Tuesday, December 05, 2006

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.

10 comments:

Jennifer said...

I don't care to tag others for memes, either, by the way, for the same reason you mentioned, so I truly appreciate your participating.

Magic sponges are fantastic!

The Moon Topples said...

I'm relieved to hear that. Well, not the part about the sponges, but the part about not liking to tag people. I felt like I was breaking some sort of cardinal rule, and that I would be punished in some grotesque manner.

S. Kearney said...

Maht,
I'm very impressed at the posts you have here ... and one for every day? How do you manage it? I can only cobble together one every two or three days. I liked your list of weirdness, but wondered if you have even let family or friends or lovers into your home?

Julia Buckley said...

I have the thing where I forget words for normal stuff. Sadly I don't have the long term memory talent to compensate for this though. Maybe that's why I like writing things down so much...

Liz Dwyer said...

SWEET that the magic eraser worked! Those things are golden!

I might try the weird things about myself but I'm not sure I even know where to start. How do I only pick six things when there are probably at least three times that many weird things that I do?

msquared said...

I've linked back to you

The Ordinary Adventures of Tomas

Unknown said...

Wow - we have a lot in common. I can relate to 1, 2, 3, 5 & 6.

It probably would have been easier to just say I couldn't relate to number 4, lol. I'm too detail oriented to have ever done that, though - and that's something else that's weird about me.

nmj said...

I love the name of Map of July.

Anonymous said...

Hey Hey!

#4 Reminds me of a period of time in grade school when I spent the night at a studdering friends house and then studdered for a couple of years before overcoming the problem. It's a very very hazy memory. I couldn't really say anything more about it if I tried...

I feel I've got a bit of 1 & 2, but not to the same extent as you.

And by the way... your example in number 2 is suposed to be a band secret... I'm a bit steemed at you right now.

On number 5... I taught myself to write, so I hold a pen/pencil wierd and write upside-down and backwards. I don't know if I had anything to say, but I know I couldn't wait, and then couldn't be corrected.

And I'm glad to be among the few and the proud.

The Moon Topples said...

Wow, you leave your blog alone for a day and everyone says hi. Bad blogger, not keeping up on comments.

The mean thing I said to CC on my first day at her company has to do with her sharing a name with a celebrity of marginal talent. I was being shown around the building by my new boss, who said: "And this is (CC2383)" and I said "Oh, now, that's too bad."

Shameless: Thanks for the kind sentiments. And it's five people of any stripe. As I said, I'm working on it.

Julia: Here's an excerpt from my new novel: "He crossed the room and sank into the...uh...you know, the thing. What you sit on, he sat on one of those."

Liz: I don't know what to tell you. Those are the only six things that are strange. It isn't like I whittled down some enormous list or anything.

msquared: Thanks for the link. Your blog is amazingly good.

Zorak: It isn't too late to start repeating everything back to yourself, if you want a perfect score on the Moon Topples Dysfunction quiz.

EnEmJay: Thanks. We were fond of it ourselves. More on the band in a post very soon.

Anon: True, it was a band secret, but I figure I was always the one trying to keep it so, and also, well: no band, no secret.

HWDNS: Maybe the next meme to make the rounds will be for bloggers to post their lists of "Six Things They Find Strange About the Moon Topples."