Monday, November 27, 2006

Weird Six

I've been tapped by Kim to reveal some of my innate weirdness to the world. Narrowing down to six was the tough part:

1. I have an overwhelming fear that the world will run out of electricity. Sometimes when I drive at night and see all the lights on in an office building or think about all the electric signs, I feel panicked. When I had a washer/dryer and dishwasher in my first apartment, I couldn't run them at the same time without needing to leave the apartment. I can't sleep if I can hear the air or heat clicking on and off, so I'll turn the air up and the heat down to the point that it only comes on periodically.

2. I've noticed lately a few habits about numbers. I have to pump gas on the fives. It has to be $16.65 instead of $16.62. And the volume on the TV or radio has to be an even number.

3. When my sister got married five years ago, I had my first and only manicure. Before that, I wore my fingernails very, very long. The manicurist cut them pretty short, and since then, I've been unable to stand long fingernails. I had to cut my nails before I left for Salt Lake City, because I knew if they got too long on the trip, I would chew them off just to keep them short.

4. I have an undergraduate and graduate degree. Neither the college nor the university I went to had a football team. Conversely, I grew up a stone's throw from Athens, Georgia, a town obsessed with its UGA dawgs. But I have never been to a UGA football game.

5. I am obsessed with my handwriting. Perhaps it's something to do with being lefthanded, which typically makes for terrible penmanship. But I practiced and practiced and practiced until I had neat handwriting. If I start to write a note to myself on a post-it, and it looks messy, I'll throw it away and start over again.

6. I am an inherently messy person. At my house, I throw clothes and shoes around without care, leave dishes in the sink, and let the bathroom go straight past EPA standards. In a hotel, I am meticulously neat. Fastidious even. I will fold my clothes, put items back in the suitcase after use and hang up the towels in the bathroom. Perhaps I need to pretend I live in a hotel.

I'm double-tapping, but I'd love to see weirdness from Pen & M, Tom, Andi, Niki, and The Growler.

4 cat calls:

mendacious said...

me too?! i'd love to. miss ocd girl.

Andria said...

girl, you crack me up. This is very similar to a post I did recently about OCD and quirks! and I got some very enlightening feedback! I have some weird friends, but I knew we all had it in us.

Kim said...

Your fear about electricity is very similar to our mutual terror that we will run out of gas soon. Which I still live in fear of, by the way, even though we (occasionally) see gas for less than $2. You and I together will overcome this gas (and electrical) menace!

ashley said...

It's really awful driving on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving with that kind of phobia. You can just watch the gas fumes rising up from all those idle cars and think about how much gas is a-wastin'. Remember when there was that gas run last year at Labor Day and you and I were almost catatonic with worry?

P.S. Any of those nonblogger readers are welcome to leave their weird six in the comments - I'm dying to know how weird you all are.