Quirky Me

Fig, an excellent blogger who can be read here, recently posted a tag about quirks. It took me over 24 hours to be able to come up with a list of six quirks, but I finally did, so here y'all go. (This was hard for me! Not that I don't have quirks, just that I'm not all that aware of them, I guess!)

Six (of what I'm sure are dozens) of my quirks.

1. The first one I came up with was Greg's answer to, "Do I have any quirks?" He reminded me, almost immediately, how I always keep my toes pointed. (He may have used the word 'freakish' in his description.) Like, my relaxed state of my feet are pointed straight down. "Like ridiculously crazy pointed, from your knees to your toes making a straight line kinda pointed," were his words. (It doesn't matter if I'm sitting, laying down, legs crossed, legs in front of me, whatever, my toes are pointed.) Not sure why mine are that way, but I'm baffled by other people's feet with their ninety-degree (or nearly) angles. When our Lamaze coach would tell us to relax our whole bodies, she got after me for my feet being 'flexed', but to bring my toes back up to a 'normal' position takes concentration and effort on my part. My foot almost looks like Barbie's (except that my toes are pointed down too, not suddenly sticking out straight ahead), like they're always in six inch heels. The odd thing about that, since having kids, I've mainly gone to all flats. Weird.

2. I absolutely have to be in the 'correct' lane while driving in traffic. If I'm gonna turn right sometime in the next several miles, I like to be in the right lane (assuming lanes of traffic are all flowing well, I won't stay in a 'bad' lane or not pass people, I just have to get into the right lane as soon as possible.) And, if I'm in the car, and let's say Greg is being stubborn and won't move into the lane we should be in, even though there's an opening and it's bad traffic and who knows when it'll be that easy to move over again, and we're going to be turning in say, a mile anyway, I start to get fidgety and nervous. And sometimes can't help it and just bark, "Just change lanes please!!" It's really quite amazing Greg agrees to drive anywhere with me. If I were him, I'd make me drive, just to avoid being annoyed . . . and 'cause I'm the superior driver who uses actual forethought.

3. I was reminded of this one by Fig's spooky Halloween posts, except that mine doesn't involve any kind of actual haunting, just my own 'chicken-ness'. I moved into the bedroom downstairs at our house when I was eight years old. I was the oldest kid, so I was the first and only one down there for awhile. I was mildly afraid of the basement. I could hang out in my room no problem, even in the family/playroom that made up the majority of the basement. What freaked me out were the stairs and the unfinished laundry room right by the stairs. My sisters and I made up a story about a family of ghosts who were trapped under the stairs, and could only be released from their cramped prison when someone stepped on the bottom step of the stairs on their way upstairs. You then had to get to the top stair and through the upstairs door before they 'got' you, then they were stuck again under the stairs until the next person started up the stairs. I always booked it up those stairs. On some level, I think this has stuck with me, 'cause despite my belief that my parent's home isn't haunted in the least, everytime I hit that bottom step, I pick it up a little and get up the stairs tout de suite, you know, just in case.
And, it kinda stresses me out a little that it takes so long to get Annie to walk up those stairs, it takes a lot of self control for me not to just pick her up and power walk up the stairs with her.

4. I have to read while soaking in the bathtub. If I'm not currently reading a book or a magazine, I will search the house over for anything, Greg's "Popular Mechanics", a newsletter sent by our insurance company or the mortgage lender we used two years ago, anything to read. Being a Mom of two little ones, I don't usually get to take long baths, so I only read a page or two a lot of times, but if I don't read at least something, I feel like I was cheated and take no joy from those few minutes that were supposed to be relaxing. Of course, I come from a family who brings a duffle bag of books to Lake Powell on vacation, so this shouldn't be a huge surprise. In my family, reading is important. Reading while in water is a must.

5. I create math problems in my head with digital readouts. Let's say I look at the VCR to see what time it is . . . I immediately start to think "2:24 . . . 2 times 2 is four, four divided by two is two, two plus two is four, four minus two is two, two to the second power is four, negative two times negative two is . . . " and so it goes until I can't think of any more. And it REALLY bugs me if I can't come up with one, and my self esteem in the immediacy comes directly from how many equations I can come up with and how creative they were . (This was obviously an easy example). I do this all the time. I think it's all the story problems us kids did on the drive to California for vacations. (And no, I'm not a math person.)

6. I giggle uncontrollably anytime Greg, while reading aloud to me from the scriptures at night, says the word, "unawares." What? It sounds kinda like 'underwears.' I often will refer to underwear as 'unawares', and I can't wait 'til Annie's wearing panties so I have more of an excuse. (It doesn't happen that often, it's only in the scriptures a few times, but I swear we've happened upon it more often than we possibly should have . . . maybe Greg does it on purpose just to see his wife giggle like a twelve year old.) 'Cause I'm just that mature.
Also, in a related scriptural vein, if Greg compliments something I'm wearing, I usually say it's 'cause I'm "workin' the fine twined linens." And then crack up. 'Cause I'm that mature and cool.

Woo hoo! I did it, it took me half the night tossing and turning trying to think of my quirks, but I did it! All six. Plus I realized, I will try to get away with being barefoot as often as possible, like compulsively (I used to get in trouble at work for leaving my shoes in my cubicle all day and getting caught being barefoot throughout the building), and I don't like to eat only one kind of M&M (when I break down and buy them, I will buy the Peanut, Almond, Peanut Butter and Plain, and mix them in a big container and snack on that for weeks. And I like to microwave them to make them all warm and gooey. Greg likes his frozen. Freak.)

Now that I feel like a certified weirdo, I'm stealing another idea from Fig, if you'd like to play, list six of your own quirks on your blog, and/or leave one here in my comments! Consider yourself tagged, even if it is just to leave a quirky comment!