seven? quirky things about me

I'm not a very private person. Not that I broadcast every thought or feeling, but I'm not out of my comfort zone when it comes to revealing my weirdness. So here goes nothing:

1. My hands HAVE to be busy. Always. I only use clicky pens, which I click constantly. Or I bite my cuticles. Or I double-click my mouse. Or I tear up paper. Or I text. Or . . . just watch me, you’ll see.

2. I’m a complete perfectionist about my blog. I will write it, post it, then edit it sometimes 5 or 6 times until I get it to sound exactly like I want it. Doggone it, I have a responsibility to you little people!

3. I have a brain for trivia, especially dates. I remember weird little things nobody else does. Back when people used to play Trivial Pursuit, I would usually win. Remember when Dateline NBC used to do the timeline things . . . they’d give you several events from a certain year and you’d have to pick the year? I ALWAYS got them right. Always. Even before they’d give the three choices. See, we moved so much when I was a kid, I have a frame of reference for every song, every political event, every movie, every fashion trend from childhood up until we moved here, making it fairly simple for me to identify and categorize by year. Adding to the quirkiness factor, I have no idea what I did yesterday, as my short-term memory is useless.

4. I love storage containers. I have more fun shopping for the containers than for the stuff that goes in them. I like to label my storage containers – “pens”, “glue”, “scissors”, etc. I love organizing closets, kitchens, offices, etc. just for the satisfaction of having everything in its place. I get the same sense of satisfaction in folding other people's laundry. But that may be a different quirk altogether.

5. Ironically contradicting the need for storage containers, I don’t keep anything. Except for my comical collection of disgusting family memorabilia which I keep in my jewelry drawer and which would completely freak out anyone who broke into our house to steal “valuables” (Kacey’s baby teeth, the cowboy's retainer, my gallstones and Kevin’s umbilical cord), I don’t collect anything. I like change. I hate clutter. When I get the mail each day, I go through it right then, throw away the junk mail, put the bills in my purse, read any personal correspondence then toss it. I don’t keep piles of paper or old catalogs or the extra buttons that come with new shirts or bad photographs or greeting cards or useless kitchen gadgets. For Pete's sake, I sold my wedding dress in a yard sale. There is, however, one thing I do keep. More on that later.

6. I pick stuff out of my bath water. Not that there’s a lot of stuff floating around, mind you. But I keep a cup in the bathtub so I can scoop out hair or towel fuzz or blobs of conditioner or whatever else might float to the top of my bathwater. I don’t want ANYTHING in my bathtub that shouldn’t be there. It’s a bit OCD, I know.

7. I don’t do drugs. And although I succumbed to 2 Excedrin PM the week before the wedding in an attempt to regain some sanity with one good night’s sleep (which, I might add, did NOT work), the last medication I took before that was 2 aspirin the month before I got pregnant with Kacey. I feel that I have blogged about this fairly recently, so for that I apologize, but it is, nonetheless, a quirky thing about me.

8. I buy lipstick obsessively. It’s more of a quest, really. I feel, in my heart, that somewhere out there is the perfect lipstick. It should be the right color, though I have no idea exactly what that color is. It should NOT be gummy, sticky, smelly, sparkly, too light, too dark, too wet, or too dry. It should not taste good so that I am tempted to eat it off my lips, nor should it taste bad for obvious reasons. It should be packaged with a lid that does not come off in my purse, inadvertently leaving gooey graffiti on my checkbook cover. It should stay on my lips more than 45 seconds. It should not dry in the corners of my mouth, bleed outside my lips, stick to my teeth, nor leave noticeable residue on anyone whom I might feel compelled to kiss. Maybe those Halloween press-on wax lips are what I’m really looking for. The problem with lipstick is that you can’t test it before you buy it, and once bought cannot be returned. And all those little color charts and swatches and fake plastic inserts in the tops of some lipsticks are never REALLY the color they should be. So, my quest is ongoing. And what do I do, you may ask, with all the lipsticks I buy and DON’T like? Well, that's the one thing I DO keep - in the bottom drawer of my bathroom cabinet. I have NO idea why.

9. I have a hard time limiting myself. If I am asked to pick a favorite, inevitably I will choose 2 or 3. If you ask me to list a favorite movie, I will give you eight favorites, each in a different genre. If you ask my favorite food, I may, at this point in time, just limit it to sushi, but I will be compelled to mention different ones of which I am especially fond. If you ask me to describe seven quirky things about myself, you will most likely get nine, because that’s just how quirky I am.