Blast it all
I've been tagged by Mrs. Trudging, of all people. She was my 4th grade teacher, you know.
And actually it's not that strange. Back then, when the kids all...eh, misunderstood me, she would feel a little sorry during recess and offer to play with me instead.
So the tag is: "6 Weird Things About You". I'm supposed to tag someone else then but of course, like in 4th grade, I won't. However I will give my old false smile (this teacher of mine is being nice, I'd think to myself and reach for a word... how , how , how...idiosyncratic of her!)
Ok then. Six weird things about me. It's an opportunity to boast, anyway...
1.) In 1998 doctors discovered my thyroid gland had not been functioning for years. I was given a simple synthetic pill to take everyday and told "In two weeks you're going to feel like a million bucks." I took the pills and this Anarcho-Syndicalist Revolutionary promptly turned into a "staunch" conservative. I also stopped drinking and smoking. I enrolled in programming classes and got a grown up salaried job. The pills worked for three years. I took a drink, lit a cigarette, and, well, don't even ask me what COBOL stands for now, even though I studied it for two years. (I am however still staunch.)
2.) When I lather up to shave, I'm paranoid about being interrupted half way through. So I shave symmetrically, that not one stroke of the blade can leave me exposed to ridicule. I will not be caught with the left side of my face lathered and the right side clean, in other words, nor with half a mustache. (I do the mustache in two strokes, very quick.)
3.) My favorite movie star is Dean Jones. My favorite starlet is Sandy Duncan. (Did you know she has a glass eye?)
4.) I dated a girl who claimed her grandfather "invented" the tube sock. Indeed, her family owned a hosiery mill and they were rich. But here's the kicker: at the same time my older brother was dating a girl who's father invented the Pringles can.
5.) I specialize in taking pictures of people taking my picture.
6.) I majored in English on and off for almost ten years, got straight "A"'s, but never took a grammar class. I've never read F. Scott Fitzgerald, my Shakespeare is "Ah...Shakespeare!", and I know next to nothing about Greek Mythology. No one has ever caught on, in all these poseur years.
Ok. Now ...you're ALL tagged. I mean the whole world, because I'm mad.
(but thank you Mrs. Trudging! That was fun! Can we go back inside now?)
posted by Jackson @ 9:20 PM
19 Comments:
You are not that weird, really. Actuallly you aren't even peculiar. Except for the Scott Fitzgerald deal,,I mean,,how could you not read Fitzgerald.
Pat
Oh yeah?? Not peculiar, eh? Maybe you mean not "Southern" enough.
I guess I'm not even singular then. ...You wound me.
I should consider what you mean by "peculiar" I guess, considering the people parading in and out of your office everyday. The staff, I mean.
And what are you pulling my leg for about Fitzgerald. You hate Fitzgerald as much as I do (well, except maybe you actually read him and hate him more.) HAHA!
btw, what are six quaint, peculiar, singular things about you?
I know, but our audience doesn't, anonydoc. And they're curious!
Ah, another of the young who think of themselves as "peculiar". Your entire generation embraces peculiarity along with other crackpot ideas.
I think all Iowans are sort of strange but that doesn't count because they all are. So you are the Iowa norm.
Plus you held back on your real peculiarities,,I won't expose them as it would be just wrong.
The last person I saw who embraced peculiarity, was in fact a very peculiar appearing person who just needed a husband. I told her so and she then thought I was the most peculiar person she ever met. After weeks of discussion, she admitted it was the best thing anyone had ever said to her. You see she embraced what she feared.
And then asked me why her entire generation would reject my advice as peculiar.
So you are in a generation of people with pretensions of peculiarity. But you are really just like all the rest of us. You all are just afraid people will think you are peculiar so in a couterphobic way you declare it.
I loved Fitzgerald,,read Gatsby three times.
Six peculiar things about me?
I get hysterically funny and behave strangely at funerals. I have to restrain myself but have cracked up funerals with my remarks.
I know things I should not know. I can feel a "bad" person before they say a word. I knew things about people at 3 that I should not have known.
I have dreamed things that happened and don't believe in psychic crap but it has happened.
