Idiom Savant

For More Proof Of My Weirdness, Please Refer To Every Other Entry Here

So, I got tagged for this thing by the most excellent Media Diva.

Here's how you play: Once you have been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 weird or random things, facts, or habits about yourself. At the end, you choose 10 people to be tagged, listing their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says, "Tag, You're it" on their profiles and ask them to read your blog. You can't tag the person who tagged you.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a MySpace-only meme -- we'll have to see if it can survive outside that rarefied atmosphere.  Anyway, since nearly every thing, fact or habit about myself is either weird or random, here's the first 10 that come to mind:

1.  On my desk at work, where I am sitting right now, there is a hunk of blue Silly Putty that I have been obsessively playing with for the last few weeks -- just squishing it around with my left hand while my right hand uses the mouse to click to and fro on the Internet while I really should be working.

2.  I suffer from bruxism.  In fact, I'm bruxing right now.  I clench my teeth and jaw so hard at night sometimes that I dream that I'm still wearing braces, and that they've just been tightened.

3.  I do not have cable service; it sloughed off of my budget a few years ago after I was laid off.  The only channel I can get clearly with rabbit ears is the public television station.  Therefore, I was very excited a couple of weeks ago when the new season of "History Detectives" started.  Wes Cowan FTW!

4.  Nervous tic: flicking the second or third fingers of my right hand against my right thumb.  Sort of a weak, un-consummated finger-snapping gesture.  I sometimes do this to the beat of whatever song is running through my mind, but sometimes it's just a random rhythm -- although I'm sure if I were to analyze it, it would reveal the binary code for my genome sequence or something.

5.  For years, I was buying size 12 shoes and wondering why my feet always hurt at the end of the day.  I figured it was mostly because I worked in bookstores where they don't allow you to sit down.  But then I discovered I was actually a size 13, and things got better.

6.  I have had no pets and no houseplants as an adult -- I have never been consciously responsible for the existence of another living organism.  Whether this is selfishness or laziness, or a heady broth of both, I leave for the sweet Zombie Baby Jesus to decide.

7.  I own a basketball autographed by Shaquille O'Neal.

8.  Whenever I board a plane, I press my hand against the outside fuselage, just for like a half-second as I'm walking in the hatch.  This is so my prints will be on the plane, in case there's no other way of identifying my body after the plane crashes.  Of course, I don't think my fingerprints are on file anywhere, so this is a completely futile gesture.  It's also possible that I'm unintentionally adding aerodynamic drag to the plane, making us 0.0001 minute later at the arrival gate.  (This habit was possibly inspired by a friend telling me that a highway cop will always put his hand on the trunk lid of a stopped car as he approaches the driver, to leave prints in case something goes wrong.  I'm not sure if this is true.) 

9.  I feel weird leaving home without a watch on.  Consequently, I sometimes intentionally leave home without a watch -- just to experience the weird feeling.

10. I carry a small change purse with me most all the time.  Inside that change purse is a purple Mardi Gras doubloon embossed with Steve Guttenberg's face.  It was a gift from a friend.  I plan to have this coin in my possession until I die.

Tagging (in alphabetical order):

• Charlotte
• Dawn
• Elrond
• Lint Queen
• Mab
• Marianne
• Phil
• Stew
• Switchboard Susan
• xtaNor

You Might Not Be Looking For The Promised Land, But You Might Find It Anyway

As someone who, despite my official "unaffiliated" status, has voted for every Democrat since Mike "The Duke" Dukakis, I reckon I'm part of the America-Hating Left by default.  However, around the Fourth of July, I do like to take time out from my busy schedule (advancing world socialism, lobbying for mandatory abortions and gay marriage for everyone, chaining myself to spotted owls, drinking the blood of Christian babies, etc.) to think about some things I actually love about this country. 

There are quite a few things.  What follows is a list, in no particular order, and not complete by any means.

Iconic American foods.  Such as the hot dog (pictured here), which is so very stereotypically American that of course it turns out to have its origins in Vienna.  However, in the great American tradition of taking raw materials from elsewhere and transforming them into an entirely new creation (see also: hip-hop), the humble wiener really found its voice, so to speak, in Coney Island.  And the meat processors' thrift in using some of the more obscure parts of livestock to create hot dogs hearkens back to the Native Americans' desire to use every part of the buffalo they respectfully slew.

