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Not-so-instant replay


I’m preparing a post for next week about why Sara and I are weird as a couple.  (And the fact of the matter is, we are way, way weird.)  However, that new piece won’t mean as much if you haven’t read the one I’m re-posting below. 

I wrote what appears here only a few days into the life of this blog, so few of you will likely have seen it in its original incarnation.  It was called “Top 10 Reasons I’m Pretty Much a Freak.”  Hope it entertains you over the weekend.

Let’s face it.  I’m not normal.  My partner Sara has always said I was weird—actually her word was “eccentric”—but you get the picture.

At any rate, amid all the seriousness I face living in Haiti, I’ve decided to lighten things up here today by offering you the top ten reasons Sara still insists I’m what you could call—well—“quirky:”

#10.  Left to my own devices, I eat mostly from what my friend Milana and I call the “white food group.”  Edible items in this category include: baguettes, bagels, butter, cream cheese, sour cream, lots and lots of sugar—sugar cookies, cakes, unimaginable amounts of pie crust—and if I were a drinker, which I am not—wine!

#9.  I’m a double fisted drinker.  Not with wine, of course, but with hot and cold beverages, mostly hot tea, Lipton (though since we’ve come to Haiti, coffee has become an option), and Pepsi Max, when I can find it—(Coke Zero, otherwise).  Now, for me, this only works in one direction.  Namely, if I drink something hot, I have to have the cold cola to accompany it.  However, chilled drinks can stand alone—not always needing the hot accompaniment.

 #8.  I tend to collect things—and not the kinds of things most would consider collectables, but which I gather in the name of “potential art”—items I prefer to call “collagables”—buttons, beads, ribbons, rocks, shells, business cards, bottle caps, maps, matchboxes, newspaper clippings, play bills, and, among other things, sales receipts—in my mind the most under-rated and readily available of all the collagables—a free gift with each purchase, so to speak.

#7.  I have a lot of bags.  For a fairly inclusive cataloging, I refer you to a post from 13 July 2009  “Not dog on grass—Not bag on floor—Not bike on . . . .”

#6.  I never use a top sheet.  Don’t believe in them.  Never have.

#5.  I pretty much live with a saint— We’ll call her Saint Sara the Orderly.   (And I have saintly siblings, but I’ll leave that for a later post.)  Sara has “placement issues”—a problem she blames on her training as an architect and which she insists I knew about prior to our partnering and simply can not change, as they are, in fact, evidence of her Saintly origins—rituals of the Order, so to speak.  Bottom line—Sara likes to arrange things: drawers, cupboards, closets, the contents of the refrigerator, mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup arranged in tidy rows—like items lined up together—like soldiers—an army of condiments ready for edible action.  Need I say more.

#4.  My partner does disaster response.  She’s a disaster response expert.  Now there aren’t a lot of these people on the planet (though there are quite a few of them in Haiti these days).  I believe (and you are free to disagree), that’s it’s the relative scarcity of this species that makes disasters so, well, “disastrous.”  In all seriousness, I’m grateful that Sara does this kind of work.  It helps make meaning in our lives.   And though that “meaning” often means traveling a lot, we’re not exactly heading to what most would call “vacation destinations.”

#3.  My mother wears clothes pins as fashion accessories.  Actually, at age 72 she uses them as a mnemonic device, so let’s not get all uptight about this one.  However, for further discussion of this semi-strange sartorial habit, I refer you to a post from several days ago called, “Airing Family Secrets Via Haute Couture.”

#2.  I taught at Oral Roberts University.  This may speak for itself—except that I might mention having arrived on campus in 1986, just after Oral sequestered himself in the Prayer Tower for a number of weeks, claiming God was going to “bring him home” if believers didn’t donate 6 million dollars.   I know some of you may be too young to remember this, but it’s true.  He did it.  I was there.  And the play the drama department performed that semester just happened to be—“Death of a Salesman”—I kid you not!

#1.  My father was in the mafia–pretty much, that’s what it boils down to—Enough said.

Now, none of these items in and of themselves makes one weird—not even two or three.  It’s the global picture I’m getting at.

And I haven’t even included here the biggest reason I’m a weirdo.  But, let’s face it folks, we don’t know one another well enough yet for me to share all my secrets.  It seems though the picture’s becoming clearer—

Bottom line–I’m pretty much a freak. 

How about you?

26 thoughts on “Not-so-instant replay”

  1. A great teaser for next week’s post – I can feel anticipation in the air!
    As for your freakish nature, I find it much more interesting and fun than the plain vanilla specimens who walk around my neighborhood channeling their inner Martha Stewart.
    Freaks unite!

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    • I love the crack about your neighbors “channeling their inner Martha Stewart”–well said, Deanna! Glad you’re looking forward to next week’s post. At this point the post exists only in list form–but it’s on it’s way. Enjoy your Sunday!

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  3. I’m fine but I’m surrounded by weirdness. OF#1 only ate pbj sandwiches for a year. (doctor assured me that was fine) OF#2 refers to her cute clothing as “Donkey style” and Spouse on one of our initial dates took me to minigolf/petting zoo where he simultaneously petted a sheep and the top of my head, closed his eyes and said “I can’t tell who’s who?” Can’t wait for the post in the works!

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    • How funny! I wonder what “Donkey style” looks like. I think a post on this wardrobe phenomenon might be interesting. And I’m amazed that a minigolf/petting zoo even exists–let alone that your future husband took you there. What a hoot!

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  6. I so enjoyed this. We should all write the quirky and eccentric things that make us us. I for one, could be blissfully happy eating a diet that consisted entirely of chocolate and ice cream. Looking forward to your relationship post.

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  7. Kathy, I do think we all have our eccentricities. When my sons were babies, I used to wear safety pins as a fashion accessory, but never intentionally! I’d discover them when I was out and about, and get all embarrassed that I’d forgotten the pins on my clothing when I’d changed their nappies (diapers)! 🙂
    I look forward to the forthcoming post about you and Sara …
    Sunshine xx

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  9. Looking forward to the post that goes with this. You sound pretty interesting to me. 🙂

    And yeah, I’m a freak too. I cultivate my freakishness. Life is more fun that way.

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    • Glad you’re looking forward to it–and, yes, Sara is masterfully organized–and proud of it! I should have the post ready in a couple of days or so. Just hope it doesn’t disapppoint now that I’ve built up this expectation.

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  11. Wow, now I am all excited. And I am not saying this just because you have ties to the Mafia! 😉

    I cannot stand clutter either. Things need to be put away in my house. That is why I wince every time I open up our junk drawer. Does Sarah have problem with tangled up power cords and misc. cords? Those things are hard to arrange. Ok, don’t tell me she hangs them up or something… By the way, did you find a place for your purses, bags, etc.? Could you not tell Sarah that a bag does not count as a purse if it serves utilitarian purposes?

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    • I’m trying to summon the courage to write about the organized crime stuff–but that’s rough for me. Sara is pushing me to write about it.

      About cords–yes, Sara has big issues with the tangle, ties them together, and wraps them neatly in bundles.

      And I’m with you about the bags!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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