David's List o' Obsessions

Here's a picture of David with the most skittish cat in the universe to look at before you read about him. I don't know why it's so blurry.


Okay this is my list. It is a lot of “my favorite stuff” which consequently became my obsessions. I didn’t capitalize everything and I am obsessed with ellipses (…) so hold on…

Comic books
Titles I loved: x-men, fantastic four, the avengers, the justice league, teen titans, legion of super-heroes, batman, sandman. I spent years and years collecting back issues. I cannot even try total up all the allowances and paychecks I spent. All those hours and hours “wasted” reading them and storing them and cataloguing them. I went to dozens of geeky comic conventions just to buy comics and get comics signed by the artists. I made tons and tons of drawings imitating favorite characters and artists. Maybe that’s why I am art teacher now? Who knows. Fun story: I went to camp one year in middle school and wrote a letter to mom asking her to buy X-Men #138 for me and send it to camp. She did not. I was very upset.

Action figures
Ah, those ancient mego action figures – still wish I had the old teen titans action figures. The micronauts were cool. The old super-powers figures had all kinds of cool D.C. characters. I even got a job at a toy store just to grab new ones. I loved the teenage mutant ninja turtles and all the batman figures. Also, x-men and others came soon after the first batman movie was big. I would still would love to have a phoenix and dark phoenix figure.

Dungeons and Dragons
The ultimate in nerd-dom. When did this start? 7th grade? The summer before 7th grade? Maybe I blocked it out on purpose. There was a group of us who spent our lunches spent playing D&D in the cafeteria. Before school, on the bus going home, anytime we could, we tried to play. We even had sleepovers – with pizza, D&D, and video games. It rocked. We drew big maps of the adventures and wrote detailed life stories of the characters we played. I think I played until my freshman year of college. Yikes! Oh yes, I still have all the books. I still use one on a regular basis…for the pictures not the fun! Ha!

Baseball cards
I WAS a boy in the 70s and 80s I mean come on! I hope Andy still has all those cards I gave him…they’re worth a lot of money baby!

Music
I listened to mom’s music growing up. Here are some of favorites: Classic Rock and More - the beatles, billy joel, queen, kiss, styx, jimmy buffett, the police, prince, the who, led zeppelin, rolling stones, black crowes, rem, nirvana, pearl jam, barenaked ladies, red hot chili peppers; Classical – Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky; Jazz/standards – Fred Astaire, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Blossom Dearie
The Fox 99.7 was a staple in school when I had a car. I remember when I was even younger listening to the radio and waiting for my favorite song to come on. What was the song? “Beth” by KISS…yeah!!!!!!!!

Television
Star trek (yes all of them but especially Next Generation)
Survivor, amazing race, big brother
Law and order, csi
Friends
Buffy the vampire slayer (after it was on tv-watched all the dvds)
Cheers was an old favorite in college
X-files was a staple on Friday nights in grad school
Okay, well those are the most recent televsion obsessions I guess. I love tv. Allison says I watch more tv than her. Maybe. Happy Days may have been my earliest tv obsession. There is some picture of me somewhere in 1st grade or so. I am sitting on the curb with my thumbs up probably saying “heeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyy” just like Arthur Fonzarelli. I was so cool.

Movies
Planet of the apes was a movie I remember from early on and I remember being freaked out by the scary-sounding music. Jaws and close encounters were movies mom took us to – yes a scary giant shark and more scary music mixed with weird-aliens.
I remember dad talking me to westworld which promptly scared the bee-jee-zus out of me. Robot cowboys! What is with me remembering only the scariness? Maybe mom and dad were trying to damage me psychologically?
Other obsessions: Grease, Saturday night fever, the rocky movies (especially rocky iii). I had the album for Grease and listened to it all the time.Oddly, my first date with Allison was going to see Grease. Interesting. Rocky III rocked. I hated Clubber Lang. I remember standing up and CHEERING when Rocky beat him down. I pity the fool that messes with Sly Stallone!

