I don’t usually do “memes,” but the “weird things” one (via Janet) seems entertaining. So here are some weird things about me:
1) I carry on complicated conversations with the dog, translating her bits into English in a high-pictched voice. I started doing this to amuse/ annoy Kate, but now I do it even when Kate’s not around. (This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened to me– my freshman year in college, a bunch of us started saying “Dude” a lot to mock one guy on my floor, and it stuck. I still say “Dude” a lot, and so does the dog…)
2) I have a weird obsessive thing about light switches: all the switches in a multiple-switch box need to be in the same direction if the lights are in the same state (that is, the switches should all be up if the lights are all on, or all down if the lights are all off). I’ve been known to go up or down stairs in the dark in order to maintain the correct alignment when one of the lights is controlled by two different switches.
3) I hate silence, and thus almost always have either music playing, or the tv on. Or both, in different rooms. This tends to annoy Kate.
4) I never co-authored a paper with my thesis advisor in graduate school.
5) I have a fear of needles that borders on the pathological. I can cope with vaccinations or having blood drawn for tests, but anything taking longer– an IV, say– completely freaks me out. I can’t handle donating blood at all.
6) I don’t like wearing a shirt and pants that are the same color, or even too close. On those rare occasions when I wear sweatpants and a sweatshirt, I’ll mix and match them, and I won’t wear a light blue t-shirt with jeans.
7) When I eat plain bread, I tend to pull the crusts off, and compress the center part of the slice into a small ball before eating it. This drives my mother up the wall, but I swear it tastes better that way. I started doing it because I read about it in a book– I think it was a Hardy Boys book, or something similar.
8) Kate and I originally met via a Usenet newsgroup. Actually, this isn’t all that weird in our circle of friends– I know at least three other couples who met via that same group– but other people think it’s fairly unusual.
9) I’m absolutely fascinated by crap paranormal science tv shows– alien abduction stories, ghost stories, biblical archeology. If I’m channel surfing on a weekend afternoon and stumble across these on the History Channel or the Discovery Channel, I can get sucked into watching for hours.
10) I have a weakness for really dreadful Chinese food– the highly Americanized stuff you get as cheap take-out or on buffet tables. I know it’s objectively pretty terrible, but every now and then, I get an intense craving for really greasy lo mein and fried rice and the like.