EPIC OF THE FLOWBUG
So, you want to know more about me, huh? Well, unfortunately that's quite a task. The first thing I should tell you, is that I am a man of extremes. Never content with mediocrity, I sustain such ideas as that I should remain hidden to those who wish not to know me; and to let those that do know me, know me well. So, included for you in this script, is more information then you're likely to be curious about. Read it as much as time will allow. I've tried not to make it boring, and rather I hope that it will interest you somewhat. Good luck, and always remember… be careful what you wish for…
We shall start at the beginning - It was a dark and stormy night… hey, wait a minute? That's not right, it was clear and calm… a rather usual Saturday morning in a small town in the Midwest. **1:32 A.M.** on a rather usual Saturday morning, no less. Well, anyway… I was born in southern Illinois, Charleston was the town. Actually, it was so small of a town, that the one hospital was in-between Charleston and the neighboring municipality. Officially, I was born in Mattoon, Illinois. (Bet you never heard of THAT place!)
My family had lived in that area since pioneer days, so I think I can officially claim to be 100% American, mostly because so little is known as to where exactly they came from. It was basically assumed within my household, that we're about 30% German, 40-60% Scots-Irish, and the rest is mostly a mix of various European blood. ‘Douglas’ is a Scottish name, from a river in Scotland, the “Dark Water” river; which gets ITS name from the murky grey-green water that flows through it. Needless to say, on standardized tests I mark myself as white... about as white as Wonder bread. My only real claim to fame, is that my mother's-father's-mother, was a distant cousin to Abraham Lincoln. Not a bad deal to say I'm related to such a respected leader, but it's about a close a link as Six Degrees To Kevin Bacon.
Okay, now since not all is cakes and cuttlefish (What can I say, I like squids!!!), I'll talk a little about the serious stuff: To start things off, my parents were divorced before I was even born. My father was a drug addict, and refused to get a real job or otherwise help support the family. We haven't heard from him in a long time. My hope is that he's cleaned up his act, he just didn't seem ready for the responsibility. It's sort of a case of age-verses-maturity. My mom needed to move on from life in a small town, so we moved to Tucson, Arizona when I was little more than a year old.
Nothing notable happened there, except that when I was four-and-a-half, we moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since then, it's been my mother, myself, and the world. She tried to ply her amazing intelligence, and her extensive education towards keeping our tiny family afloat (Luckily, I have no siblings - I'm an only child... as if she COULD have had more children and still have retained her sanity). Unfortunately, she has a knack for being caught in “catch-22”s, and being screwed by our world-famous bureaucracy. So I grew up with my mother constantly finding work, doing a great job, finding someone who didn't like her, being fired... rinse and repeat. We had very little money, but it wasn't until recently that I realized JUST how little money it was. She did wonderfully at always seeing that I was comfortable, safe, and happy.
So then I started going to school. Boy, I could make an amusement park ride out of it. When I started out, everything was normal. I had a great kindergarten year. It wasn't hard when all they asked was for you to play nice, and take a nap on time. First grade sucked; more for the teacher, though, than for me. I was a total brat, but I'm told that most bright kids are at that age. Anyway, when I spent a month straight in the principal's office, they decided to put me in a special class for people with behavior problems.
WE INTERRUPT THIS DOCUMENT FOR A SPECIAL EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT: If you're actually READING through all of this, your eyes are probably getting pretty DARN sick of staring at neon-green letters! So, for your viewing pleasure, we kindly present a little splash of color:
Thank you for your diligence. We now return you to your regularly scheduled document.
There I remained, until middle school. At this time, I had matured past misbehaving, and was the disgrace of my BD peers. They saw me as a goodie-two-shoes who was only there to make them look worse. So anyway, that's when I was put back in regular classes. Promptly, I found the need to return to Special Ed... but for a different reason. I was failing, but not because I didn't know how to do the work. Rather surprisingly, I was actually inclined to do more INTERESTING things than the assignments... which doesn't seem too odd, until you realize that what I found more interesting was to actually LEARN something in the class. I could quite often be caught reading ahead in the book; finding cool facts, and mentioning them to the class. My teachers were outraged by this blatant lack of respect for their authority, and the insult I was giving to their curriculum.
Note: If you'd like to see some pics of me from about this point in time, please click [HERE].
All except for one... a wonderful woman who actually had the notion that maiking kids smarter, rather than pounding in useless facts, is what would help them in the real world. Why did she feel this way? Because she was a “gifted” teacher, and she also happened to teach gifted kids. I took a test to apply for gifted status, and by high school, I was labeled Twice Exceptional. Since then, I was able to do a WHOLE lot better in school. That is, until ANOTHER little disappointment-faerie decided to creep in and whap me with her little failure-stick. As I was going along in school and doing well, it got to the point where they could push me harder, and harder. That's when I started getting sick and missing school a lot.
I had always had a talent for picking up every cold and flu that came along, but mostly I just kept going throughout. Now, it was impossible. Hindered by the fact that I was depressed from going through some bad experiences with my girlfriends - another story in itself - I was also officially diagnosed with an unaccounted for immuno-deficiency. The two diagnoses compounded, and I found it very difficult to get up in the morning (stress of depression), plus I was usually sick throughout the day. Not a good combination when it came to not only showing up to school, but also staying there.
