The Eight Wonders of Me
Posted on December 14, 2007
Filed Under self interview, meme, bat-ass crazy, bitching and moaning |
Way back when, Mizmell tagged me for a meme. I was supposed to share 8 weird things about myself. It was November. Ever since then I’ve been mulling over the possibility that I am not unique in any way, shape or form. This one has had me stumped, uncharacteristically speechless. It’s time I took a stab at it. But it’s not earth shattering stuff, I’m afraid.
1. I obsess about a narrow space just to the left of my dryer, a gully so impossibly narrow, so defyingly unreachable that it is the repository for twenty odd years of lint and dirt and soiled socks (twenty odd years of some other family’s lint and dirt and soiled socks). I dream of the day when the dryer just quits and we drag its useless corpse from the laundry room closet. That is the day that I will have my way with the little slice of filth that taunts me daily.
2. I clean for play dates and babysitters and before moving to a place where hired help gets $25 an hour, I used to clean before the house keeper came. I would tidy and plump pillows and make sure the dishes were put away. It was absurd really, this frenzy of activity that would proceed her coming. But I never could talk myself out of doing just a little bit of her job before she arrived. And, now that there’s no one keeping house but me, I find it hard to resist the urge to tidy and plump and do dishes before the six year olds arrive. I know, it’s pathetic. It’s all backwards and goofy and a sure sign that I my OCD is in flare-up mode, but the mudroom is clean.
3. While we’re on the topic of obsessions, I am utterly and undeniably smitten with the game of tennis. Those who know me well have taken to calling me “tennis rat”. I lose sleep over flubbed overheads and double faults. If I believed in bumper stickers I would have one that read “I’d rather be playing tennis” and it would be true.
4. I, at the age of thirty-four, have tried my hand at more careers than most people attempt in a lifetime. Perhaps I am the master of reinvention or maybe I just need a good vocational guidance counselor. I have been employed as a waitress, a camp counselor, a caterer, a fitness instructor, a newspaper reporter, an account executive at a advertising agency, a landscape architect and a free-lance writer. Now that I’ve tried all that, I think I’ll just stay home and entertain you all when I’m not playing tennis.
5. I have not slept past 7:30 a.m. in eight years. Even when my parents have kept the kids over night and My Better Half and I have painted the town red, or, at least a deep pink, I just can’t tune out the inner clock that is primed to startle me awake at 6:30 a.m. It is tragic. It affects my ability to function much past 9 p.m. It is a sure sign that I have turned the corner on youth and am plunging down the hill towards middle-age.
6. I cannot use Blistex. I can’t even get near someone else using Blistex. The smell of it, the memory of the menthol tingle, makes me yearn to bathe in the stuff. I had a wicked, wicked Blistex habit back in high school. It was then that I discovered that a tiny tube of lip balm in the wrong hands can lead to some extreme dermatological problems - bleeding, cracking, excruciatingly painful problems. There was only one cure and it was cold turkey abstinence. I dream of Blistex.
7. I have an allergy to wheat. Eating gluten-full foods makes my stomach roil, my innards squirm. The reaction is such that I am up all night, to and fro from the bathroom, wishing for death or an enema. And still, at least once a week, I have a complete will-power melt down and find myself face down in a tray of brownies or elbow deep in a pizza. Despite the consequences, I just can’t always abstain. It is an addiction like any other. There is inner dialog and a lot of bargaining with the super-ego. I convince myself that just one buttered french toast bagel won’t hurt anything. And the following day, exhausted, spent, hung over from gluten over load, I swear never again. And it’s always a lie.
8. There is no eighth wonder of me. That’s it. Every thing else is ordinary. I suppose that is weird all on it’s own, the lack of interesting detail. I’m afraid my brain has just revised things and fooled me into thinking I’m a lot like all of you when in fact I’m a complete lunatic.
Anyone better at this sharing stuff than I am, please feel free to play along. If you’re so inclined, consider yourself tagged.
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8 Responses to “The Eight Wonders of Me”
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this makes me want to rub blistex all over myself and come running over with a tennis racket and a good long handled scrubber.
Now Jen, do you want to bait me with the blistex, racket, scrubber thing or do you just wanna play?
Keep the lip goop at home but come on with your racket and cleaning tools. I welcome all players and obsessive neat niks!
Cleaning before the cleaner comes….that sounds so strangely familiar!!
1. Even with a swiffer cloth?
2. Me too. I’m jealous of your mudroom.
5. Ha ha, deep pink…
6. Okay that beats my neuroses
7. Eggs. I miss french toast, pancakes, waffles, crepes, omelettes, poached eggs, cheesecake, meringues. So yummy, but oh-so-painful afterwards. Urgh.
8. You’re a very interesting complete lunatic.
So, you’re OCD like me? I can’t take a piss without checking out the dust on the toilet tissue holder! I feel for you, I truly do.
And a tennis bum? I had no idea. I saw the better part of Texas because I had two daughters addicted. I was a tennis investor. They were both killers, but let it slide.
I’ve decided that since I am 49, my next plan will be to become a professional visitor in my golden years. Send me your address and you can be my first stop. Seems to me, we will get along just fine.
“I obsess about a narrow space just to the left of my dryer”
I can see the emo kids wearing this on tshirts, a phrase that inexplicably enters the lexicon of esoteric “in” phrases that seperates the hip kids from the kids on the out. I don’t know why this so struck my funny bone.
The Blistex thing is interesting. Don’t they sell that right next to a lot of cash registers? Must be hard for you.
and what, There is no eighth wonder of me? No, no, it cannot be.