but every now and then I still cop a cold squirt which can make me feel ill at ease for the rest of the day.
90. My name is credited in about ten books, one of which ‘The Beatles Anthology’ was number 1 on the New York Times best seller list.
91. I am credited in the movie ‘The US vs. John Lennon’.
92. I feel love, my family, friends and things I hold dear, I have experienced it and acknowledge it and I’m on a life long quest to better understand it and appreciate it, I’m excited as with each passing minute it becomes more profound and clear.
93. Music moves me to the depths of my soul, I have had the most extreme, deep and surreal experiences while listening to music, usually in a concert setting, I’ve seen Brian Wilson several times and each time there has been at least one moment when the music has been ‘in’ me, it has elevated me to a higher plane, I can ‘feel’ the music and almost see it, these are the moments where it feels like ice water is trickling down your back.
94. I have a handwritten note over my desk at work that a friend put there, it says simply ‘Time’.
95. I’m a thinker, some would call it ‘Deep’ I find it hard to stumble through life and just take it for what it is, I like to work towards finding out ‘why’ it is.
96. My favourite saying is ‘Life is a journey, not a destination’.
97. I love op shopping; I have it down to a fine art.
98. I can’t program a video and put together anything technical, like tuning in a television, does not compute.
99. Looking back on it I’ve met a lot of famous people, some of the biggies including Paul McCartney and Princess Diana, after meeting those two fame monsters I’m quite cool calm and collected when I meet famous people now, I love the cult of celebrity and it’s always a thrill to meet someone famous or infamous.
100. There is more than a hundred things to know about me.