Nine Weird Things

Because I'm all about the self-tagging, I'm stealing this meme from Writergrrl. Nine weird things about myself? This one, I have to say, should not be too hard for me.

1. I am fascinated by my children's earwax. I look in their ears frequently to see if there is any ready to harvest. I am slightly disappointed when I don't see any.

2. My husband and I met online. No, we didn't have a torrid Internet affair and meet for the first time on our wedding day. We met through a personals site, met in person a couple weeks later, and dated for a year before getting married.

3. When I walk, I do a weird spelling/typing thing with my feet. I think of a word, and I imagine I'm typing it out on a keyboard, so I say each letter to myself (silently) as I step down on the appropriate foot -- the left foot for letters typed with the left hand, and the right foot for letters typed with the right hand. If two consecutive letters are typed with the same hand, I have to wait another step until that foot comes down again to continue spelling. Each word has its own weird walking rhythm. For example, the word rhythm would be R(left) H(right) (left) Y(right) T(left) H(right) (left) M(right).

4. I am really good at Pig Latin. My father used to have long, involved conversations with my brother and me in Pig Latin when I was small.

5. As I get to know new friends, I notice myself taking on some of their mannerisms. It bothers me a bit. I don't do it on purpose at all, and it makes me feel like a phony.

6. Not only do I sometimes pass out at the sight of blood, but I sometimes pass out at the mention of blood. I passed out in health class in elementary school a few times, always during the chapter on the circulatory system. And I passed out during my mother's first talk with me about menstruation. (Fortunately, the anticipatory talk bothered me much more than the actual event.) Once I passed out in an acquaintance's car when she casually mentioned that her baby's penis had bled inordinately after his circumcision. Somehow we didn't make that leap from acquaintances to friends. Go figure.

7. Some melancholy music just sucks me under. Certain songs by Nine Inch Nails, for example, can put me in a deep, dark funk for days.

8. Even at my very largest and my most out of shape, I have always been able to sit on the floor with the soles of my feet together, my heels back close to my body, my knees touching the floor, and my head to my feet or the floor. It's a fairly useless talent.

9. I have a bad habit of leaving the kitchen cabinet doors open. After I've made dinner, it's not unusual for almost every cabinet door to be open. Is it dangerous and annoying? Yes. Does that compel me to close the doors? It seems not to.