I was always the kid at the side of the playground, looking at the other kids. I didn't know how to get into the group. I was quiet and bookish, a bit of a geek. I was into orienteering when my friends were out clubbing.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I was little, there were so many people in my house. Everyone was enjoying themselves, rehearsing, having fun. It was like a playground.
I was always different from all the other kids, and I was doing things that nobody else did or seemed to have any interest in.
I was a founding member of the 'Dungeons and Dragons' club at my high school. I was in chorus, I was in swing choir. I was an outcast but I was an outcast among a group of outcasts.
I took group lessons at a rink near my home. We first had to learn how to stand up on the ice wearing skates. Eventually we learned to move forward, but soon found out that it was not that easy to stop! So that was our next important lesson.
I was a little nerdy, but I got along with everybody. I had fun at school - skateboarding, surfing, getting kicked out of class for making too much noise.
As a kid, I grew up on a farm in Florida, and I did what most little kids do. I played a little baseball, did a few other things like that, but I always had the sense of being an outsider, and it wasn't until I saw pictures in the magazines that a couple other guys skate, I thought, 'Wow, that's for me,' you know?
I was always the new kid, and I got to know the language and the politics of being on the outside, looking in. Never being in the clique - always being a student of the clique, a subversive, and I could look around and identify the other guys who were excluded.
I remember playing with some friends and being aware that I was acting as I was playing with them - I would think of a character and pretend to be someone else. My parents also took me to ballet school, and there I think I was able to start communicating those feelings or emotions - I danced for so many years.
As a kid, I was school swot, but I used to hang around the billiard halls, learning that Geordie sense of humour, mixing with low-lifes. They were the sort who'd pick your pocket and then say 'Here you are lad, here's tuppence, get yourself some chips'. I was a good rugby player, a good runner, so I fitted in at Cambridge quite easily.
As a kid, my main interest was dancing. When I was 8 years old, I was in a hip-hop troupe.