As things progressed with both my illness and the doctor's understanding of it... it's now being said that I have a sleeping disorder that feeds into chronic fatigue and depression. My sleep pattern is very scattered. I can be awake from 6am to 3am one day, and sleep 22 hours straight a few days after that. More often, though, I tend to go to bed around 2am and wake up in the afternoon... I don't party, drink, or do drugs. I'm the cleanest guy I know... I am just up at all hours because there's nothing else my body will let me do, and I crash when my body finally burns itself out. This is all one reason why I've taken to the Web. The one place where you've always got a friend awake SOMEWHERE.
To make a long story short (Ha! AS IF), I was held back a year, and had to receive extra help and a little leniency to make the grade. It's not very fun when you're at all of your friends' graduation, watching them go off while you've got another twelve months of uphill battle ahead of you. I just want to get all of this crap over with ASAP. I've already taken one college-level course over the summer, and I loved it. I hope I can manage to go full time, without killing myself with stress... or otherwise.
So that takes us up to the present, which ends our history lesson... but we haven't begun to get into just who I am. There's personality; there's tastes; heck, there's shoe size... I suppose it's only fair that I tell you the same things about myself, that I've found out about Anna Lieb. So here goes, this list will mimic the Bio I set up about her on my site, except that it's about ME. You may even want to go back so you can contrast and compare.
-Flowbug's Bio-
Name: Jeremy Alexander Douglas, The Great and Powerful Leader of the Green-Shoelace Revolution. (My personal trademark is black shoes with bright, dayglow-green shoelaces... I'll explain later.)
Age: 489,318 years. (Give or take say, 489,4300 years.)
Height: 5’9” (Hm, this is disappointing... I really can't think of anything funny to say here)
Weight: 130-40 lbs. (My weight fluctuates because of depression, I don't like to eat when my emotions are strained.)
Eyes: Blue (They actually do this cool thing where there's a dark blue ring; and a second concentric ring that is a gradient between an inner green, and an outer medium blue. As my eye adjusts to light, either the green or the blue becomes more prominent when the muscles contract or expand!)
Hair: Brown (A simpler man would leave it at brown... but further examination [brought about by extreme boredom] has revealed that I actually have brown, blonde, and red hairs, that intermingle to achieve an effect that LOOKS like a solid brown. In the light, or when my hair's buzzed short, you can see the blotches where the color is uneven... I look like a calico cat! [Not really, you have to look PRETTY close.] This actually isn't too spectacular, because this is how everyone creates the specific pigmentation of their hair. It doesn't show I have special hair, only that I have such a lack of a life, that I've actually spent time EXAMINING all this!)
Bust: I busted my arm once, and that's about it. Well, actually not even that - It was just sprained. (I've never managed to break a single bone in my body... yet)
Waist: What my mom always calls me whenever I talk to her and she hears I still don't have a decent job... (Or what I call HER when I talk to her and hear SHE still doesn't have a decent job!)
Hips: More than one guy from the early 60's who thinks he's cool? (No, wait... Those guys who went to Woodstock!)
Dress Size: Umm, whatever my friend Beth wears. (Hey! Come on, it was HALLOWEEN for gosh sake... [insert snooty smirk] besides, she got jealous because I looked better in it than she did!)
Shoe Size: Ohh! SHOES, is THAT what you call those things on your feet!? Well, they SAY they're 10½, but *I* don't believe them! (Usually I just close my eyes and blunder around Payless until I bump into something that fits. You should just see these lovely pumps I picked up last week...) ;-)
This is a set I did recently to show you what I look like before I've had my hair cut... I hadn't had a trim in about a month. Naturally the next pic is me directly AFTER I've had my hair cut! Don't ask me why the quality of this pic came out so much better, I don't know if has anything to do with the haircut or not!
:Some Things That Flow Likes:
:And Some DISlikes:
*I would be a vegetarian, or at least a healthier eater if I had the money to care. As it is, I walk to the grocery store across the street, and eat what I can afford. (Well, I take it home and cook it first!) I've never owned a pig, (However, right now I own a Siamese cat named Isis, and a mutt named Bråkighund, see above pictures) but I love ALL animals, (I even enjoy many animals that are traditionally hated and feared) I used to have a pet ribbon snake, and I even like many insects and other creepy things that most people call gross. That's one reason why I expanded on my nickname for this site, and covered it with bugs. It's shocking, a little gross, mostly weird... yet pretty cool, and the result is not that bad... Much like myself.
Well, that about covers it. If nothing else, the absurd humor you've just read portrays a lot of who I am. I wish I could go over more of the details and stuff that's happened to me, and explain how many of my experiences have led to the person I am today. I have many, many interesting stories to share... but I think the point of setting up this website is that I WANT people to come vist, and I don't want to scare them off. Feel free to let me know about any comments you have concerning this section of my website, and, since you've already seen the rest of my domain, (ri-ight?) you should give me some input on that too. My E-mail addy is flowbug@nmia.com.
I hope that you've made it this far, because I want to take this space to thank you all very much. First of all, for taking the time to read through all of this long-winded drivel; and secondly (but more importantly), for supporting me and my efforts by coming in and viewing all of what I've got to offer. Please remember to check out everything I've set up, and if you happen to like any of it... do share the joy with friends as well. Somehow it just seems amazing to me that you'd be THIS interested in who I am. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does. I'm so completely thrilled that you take time out of your busy schedule to surf the web and learn a bunch of boring information about someone as trivial as me.
So, thanks for bearing with me... I hope you've laughed a little, and that you haven't just fallen asleep on the down arrow.
Sincerely,
J. Douglas
The Flowbug
![[HERE]](./pics/me.jpg){kind=link}