(The above picture is my own hand, by the way, holding a 'dog I was about to consume at a July 4th community celebration in 2001.  The memories -- and parts of the actual hot dog, I'm sure -- are still with me six years later.)

Other enjoyable United States of American foods: barbecue, hamburgers, unlikely deep-fried stick-impaled objects found at State Fairs, and those foil-wrapped burritos that are the size of your forearm.

The grand tradition of American musical theater.  Giving us such classics as "My Fair Lady" (set in London), "South Pacific" (set in the South Pacific), and "Oklahoma" (set in Burkina Faso).  I think "The Music Man" was on TV every July Fourth of my youth.  ("My Fair Lady" was on every Easter.  What was up with that?)

"Roadrunner," the classic Modern Lovers song.  With exemplary Yankee ingenuity, Jonathan Richman takes, like, one and a half chords and turns them into a Zen parable of drivin' around at night, "going faster miles an hour," listening to the radio, and falling in love.  When Jonathan chants "One, two, three, four, five, six!" at the beginning, he's not just counting off the start of the song -- he's counting off the start of the Great American Adventure, with all the optimism and joy and promise that a four-minute punk song can hold.

And, for that matter, "Road Runner," the classic series of Warner Brother cartoons.  But -- metaphorically speaking -- is America the Road Runner, lord of the open highway, unperturbedly shaking off all predators without once losing his native optimism?  Or are we the Coyote, too clever for our own good, unable with all of our advanced technology to master an elusive foe (in the desert, no less!), despite frequent escalations, always ending up hoist on our own Acme-brand petard?  Maybe we're both.  Maybe we're neither.  Maybe we're actually Foghorn Leghorn.  Or maybe Foghorn Leghorn is actually Robert Byrd.  Or Fred Thompson.  Unless Fred Thompson is actually Deputy Dawg.

Las Vegas.  Oh, man, Las Vegas.  I mean, I've never been there, but it's gotta be awesome, right?  I guess I just love the idea of Las Vegas, the fact that it exists.  I heard somebody on a PBS "American Experience" show say that Las Vegas is, like, a microcosm of American society or something.  And yet, somehow, there still isn't a plaque, or a statue, or a signpost in that town for Moe Greene!

The military.  I'm not really on board with everything the military gets asked to do by its political commanders-in-chief, and maybe its presence in certain parts of the world causes more harm than good, but overall I think it's a better thing to have a military than not to have one.  Maybe (probably) I'm naive.  Still, there was that whole thing where they helped stop the reign of Fascism in Europe a few decades ago.  That was pretty cool.  So, yeah.  I'm glad for the military... and I'm really glad I'm not in it.

James Brown.  What's more American than James Brown?  Singing about America?  In a "Rocky" movie?  In the "Rocky" movie where Rocky fights an evil commie, and thus, by proxy, the entire goddamned Evil Empire?  And wins?  Nothing, that's what.  James is dead now, just like Apollo Creed in "Rocky IV," but their truth goes marching on.

Shitty American beer.  Nobody seems to create cheap beer, that unifying elixir of the proletariat, better than us.  Of course, I have only the cheap beer of this country to judge by.  And in America, most of the cheap beer is so weak you can have it for breakfast.  In the past, I've tended to lean toward the Champagne of Beers, but lately I'm trying to break out of my comfort zone and sample other cheap suds.  I tried Schlitz and found it not horrible, but maybe my palate's totally out of whack.  Maybe I'm supposed to hate it.  I know I don't care much for Budweiser, and I can't find anything in particular wrong with PBR, except maybe it's been too heavily embraced by hipsters lately.

And finally, America's where all my stuff is.

So.  Anything to add, my fellow Americans?  (Non-Americans can participate too. I guess.)

Happy Independence Day, The Internet!

Uncle Sam image from adtcomedy.com.  The picture of the hot dog and the picture of the sparkler -- I took those myself.  Both photos feature parts of my actual left hand!