Quirky Quirkiness

One of my favorite movies has always been Runaway Bride. There is a funny scene between Maggie and Peggy (Julia Roberts & Joan Cusack) which goes like this..

Peggy: No. I’m weird. Weird and mysterious are two different things.    


Maggie: But I’m weird.


Peggy: No. You’re quirky. Quirky and weird are two different things.


Maggie: Peggy, there’s a distinct possibility that I might be profoundly and irreversibly screwed up.

Well, then Julia Roberts does the duck-billed platypus face and all is forgiven. If you don’t know, you haven’t seen the movie and you really should. It’s full of great music, beautiful scenery and some great wedding dresses. And who doesn’t love that? Oh and Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It’s a feel-good movie for sure.

All that aside, it has recently come to my attention that I, indeed have a few… quirks. I do. You know those things? The things you do but you don’t really know why you do them but you just keep doing them because you’ve always done them?

So I thought it might be fun to compose a little list of 10 things you might not know about me. At first, I shied far away from doing this because it just seems so egocentric, but then I realized that since most of them are a bit embarrassing and self-deprecatory… and it is not really in my best interest to share most of them, it should be ok. HA!

1. Suitcase Problems. I have ’em. I LOVE to pack for trips. I begin to mentally and physically compose “packing lists” weeks before any vacations or fun trips. I’ve done this since middle school. We’re talking detailed packing lists in which I wrote out each outfit, pair of socks and matching scrunchy. I still do this.. minus the socks & scrunchies. BUT. I have a REAL problem unpacking my suitcase. I mean we’re talking seriously crazy. If I don’t unpack in the first 18 hours of a return from a trip.. It doesn’t happen for days.. and days. I don’t know why. I’ve tried to figure it out. I probably should try harder.. for the sake of my marriage. And for the sake of my husband’s toes. He trips over it a lot in the middle of the night.

2. I have several strange and irrational fears. One is the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. I can’t even explain… how much they freak me out. I cannot watch that movie and I hope I never have to again. Love Dorothy. But unless they re-release that movie without that scene.. and also the Wicked Witch/ Mrs. Gulch. Cannot. handle. it.

3. My toast. I love lightly buttered toast. I love Peanut butter toast. BUT, if I even THINK I will get both butter and peanut butter on my toast, I internally freak out a little bit. So much so that I use different KNIVES if I’m making one piece of each. They can be on the same plate but only if there is buffer space in between. I know. Me = weirdo. I could tell you how this came about but it might throw my Mom under the bus a little bit.. and I love her too much to do that. This time. (Just kidding, Mom!)

4. Paper Towel Cutting Boards. I don’t know why I do this but, when I’m chopping fruits or vegetables or ESPECIALLY garlic or onions, I put a paper towel UNDER the thing I’m cutting even though I have a cutting board. It’s second nature. It’s weird. but I do it. Maybe so I don’t have to keep washing our giant wooden cutting board? Maybe because I have a weird concern about getting garlic juice on whatever else I’m making that shouldn’t be garlicky?? My dear husband has pointed out a few (ok, several) times that I do that… and that it’s a bit.. odd. I mean, what’s the cutting board for if I’m going to put a paper towel down? I don’t know. I just know I can’t stop.

5. I read magazines from back to front. Every single time. I used to read the last chapter of a book immediately when I got it, just to see if there was a “happy” ending. If not, I wouldn’t read the book. I stopped doing that a long time ago but I still read magazines from back to front. It’s not convenient and I always have to find the start of an article when I’m interested in it, but it takes REAL focus to start from the beginning and read through the magazine the normal way.

6. I absolutely always, always check behind the shower curtain when I walk into the bathroom. You know. Just to know there’s no one in there. Even in my own house!!!! Thankfully I don’t do it at other people’s houses.. because HELLO, invasion of privacy. I don’t know maybe I accidentally saw that scene from Psycho as a child.. Do you do this? I’m sure many people do… right?

7. No Fly Little Bird. In College, I tried to purchase a plane ticket and I couldn’t get one because my name was mysteriously on the Homeland Security No Fly List. Isn’t that nuts??? I thought it was a little scary when I looked into “what to do” in that situation– but a few days later, it was all of a sudden gone and I could buy the ticket. It was during the time that a few international spies were being apprehended in America and maybe my name was similar to one of the aliases used– HAHA! Funny.

8. My trip to the “Big House.” Also in College, because apparently that’s when all crazy weird things happen-– I was driving around with a “friend” (whom, admittedly I hadn’t known very long) and we were pulled over. This “person” was immediately cuffed and taken to jail because they had REVOKED drivers’ licenses in THREE states. THREE STATES! I had to drive this person’s car downtown to the SLAMMER to wait on them. Me. I had never even had a speeding ticket, or been to the Principal’s Office for that matter– but there I was.. 10’oclock at night and sitting on the floor of the POKEY waiting on my “Friend” to get “released.” Unfortunately, that little incident didn’t tip me off enough to make haste away from such company… but I lived to tell about it. And that has made all the difference.

9. One -eyed reading. I read before bed, like many people. When I start to get tired and my eyes start to feel heavy, instead of setting the book down and going to sleep– I try to squeeze a few more pages in by closing one eye (to rest it) and reading with my other eye.. and then I switch eyes after a few minutes. Why????? I do not know. I recently discovered that there is really no point in this and if I would go to bed earlier I would not fall asleep while reading, but we do weird things, don’t we?

10. For many years I thought Rosetta Stone was an actual person. Like Mavis Beacon teaches typing.. I thought Rosetta Stone taught foreign languages. Lance discovered this one day and set me straight. THE Rosetta Stone is NOT in fact an actual person. The article THE should have tipped me off. But then there is THE artist formerly known as Prince, so whatever.

I’m sure I could come up with many many more… and I could tell you how I was ACTUALLY late to my own wedding. Not late to the church, mind you.. but slightly LATE coming down the aisle!!! You can even see it on the video.. Looonnng pause in the music, long pause while everybody waits, several seconds of DEAD SILENCE and then BOOM. My dad and I came through the doors. HA! But that’s another story I guess.

I want to hear from YOU! Tell me something funny or strange or odd about yourself in the comments!!! Come on, make me feel better about my quirkiness!!!

Happy Monday!