Biggest obsession when I was young? Um….STAR WARS…duh…I still remember going to the old Charlottetown theater to see it! The movie, the toys, the music…all of it.
Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Excalibur, Raiders of the Lost Ark
So many good movies!
Batman. Enough said. I made Andy and Jon go see it on opening day. I was scarily OBSESSED with Batman for a long time. Movies, toys, music. Catch a trend here. That’s when I got the job at the toystore. I was scary-obsessed.
My students seem to think I am obsessed with Lord of the Rings. I have no idea what they’re talking about. Just because I have LOTR action figures (more toys) as my hall passes, LOTR calendars hanging up, and I make them do a project in Art III based on Fellowship of the Ring, I mean…come on! It’s ART…right?

Video games
I have played too many video games maybe. It seems like I have always had some kind of video games around. Atari was awesome…space invaders, pac-man, decathlon…Colecovision had cool controllers…Gateway to Apshai! The old-style Nintendo and Mario brothers….Sega genesis and sonic the hedgehog…That is in the attic I think. Maybe I should get it down...(Note from Allison: I have a picture of David from when we lived in the apartment, laying on the floor, playing Sega and watching the World Cup on a little TV he had rigged up on the hearth. True love!)hmmm…Computer games – Civilization was an absolute OBSESSION for years…
We had a baseball game on Nintendo when I was at Carolina. We had WEEKEND TOURNAMENTS. Yes, I was 21, drinking beer all weekend, and playing video games all weekend long. How “guy-like” is that?

Art history
Well, I am an art teacher…so…duh again. I have two college degrees in AH. I don’t know if that makes me obsessed. Art history is detail-oriented. Dates, people, places, styles and so forth. Lots of categories. Excellent for obsessive people. When I was studying for my master’s exam, I know I was obsessed. I compiled this list that had maybe 25,000 major works of art and architecture. Somehow I can’t find it anywhere. I think I am obsessed more so now because I am going to teach an AP Art History class this fall…I am currently obsessing over planning for the class and finding images to go along with my lessons. That isn’t an unhealthy obsession though. People will learn from all the “work” I am doing now. Right?

Sports
Tennis, cycling, track, soccer – hey I was a skinny kid…no football for me…I played baseball for a couple of years though. borg, mcenroe, lemond, salazar, carl lewis, pele – bigtime heroes of mine. I still love those sports and annoy Allison when I watch them. Of course I love running…cross-country and track are the sports I coach
I obsess over planning the season and strategies and all that…we have a trail at school that I obsess over keeping runnable during the school year…pictures of teams and awards and newspaper articles cover walls at home and school…I guess I am vainglorious! Whatever.
I love watching sports on tv: tennis, tour de france, soccer, track, some golf, all football, some basketball, a little hockey, but not baseball at all. I will watch any nfl football game that is on. I enjoy yelling at the tv when I am watching sports. I will yell at the officials, the players, and even mock them when they get upset. “COME ON MR. REFEREE….HE WAS ALL OVER ME!!! YA GOTTA CALL IT MR. REFEREE!”

Clothes
Long-sleeve dress shirts have to be button-down. Short-sleeve dress shirts are ABSOLUTELY NO WAY. Allison will tell me if I have other problems.

Cleaning
I like things to be neat and clean, but I’m not crazy about it. Really. Allison will tell you different maybe. I’m certain my students will. I am kind of crazy in my room when things get out of control dirty. I don’t even let my students clean their own paintbrushes. Yikes. (David's plans on teacher workdays: CLEAN).

Planned ahead
I saved this until the end because Allison says I am REALLY OBSESSED with this…I couldn’t even write this obsession list without obsessing over how to plan and write it. I have served as a “New York City Tour Guide” a few times. I took a couple of groups of students to NYC and we went to Meredith and Joe’s wedding a few years ago. I always have a plan as to what I want people to do or see on these trips. We get up and we go ALL DAY. No time is wasted. We are on the move. I had fun on these trips. I know some of my students had fun. Allison is the only one who has complained. Ha!!!! ( I only complained because we were "touring" at breakneck speed and I was too busy gawking at the tall buildings like every good tourist should)

My husband is cool. I remember when we were still dating that I thought he was SO COOL. I wonder why in the world I thought that. I still love him, most of the time.