five weird things

I’m having a hard time writing blog entries. A lot of things have changed recently in my life, including the time when I used to write for this journal. Maybe a meme will help. I saw this one at Rurality, to list five weird things about myself. That should be easy, most folks agree that I’m a pretty weird guy.

I cannot kill spiders. Once a long time ago I sprayed poison from a can on a spider. As it withered and died, I seemed to think that it was looking me in the eye. Now I recall that scene whenever I see a spider. I either leave them alone or capture and release them outside.

I like to diagram sentences. Remember doing that in sixth-grade English class? I am not sure they teach it anymore so if you are younger than me you may not have even experienced it all. I sometimes have a hard time understanding what people are saying, so I occassionally resort to writing their sentences down on notebook paper and making a diagram of them in order to make sense of the words. I have to admit that it usually does not help though. It generally turns out that the reason I could not understand what they were trying to say is that they did not say what they intended.

For business I always wear brown shoes on even-numbered days and black shoes on odd-numbered days of the month. I vary the rest of my wardrobe to coordinate with my shoes. Maybe this is not weirdness as much as it as a method to help me decide what to choose to wear in the morning.

I don’t like those TV shows that require you to see the whole series to understand what’s going on. This seems to have become the fashion for several years now. But I prefer the ones where you can see any episode and it will stand on its own. I never could get into soap operas either.

I like to walk outside in the rain. I like to get soaked through to the skin and splash in the puddles. I wish I could do that right now.

How about you? What’s weird about you?

Comments (7)

  1. Shelley wrote::

    I like to weblog.

    Oh…wait a sec…

    Sunday, August 13, 2006 at 5:57 pm #
  2. mary lou wrote::

    Well I have heard of a lot of people who wont kill spiders. I just pick up a book and SPLAT! they are gone!!

    Brown on even and black on ODD? now that is Weird!

    the rest are not so strange.

    I too love to walk in the rain and splash in puddles. I get weird looks when I do that.

    I STILL cant diagram a sentence!

    Monday, August 14, 2006 at 6:17 pm #
  3. I think your wardrobe management tactic is odd, bordering on eccentric. (That means I love it.)

    Weird about me. Hmmm? (I’m sure other people would have not trouble coming up with five things.)

    1. When I got married (the first time) it was still customary for a woman to change her last name. Since I had to go through a lot of paperwork anyway, I went ahead and changed my first and middle names, too.

    2. When I drive down a road I haven’t been on in a long time the memory of being on it before springs to mind. I term this my “mental slime trails”–apparently I leave some invisible path that I can pick up on later to remind me of what I was doing when I was there before.

    3. I usually know what direction I’m facing–even in dreams.

    4. I have trouble remembering names and faces but I can recognize someone from a distance by the way they move.

    5. At one office building I worked, I could always tell which elevator door was going to open. I considered this a useless psychic gift and longed to trade it in for the ability to see which lottery numbers were going to be picked. Sadly, no.

    Tuesday, August 15, 2006 at 12:22 am #
  4. Linda wrote::

    I always check mail before putting it in the box for miscased pieces. Often I can tell when I am going to find a letter that doesn’t belong before I start. These last two sentences would have several “tails” (I too had an English teacher that made us diagram endlessly)

    Tuesday, August 15, 2006 at 6:16 am #
  5. Jenn wrote::

    “It generally turns out that the reason I could not understand what they were trying to say is that they did not say what they intended.”

    I suffer from this syndrome, too.

    Tuesday, August 15, 2006 at 2:47 pm #
  6. We missed ya! But, I bet you are having fun.

    Oh, great. Now I’ll check the calendar and remember if Bill is wearing black or brown…

    Weird stuff about me? hmmm.

    Well, I like to kiss dogs, the four-legged variety (though I have been fooled by the two-legged ones)

    I liked it when television only rolled out the good stuff once in a blue moon- way before VCR took the magic out of watching movies - like Gone With The Wind, or Wizard of Oz. There would be a great fanfare leading up to the presentation of these real blockbusters, and it made watching them all the more special.

    I refused to let the cute football boys cheat on tests by slyly allowing my paper to be uncovered. I got there the hard way, and none of their sweet talk could make me. I was never homecoming queen.

    I like to eat vanilla ice cream with salty potato chips.

    I like reading Nathaniel Hawthorne.

    I do not like to dissect my sentences and do not allow others to commit such atrocities to them either.

    Don’t you dare…

    Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at 10:04 pm #
  7. mary lou wrote::

    Are you unpacked yet? Better get Trish’s room finished fast!!

    Thursday, August 17, 2006 at 1:42 am #