That's Some Weird, Wacky Stuff *

The lovely Hollow Squirrel tagged me for this meme, wherein I am to divulge six weird things about my weird self and then tag six more weirdos. Well, I am SO weird, I have way more than six weird friends, you know who you are, so feel free to lift this weird meme and spread the weirdness. Or as Karla says, "wierdness." So, may I present La Turista: Keepin' It Weird.

1) I am not a picky eater (have you seen me lately?), but I have a thing about texture, so I don't, nay CAN'T, eat a lot of fruit. Love apple juice, apple sauce, apple fritters. CanNOT eat an apple. Love peach nectar, peach ice cream, peach smoothies. Would rather eat my own finger than eat a peach. And don't even get me started on grapes. It's a skin thing, I think, because I've got that, too. See, I can watch surgeries on television, and the blood and guts and body parts don't phase me. But I want to hurl and run screaming from the room if I get even a glimpse of skin splayed open and covered in that orange goop.

2) I cannot stand big forks. I have to use salad size or smaller. Always. Big forks make me gag or otherwise injure myself, and anyone in my immediate circle knows to set a small fork at my place at the kids' table. At restaurants, I'm mostly SOL, and I have to just deal. But, obviously, this silverware weirdness has had no negative effect on my girlish figure. I seem to be able to shovel it all in just fine, thank you.

3) I have a totally harmless, yet pretty gross, "-oma" of some kind in my belly that doctors have told me is basically a sack of fat. I call it my worm, and it's about the size and density of a Vienna sausage. Nice. I discovered it one day after stuffing myself at my grandmother's house, when, because I'm so funny, I leaned back in my chair and started rubbing my belly and groaning like an old man. I ran my hand over it and thought, "Hmm. That's new. And gross." My mom was ready to take me to the hospital THAT moment, but cooler heads prevailed, and I had it checked out a few weeks later. I never really thought it was "anything," but I was hoping the doctor would tell me that it would go away. Nope. Over 10 years later, it's still there, but thanks to my nice paunch, you can't even see it. However, when I was pregnant, and my skin was stretched so tight, you could see it poking out a little. I had some maternity portraits taken with Peach, and the photographer said, "Look! I think that's the baby's head!" Uh huh, yeah. I think it is.

4) Weird Fact #687 that proves T-Bone and I were meant to be together: an unholy amount of shared celebratory dates. (deep breath) T-Bone and I met on my dad's birthday 11 years ago, and we got engaged on the same day a year later. My mom and T-Bone's dad have the same birthday. My birthday is the same day as T-Bone's brother's anniversary. T-Bone, Olive, and T-Bone's mom, brother, SIL, and niece all have birthdays on the 1st of their birthmonth, with T-Bone and his SIL having the same birthday, and his mom and brother having the same birthday. And, finally, my mom's birthday is the day BEFORE her parents' anniversary, my birthday is the day AFTER my parents' anniversary, and Peach's birthday is the day BEFORE our anniversary. SO, Peach must give birth to her first child, a girl, the day AFTER her anniversary. She simply must.

5) I have lots of OCD-like tendencies like counting things, checking the locks a million times, and blowing in glasses before I drink from them. Yes, you read that right. One of the weirdest ones is the way I read books or magazines. I repeatedly flip back to the beginning to run my hand over each page, to make sure I didn't miss anything. As you can imagine, I don't get a lot of reading done in one sitting, and law school was an absolute nightmare with regular assignments of hundreds of pages a night. No wonder my eyes are completely shot.

6) I am pretty particular about where I "go," you know, "GO," and that caused, ahem, a shitload of problems the time I was convinced that the shut-in freakshow that lived next door to Karla May and me was spying on me through a pinhole in my bathroom mirror. Really! I came home one day, and I swear there was a spot of light coming through from the OTHER side of the mirror, which hung on the wall we shared with the psycho's apartment. After that, every time I had to "go," I kept the lights off. For over two years. And I glared at that dude every time I saw him. My boyfriend at the time, quite the conspiracy theorist himself, offered to break down the door and kick the guy's ass if he found anything. Lo these many years later, I'm still pretty convinced that somewhere on these Internets, there are grainy pictures of me pooping in the dark.

* Mad props to the King of Late Night. RIP JC.