Six weird things

I rubbed the "magic eraser" on the affected spot of my car's body and watched the tag disappear in far less time than it would have taken me to do the work in Photoshop. This was at about 5 this morning, when the bitterness of the cold was the only thing keeping me from gaping in alarm at how well it had worked. Sure, they tell you not to use it on the body of a car, but I really don't care if it eats the enamel or whatever.

Of course, my troubles were not yet over. Before I could even get to the store to buy the erasing sponge, I was tagged in another sense. Another blogger, Zilla, was more or less challenging me to take part in a meme. This one was about six things that are weird about the writer, and upon completion I am supposed to pass it along to six others who must comply.

I have no interest whatsoever in passing this on.I could credibly attribute this to that same thing inside me that makes me break chain letters, but the truth here is that I wouldn't really want to dictate the content of another person's blog. If this means I'm not allowed at the cool kids' table, I can accept that.

Anyway, here is the part I have opted to complete.

Six things that are weird about me:

• I have a freakish memory. Floating around in here are the lyrics to virtually every song I've ever heard more than once. This includes, in many cases, the year the song came out and biographical details about the artist. I can reconstruct entire sentences and conversations with people I haven't spoken to in years. All this really means is that I'm good at Trivial Pursuit and am usually right when an argument hinges upon whether so-and-so said or did something, and when.
• And yet I cannot remember the names or faces of people I meet until I have encountered them many times, and I sometimes forget common words for things. My band was called Map of July originally as a joke about an instance where I could not think of the word "calendar." The name stuck for almost a decade.
  
• It is common for me, upon entering a new place of employment, to not speak to any of the people there, unless required by my work, for a period of up to 3 months.
• Like someone else who completed this assignment, I had a weird speech problem as a child which resulted in my repeating back to myself everything I said for several years. I eliminated this tic completely by about the eighth grade, although I still catch myself doing it internally sometimes. Until I read the post linked above, I was unaware that anyone else had suffered from this problem.
  
• I have always had the urge to write, even before I could physically do so. When I was three or four, I can remember dictating a series of stories for my brother to scribble out for me. These do not survive, but from what I recall they were formulaic and predictable. I don't know if he remembers this or not, but it stands out in my mind.
• I do not allow people into my home. I'm working on this one. Including my cable installation, I have had perhaps five separate people into my apartment in the nearly three years I have lived in my current place.
  

So, there's my six things. I really do think I'm mostly normal, though, which may or may not be a seventh thing.

Apologies to Zilla for not passing it along, but anyone reading who would like to make a list themselves is certainly welcome to do so. Leave a comment and I'll check it out.