I read Freud at 12 and understood it.
Please reconsider this, Madam.
Pretensions are like ideals, they are what we reach for, they guide us. I don't want to meet anyone without at least some pretensions. And yes by their nature they're false, but only in the sense of being as yet unrealized.
And peculiarity, what is that. You set youself apart, perhaps with good qualities. An achiever is peculiar. A straight "A" student is definitely peculiar, or else grade inflation has got out of hand.
'course i'm none of those.
Why shouldn't one fear being average? Average is invisibility. What about social climbing. Next you'll be telling me THAT isn't important. sheeee!
You talk of "my generation" (and it was not, I was born in 1961) coming up with these quack ideas and wanting to be unusual. But your profession is the one that held up "self-esteem" as a value unto itself, isn't it? Apologies if I'm mistaken ... In first grade it was hammered into our heads that we were all different and special. Teachers took that cue from your people, I have supposed. Maybe I'm mistaken, again, but this is my impression.
It's your generation responsible for the baby boomers too. Geez, why do I even argue with psychiatrists?
I don't believe I'm embracing and declaring myself proud of what I'm afraid people think of me, as you suggest. I guess I can ponder that over though...
Hm...
Usual female mystique/ mystic posing. I wouldn't say any of that is peculiar.
You are special and too modest here.
AH! You think you have the franchise on peculiarity but on a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being exceedingly peculiar,,,you are a 6.
I don't mean to wound you but you are like a junior peculiar person.
I will be a classic crank ten years before my peers. I already shout at the tv, for instance. I'm abrupt with youngsters and I do not think they are our hope for the future, I think they're a major threat and ought , most of them, to be in reform school. I am not a crank yet, though, as you can see by my blog. yours sincerely , a merry and jiminy christmas!
Well, Sir, it is clear you are a crank already. It is profoundly cranky of you to insist on some kind of unique peculiarity when you are really just a shade off the norm.
Nobody likes children. Didn't you know that? We all pretend to like them.
Now if you truly were peculiar, you would declare you really loved it and take an oath to that effect. But we all despise children, especially our own.
Not to change the subject, but I had to throw in a story about my boyhood and Sandy Duncan:
When I was quite young (probably still in elementary school) I thought Sandy Duncan was the hottest female on the planet. I think it stemmed from seeing her in a Leggs (pantyhose) ad, but am not completely clear on that. I remember confessing this "secret" to my small group of friends and they all looked at me like I was peculiar, um, odd.
Haven't thought about that incident for years.
Now you're being pretentious. YOu're crazy about your grandkids, I get emails about them like some people used to get end of the year Christmas letters.
Mark,
I don't know if you want to talk about suppressed sexual memories around Anonydoc, chum. She's a classically trained Freudian.
What is it with Sandy Duncan anyway. She looks like an Iowa girl, that is it!! Sort of Doris Day like farmy but thin.
I remember when they took out her eye and you know the false one was never quite right. It was just a shade off so you could tell.
Well of course I like my grandchildren now that they no longer drool and don't bother me except for money. But they are my own mitochondrial DNA,,I have to like them.
But other kids,,yuch! They sort of repel me.
I used to have a big crush on Roy Rogers when I was in grade school.
You know, that's probably it for me, the imbalance, the slight imperfection, the crossed eyes. Plus she was very cheerful and seemed crazy like she might be, I don't know , willing to. eh, submit. To her husband I mean, not a 12 year old boy.
John,,you are a perverted man and very unpolitically correct. Submission? My word.
that settles it. I allude to the bible, I'm wierd. Or, perverted as you say.
i rest my case.
OH! I just thought of my peculiarity.
Some words make me really cringe. I cannot say them. I have a visceral reaction to them.
"submit" is one of them. It gives me creepy crawly feelings.
dammit. I can't explain why i chose that word. it does sound creepy. I meant devotion but sex got mixed in there.
the million dollar duck is a sexy movie, so...
anyway, I'm embarrasked for making you cringe. And you know what that means.
Oh, not to worry. I do enjoy a cringe occasionally. It is bracing.
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