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

Comments

[Stew]

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 the coolest tic/habit ever! I think it's something I would do if I'd have been smart enough to think of it.

I love this meme. I'll do it. I'm not sure if I'll tag anyone though. You got most of my friends already!

[Elrond Hubbard]

Yes, that's true about highway patrolmen running their fingers along the side of a car they have pulled over, as they approach its driver. I learned that working on a video about highway patrolmen. So it's good that you do that too when boarding a plane. I guess, if one gets pulled over a lot and never washes one's car, then one acquires quite a collection of patrolmen's fingerprints. And who knows, Jerry, maybe you slapped same fuselage more than once. When I get around to answering my meme, I will avoid the subject of "slapping the fuselage" as much as I can.

[Jerry]

Elrond: The Internet wouldn't exist without people "slapping the fuselage," if you know what I'm saying.

(What I'm saying is that "slapping the fuselage" sounds like a euphemism for masturbation.)

Stew: I think that tic may actually go deeper than just facilitating the identification of my corpse. I think in a way, I'm trying to announce my human presence to the plane, like I'm saying, "Okay, now, DC-9 -- this is a person touching you, here, so stay in the air. I'm rooting for you."

[Charo]

Oh geez. This is hard.
However, your list is quite wonderful.

[Media Diva]

Thank you. And I think memes can transcend format. I mean, Myspace has a blog, this is a blog. We're all just bloggin.

[Gina]

(1) 10 is a lot!
(B) Done!

[Elrond Hubbard]

Who said anything about masturbation? I'm talking about slapping the fuselage!

Media Diva, I can't get to your blog 'cause I'm not a MySpace friend of yours.

[Marianne]

I'm on it like your fingerprints on the fuselage!

[Mary]

I just have to say, I also do a finger-tap sort of thing with my thumb and 2nd and 3rd fingers. Except it's more like I'm brushing my fingertips against my thumb. I think it's a nervous tic, like Jerry, but I don't do it to the beat of any music. That I'm aware of.

[Elrond Hubbard]

Alright, my meme is blogged. Should we call these "blemes"?

[Mab]

Yikes. Idiom, I'm going to break some rules and just blog all over you, or at least blog all over your blog. Reasons for this will be explained in my list o' 10.

1. I just got this message because internet access is sketchy for me at the moment and I haven't been myspacing in months. Subesquently sometimes I feel like a caveman. But as long as I can look like Raquel Welch (an admitted stretch) I 'spose I can eek it out.

2. Though it's never been medically proven, I believe I have a mild form of OCD. For instance, just today, instead of moving my car from a fabulous parking spot in a conjested area of town, I opted instead to walk 8 blocks in the rain sans umbrella to a MAP store, because I had some insane belief that better selection meant better maps (it does not). Then I walked (still raining) back the direction I had come (passing my car along the way) and beyond for another 17 blocks to fetch an $8 water bottle I had left at a club on a questionable side of town. I did not find this water bottle. Wouldn't most people firstly just buy a damn map at a gas station and blow off the water bottle and if they just had to pursue these adventures at least drive to them?

3. I lived in a tent for 3 years, during which I had no car for 2 of them.

4. Though I earn part of my living drawing on people, and have attended several tattoo conventions and have dated several fully inked dudes, I myself have no tattoos.

5. The reason I chose to blog on Idiom's blog is that though I could blog on my own myspace page, I'm worried people will read it there. People that actually know me that is. And they know too much already. They certainly need no more ammo, not from me, anyway.

6. The second readon I chose to blog on Idiom's blog instead of creating my own is that you guys are a little intimidating and kind of hard core. Like the way you can provide links and cross words out and...o just the whole networking blogoshere. Did I mention I lived in a tent when the internet came into its own?

7. I saw my truck catch fire at a gas station in Van Horn, TX.

8. I am over 30 and still trying to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up.

Everyone will have to wait for the next two. If anyone cares. If I'm not too behind on this blogging thing. I have to attend to ice-skaters at 4 in the morning. O wait. That'll be my number 9.

9. I can be seen fairy dusting olympic track ice skaters in the early morning.

Later on number 10.

Maybe much later...that whole internet access thing, you know.

[Tom]

The divine spirit of Elvis Presley descended to our physical plane and possessed the body of this scavenger hunt participant. The event was witnessed at the White Collar Crime bar in Raleigh, North Carolina during the Raleigh Typhoon Scavenger Hunt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXjlQqECJU0

[suz]

OMG, just saw the Elvis footage. I am completely floored. Awesome. Abso-fucking-lutely awesome.
Hey, where'd you get that costume?? It's awesome.

PS, sorry I've never completed the meme thing. I'm a really bad joiner, and a procrastinator to boot, plus I suppose my intimacy issues might prevent me from putting my secrets on the internet for strangers, and worse, my friends/family to see. Yikes!

[Phil]

I did your fuselage thing on my most recent trip. It may become a habit. Jerry is influential.

Re: No. 5 and your shoes, this oldie but goodie:

A man is having excruciating pains in his groin, accompanied by intense headaches, so he goes to doctor. The physician gives him a thorough going over and announces that he has an excessive pressure in his crotch, and that the headaches will continue until and unless he has his balls removed. Only after the most incredible case of migraine headaches and blue balls does he consent to the operation. He gets castrated.
Because of the operation, he felt very depressed. The pressure was gone, and there was no pain, but still, he sat at the window and stared into empty space. His wife wandered over and told him
"Honey, I know how you must feel. Whenever I feel depressed, I go downtown and buy some new clothes. That always makes me feel much better." He takes her advice. He goes to the most expensive haberdasher in town and orders a fancy suit. The tailor tells the man, "Well, I can tell that you wear a size 15-and-a-half shirt."
The man is amazed. "That's exactly right," he says.
"And a size 10-B shoe."
"Yes!" exclaims the man, "you are right again."
"And you wear a size 10 hat, 34 inch pants length, and a 36 inch waist on your underwear," says the tailor.
"That's perfectly right, except my underwear has a 34 inch waist."
"Oh, no," says the tailor, "I know my business. You wear a 36. If you wore tighter underwear, you'd get pressure built up in your groin, and then you'd get terrible headaches."

[Phil]

I did your "hand" thing on a pair of Cubana flights last month. I keep thinking I'll forget about this little thing of yours. But nope, it seems to happen every time.