5 Weird Things About Me

Checked in and caught up with Yew Nork Babe today. She posted this meme on the 18th - OK. I give up. What DOES "meme" stand for anyway? - but I don't read everyone every day so this is good for me because it's the same week!

The task today is to share 5 weird things about myself with all the blogging world. Hmmm. You know, it's hard to think of weird things when they don't seem weird to me. Instead it's just weird that not everyone else is doing what I do. I suppose this should be easy since I'm living in my MIL's house and her ways are not my ways, but it's not coming to me easily. Probably because most of my weirdness has to do with things being in a certain order whereas most folk could not care less. Still, I'm sure there must be something else about me. Gotta think:

1 - I don't like open doors in the house. That is closet doors. Bedroom doors can be open - and SHOULD be, where the kids are concerned - no problem. But all closet doors should be shut ALLLLL the way ALLLLL the time. Mr. T has a habit of closing the bathrooom door all the way to the jamb but NOT all the way until it is shut. What's up with that? Why does he torture me this way? It's a habit now for me to stick my arm in and shut the door all the way as I pass the bathroom on the way to my room where all the closet doors are shut, thank you very much. Could be a Boogie Man/too many Stephan King stories thing. I don't know.

2 - I race myself all the time and I don't know why. If I have 1 hour to get dressed and get out the house and I know it will take me that hour to do it, I still must wash a load of clothes (because after all, the machine can be working at the same time I am getting dressed) and set dishes in the water to soak (because after all, the lazy dishes can be making it easier for me to wash them later and no, I don't like the wastefulness of dishwashers especially since I am growing two human dishwashers as we speak) and turn on the computer to do one quick email (because after all, email can be traveling in cyberspace while I'm putting my shoes on) and make up my son's bed the right way as I pass his room (because after all, he sleeps on a pullout at the moment in Nana's spare room and it always looks like a circus tent has set up camp in his bed as he drapes the sheet over the arms of the sofas, which drives me mad) and oh, gotta put the veggies on to steam too (because after all, they really don't take THAT long to cook) and as I walk out the door...darn it! It's just 10 dishes, after all. Surely I can wash them right quick? Now that I think of it, I could be just more "compulsive" than "weird" but before I find out, let me just close the blinds the right way, not the backward way everyone else in the house shuts them because after all, they look weird any other way.

3 - I don't like normal sized things to be 50 times their size. They freak me out. OK, this one is legitimately weird. I'd love to take a hot-air balloon ride one day but those huge, colorful balloons are trippy! They look like they ran into rainbows on the way up but see, rainbows belong in the sky, not down here with me. And oh yes, I DO hate normal sized balloons too. At least when they go POP! (And oh yes, again, rainbows can be trippy too if you get a brightly colored one with the full arc but I've only seen one really vibrant one in my lifetime - and in Connecticut, no less!) But those gigantic, humongo balloons? I'm shivering. But I can probably take it if it's all one color or just color in general. Just please don't put a huge face on it too! Agh!!! I don't even like to see really, really, REALLY big American flags waving about. Can you imagine getting wrapped up in one of those?

Here's a story for ya: When I was little and stayed with my grandparents in Georgia for the 3-month summer vacation kids used to get from school (at least in D.C. we did), they used to work in tobacco fields for a couple of white people. One house in particular, if I needed to go to the bathroom, I would go in the people's house (come to find out they were actually distant relatives of ours some kind of way, which I think is why they took to me the way they did) and I had to pass this enormous velvet painting of Jesus with a staff in a field surrounded by sheep. (No, this picture is NOTHING like that one.) The background was a dark blue. Now, going to the bathroom, I didn't see it - but I could FEEL it - because my back would be to it as I passed the wall it hung on. But coming back? I had to take deep breaths every time because I had to pass it to get out the house. Jesus was boring a hole in my head coming AND going! Plus, I was in the country on top of it and in the country, Jesus is always on His way back any minute now with storm clouds following and things you just did not want to live to see wiping things out before He fully arrived. (I grew up Pentecostal. Does that explain things for you? I'm Baptist now.) Anyway, I was little then and I could have made that painting my bed with room for me to stretch out and add another one of me. Oh, and yes, there was another way around that painting. If I had dipped around to the dining room, I could circle out to the front door, but Velvet Jesus was hanging out in the dining room too! At least I couldn't see Him there unless I deliberately went in so I avoided it because He had a red background in that painting. It really felt like Judgement Day then but darn it, I wasn't ready to go!

Gasp! That reminds me! (Man, I was not expecting to write this much! I must be really traumatized.) My father was not a churchgoer for all the typical excuses - "I can pray at home," "hyprocrites in the church" - You've heard it all before, I'm sure. But my church (my mother's really) was too long for me. As a kid, I just wanted to stay home and read comics in the Sunday paper. So one Sunday my father decided to go to a church he found that was close to home. It was Baptist (no, that's not why I am Baptist now) and the service was shorter and my mother said I could opt to go with him instead of hearing for 3 hours about why I'm going to hell if I don't speak in tongues. OK, she didn't say THAT part but may as well. So I happily went with him and what did they have in the church? A HUGE, I mean crazy large stained-glass window with the enormous face of black Jesus. (Never went back, but then again, neither did my father.) Thank God He was in the back and our backs were to Him. But my church today? We don't do pictures. It's sorta akin to idol worship since no one has an accurate view of Him anyway and no picture is necessary to worship His spirit. Let's just wait until we really see Him, can we? And I'll bet He'll be gentlemanly enough not to come at me like a giant. Thank you, Jesus.

OK, two more weird things about me. I promise to be brief. I've subjected you to my trauma long enough.

4 - I sometimes have full conversations with other people to myself before I actually talk to them. I like to try to guess as many scenarios as I can so I can be as prepared as possible for difficult situations. And if I didn't like the way it went, I'll have the conversation again in my head with me being thise amazingly witty person I can never seem to be on demand. There. I admitted it. I talk to myself because I'm the only one who understands me. Right, Monica? Right!

5 - Are some of my food habits weird? I tell you. I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel on this one! I like eggs and rice together. Is that weird? Is that a Southern thing, maybe? I fix oatmeal with milk, not water. If you're going to use water, why bother? But no, I don't do grits with milk. That should be water. If you're going to use milk, eat of Cream of Wheat or oatmeal, for goodness sake. I like my food room temp, not hot or cold unless it's supposed to be cold.

Well, that was harder than I thought it would be. I could have mentioned my dislike of clowns, but I did that on Theresa's blog already. And I could have mentioned my need to have things balanced but I think the compulsive stuff covered that. But if you still need to know, I can tell you that my 3rd child will be conceived in the month of September so I can have him - yes, him - in June and his birthday will be the 6th or 16th of the month. Why? Because I am regular and have C-sections so I can pick the day. But mainly because Mr. T's birthday is Jan. 4th and Son's is March 14th. The 1st and 3rd months of the year. Notice the 4? Just happened that way. And Daughter's is Oct 28th and mine is Dec. 18th, the 10th and 12th months of the year. Her 8 in her date was intentional. (The 18th wasn't available and the 8th was too early.) See, I like even numbers, not odd ones. (Hey! That can be a weird thing too, huh?) and with father and son covering the first 3 months of the year and mother and daughter covering the last 3 months of the year, I figure son number 2 can be right smack in the middle with an even number but not the SAME number as the others. Notice, my daughter is bookended by males as well. So you see, that is my definition of true balance.

How's that for weird?