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2006-05-12 @ 1:38 p.m. |
There�s been the SIX WEIRD THINGS going around lately, and once I determined it wasn�t like a CIA code word for a George Rumsfeld�s Secret Drag Queen Revue (they all dress like a sequined Condoleeza Rice and sing Motown songs), I thought I would set about trying to whittle down my 6000 weird things into a mere six. I mean there are just some inheritantly weird people like Richard Simmons and Tammy Faye Bakker, who you just nod your head and go, uh huh, yup, they�re pretty weird. And then there�s like George Bush�s wife, who seems so normal, and yet you just know she either has a large jar of iguana feces by her basket of knitting or maybe at least some books about Hindu bondage mixed in with her vintage Betty Crocker cookbooks. She just seems like the type. So my Six Weird Things? Well, let me think.... Weird Thing #1: Birthdays. Oh man, am I ever obsessive about birthdays. I love them. I think they are the most important day of the year in anybody�s life. I disagree that they become less important as you get older. On my birthday (February 12th if you want to jot it down), I always wake up and feel like the most important person in the entire universe. And then I make a total ass of myself the rest of the day telling almost everybody I meet (in stores, at work, in parking lots) that its my �special day�. Needy? Yeah....just a tad, but otherwise it would pass by unnoticed and that would make me sad. But its not all about me either. I love lavishing attention on other birthday recipients too. Like for instance my best friend �G� just celebrated his birthday on Wednesday. Tuesday night at 11:30, I�m frantically trying to buy gifts on Amazon.com and trying to find some cute artwork for his MySpace thingie. I also wanted everything to hit his internet connection exactly at 12:00 on his birthday, which I think it did. Well, except for the Amazon.com thing, but we did chat and I was his first birthday greeting. He was also the person, who, when he hit 40 a couple of years ago, I did a �This is Your Life� thing via e-mail, where I scanned all the photos I had of him and then sent them, numbered chronologically, with humorous snippets of how his life had progressed up to that point. I really think he liked it, and for me, that was all that really mattered. Weird Thing #2: Magpie-Girl As quiet as I am in real life, I talk incessantly when I�m alone. Sometimes I can use my cat as a beard and say, yes, I�m talking to Guardcat, but really, I just talk to myself alot. And its really nothing new. I did that as a kid too. My house, as a kid, was a war zone. My parents fought a lot, so I used to go out to my playhouse, out under the kitchen window and just chatter away to all my dolls and stuffed toys. Later in college, when I got to write and direct a short television production, I did this eery �Twilight Zone-ish� episode where a little girl is sitting on the floor of her bedroom happily playing with all her dollies and toys until her loud, drunk mother comes in and bellows, �Pick up all these damn toys� and then slams the door. And then we changed the lighting in the studio to dark and shadowy and played some echoey children's play song and then the little girl starts acting out like her mother, slamming her dolls around and whacking them against the floor. And then she abruptly stops and starts crying and lovingly cradles the dolls. End of scene. The actress playing the little girl was actually a college student, and a very good actress and we got the best grade in the class for our production. So needless to say, the self talk thing started early on, since evidently I use to chatter endlessly under the kitchen window. Hey! I was training to be a writer! Weird Thing #3: Having to Name Everything. This too may have to do with my writing, but I have to name everything and everyone, including random animal and birds. Poor Guardcat, she has so many pseudo-names, I don�t even know if she knows what her real name is. Some of her off-the-cuff monikers include: Freakface, Pussy Magoo, Dingleberry, Evilpuss, Snerkhead, Zinglesnerf. But my need to name things extends out into the real world too. Like, if I see a duck when I�m walking over by Hamburger Island, I�ll yell out �Hey Mikhail Ducknikov� or �What�s up Michael Mallardkovski?� The ducks in the creek outside my apartment are Fred and Ethel Mertz. They�re afraid of me. Or maybe they�re just afraid of turning into secondary sitcom sidekicks. Weird Thing #4: Touching and Germs I do have some rather significant issues with germs and people both getting inside my comfort zone and/or touching me without permission. Its something I�m working on in therapy because its very paradoxical. I want and crave physical attention, and yet when it seems imminent, I freak out. The only thing that has crossed over all comfort lines has been massage. And it seems strange that something that is so innately intimate is okay with me. I remember my first massage with Married Guy (I didn�t know him then), I was a wreck for like the eight hours preceding the event. I was then a TOTAL wreck deciding whether to take my clothes off for the massage (I did) and then I was more tense then a cat in a room full of rocking chairs during the massage. He had to keep asking me to relax. But then once I got used to it all, I totally loved massage and now can go into almost any room, get naked and get a massage from almost anyone. Strange, huh? Weird Thing #5: I buy exactly the same grocery items every week. Yeah, I know, how totally OCD of me. Its not that I necessarily salivate over these particular foods, its just that I know what to expect from those packages of Yellow Rice and that Box of Raisin Bran and those chicken breasts marinated in lemon and garlic. Its like a comfort. I won�t need to throw anything away because it might taste like dog ass or anything. I know, I really should try something new....not only from the grocery store, but in life. Bah! Maybe tomorrow. Weird Thing #6: I�m afraid of flying even though my Dad was an airline pilot. Yeah, I have flown quite a bit in my life to such places as Lima, Peru, Bogota, Columbia, the Bahamas, across the country 5-6 times. But I have never been comfortable doing so despite the fact that my Dad was an airline pilot for over 30 years and never crashed....although he did once crash land a plane (the landing gears wouldn�t come down) down in Miami Florida and saved everyone onboard (YAY DAD!!). I hate taking off though. I hate landing. I hate the feeling of being trapped in a large metal tube hurtling through the space at 800 mph. The 9/11 thing didn�t help. I�ve even had several people offer me free trips over the last couple of years, but I couldn�t do it. Airplane Anxiety. The very last trip I took, coming back from San Francisco to the East Coast kind of sealed the deal. No, it wasn�t a bad flight in any way. In fact, it was completely benign. My problem? The latter part of the flight was after dark, and I got so claustrophobic, not being able to see out of the windows, that I had a severe panic attack. The stewardesses were pretty helpful and I think they brought me up to First Class and plied with me fancy desserts or something. But man, I sure felt like William Shatner in that old �Twilight Zone� episode where he sees that creature out on the wing of the airplane and starts freaking out. Never again. Sorry Dad. I guess I just didn�t inherit your flying genes. Older Entries |
Lyrics by Lennon/McCartney. All angst copyright by awittykitty |
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