Why I'm a Weird Person

Julie put out a meme--6 weird things--and I liked it. I figured that since grades were supposedly due yesterday but our spasmodic grading program (I call it Powercrap) is having some sort of electronic epilepsy, and this fucking stack papers on my desk is apparently going to stay until it becomes sentient and crawls off my desk to die on the soccer field like a pathetic deformed bug wherein it will turn into mulch and produce the toxic, white-bleached, radio-active grass that makes you stupid just to walk on it, I might as well celebrate what makes me weird.

1. Writing sentences on a regular basis like that one I just finished makes me pretty weird.

2. Using disaster movies like Twister, The Day AFter Tomorrow, Armageddon, and Independence Day as (get this!) comfort movies, makes me kind of weird.

3. After I realized I was not skinny enough nor conventionally attractive enough to be an actress (nor good enough at acting to overcome these flaws) I immediately wanted to be a teacher. It was not something I just fell into--it was a true calling. (This makes my current disillusionment with my job that much more painful.)

4. But I have been writing plays and poems since I was very small--my first long work was a 24 page epic poem (I said this already) but my first short story was a combination poetry/prose about a girl who went into battle wearing her father's armor. If you thought I was immature and devastated when I saw pictures of that dazzling sweater yesterday, you should have heard the howling whine I let out when Mulan hit the Disney screen.

5. When I learned in science class that only a few people had the genetic coding to roll their tongues, I apparently taught myself to 'cheat' at doing it so I could say I was special. I didn't realize I was cheating until my husband and I had one of those bizarre dating conversations and he pointed out that I was rolling my tongue inside my mouth and forcing it into a taco shape as I stuck it out. I was honestly surprised that this wasn't what they had meant when they brought it up in science in the first place.

6. I taught myself to crochet after having a dream about it when suddenly the whole loop thing made sense. I went out the next day and bought a book and figured it out--and figured out how to read patterns too. I taught myself to knit when I realized that some of those pattern books had both knitting AND crochet patterns in them, and I hate being left out of anything.

7. (Because I can't count.) I have a tattoo on my right arm that is a PICTOGRAPH of the children's names-- A sword and a harp for Trystan (a knight from the round table) Bard (the singer from the old days), the obvious for Bryar Rose, a hawk (standing on Trystan's sword) for Kewyn (which is a variation of Gawain, another knight from the round table) and a crown for Tor (which means prince). The baby's is coming--I want to donate blood one more time first because getting the tat takes me out of the blood pool for a year. Yes it hurt. Apparently nobody has a compete circle around and under the upper arm--that's a very tender place--and the twining rose vine I had put there was very intricate. I told my husband that and when he got his, he chickened out and just got a rose put on his harp and not around his arm. (He hasn't had Kewyn added yet.)

And that's five weird things. :-)