Why I'm Weird

I was tagged by Mayumi to do a quirkiness/weirdness meme and list six reasons why I am weird. This is the first time I have ever been tagged to do a meme, which means that my not-so-inner dork is jumping up and down with glee. Although I think this meme is just going to be on the slightly embarrassing side.

Anyway......here goes:

1.) I name EVERYTHING. I mean, a lot of women name their cars and their houseplants, but I name everything. My hairbrush has a name, my sleep mask has a name, my laptop has a name, my camera has a name. And, yes, sometimes I talk to these things when no one else is around. I now don't know if this makes me weird or just downright insane....

2.) I believe in ghosts. I've had several honest-to-goodness encounters with them, and therefore have a healthy respect for them.

3.) I have a very difficult time hiding my feelings on my face. I also have a tendency to be in my own little dreamland--which I affectionately refer to as Brookeland--and whatever fantasy may be playing inside my head gets displayed on my face. If it's a good day in Brookeland, I will walk down the street beaming like an idiot with my eyes all glazed over and vacuous before I catch a puzzled glance from someone and realize that I need to make my face at least resemble that of a normal person. If it's a bad day in Brookeland, people scurry out of my way to avoid being hit with my Medusa-like glare. The worst is when I get something funny stuck in my head and have to stifle the laughter for fear of freaking everyone out. Seeing someone walking down the street and giggling uncontrollably to herself, no matter how sane she may appear, is still kinda unsettling. But sometimes I just can't help myself.

4.) Body weirdness: I have double-jointed thumbs in both hands, scars on my scalp from when I was a premature baby and had to have all kinds of things poking and prodding the gelatinous raisin of my tiny body, a burn from the time that I was volunteering in a soup kitchen, and another scar on my chin from when I fainted immediately after getting said burn and smashed my face on a metal table on the way down. I make a really crazy oinking sound when my ears itch (you know....when they itch in that spot where your ear canal meets your throat...there might be a word for that location, but I'm not a doctor, obvs...) and it really, really, REALLY freaks people out. Seriously. I have seen the most calm, reasonable people become completely unhinged when I make that sound. I can also roll quarters using only my stomach muscles (I heart belly dance). I have freakishly sensitive skin and break out in random rashes. The enamel on my teeth did not fully develop (because I was a premature baby), which means that I ALWAYS have to get fillings whenever I go to the dentist. I do not have warriors in that mouth o' mine.

5.) I am obsessed with knowing the marital status of people with whom I grew up, went to high school, went to college, etc. I have done and achieved a lot of things in my life, but marriage is not yet one of them. Since I am now at that ripe old age where my peers are getting engaged or have already gotten married (although the vast majority of my friends do not fall in either category), marriage is like some secret society to which I have not yet been granted membership. So whenever an old friend adds me on Facebook, relationship status is the first thing I look at. Don't get me wrong--I don't somehow feel inferior when I see that an old friend is married and I'm not. I guess it is just still so strange to me that all of a sudden we became grown-ups, and the girls I ran around with when we were all wearing pigtails are now wearing engagement rings. When the hell did that happen?? I'll be over here drinking an appletini until Time decides to come to its senses.

6.) I did not grow up in a religious house by any means. Yes, my parents took me to church and Sunday school, but they preferred to cultivate my personness with Free To Be You and Me as opposed to the Bible, and they encouraged spiritual exploration throughout my life that did not necessarily include a religious establishment. There was also an utter dearth of religious artifacts in our house, save for the nativity scene that we dragged out at Christmas. I am providing this back story so that when I tell you that, as a kid, I used to pretend I was the Virgin Mary (like, complete with the doll in swaddling cloths and the benevolent gaze upon all of humanity), it's NOT because I was raised by some zealots who encouraged that sort of thing. It's because I was an extremely odd child.

Alrighty. I would like to tag Kellyn and Andrew because I love both of you, know that each of you is weird in your own phenomenal way, and am excited to learn something new about each of you.