Talk Thursday - 10 Weird Things About Me

I never find these easy. What is weird to one is normal hat to another. Weird is as weird does. It takes one to know one. Oh, crap. Neener – Neener – Neener.

But here goes (this could take me a while, be patient.) Err (please)

1) When I say, “I do”, it’s forever. And yet, I’ve been married three times (this is the last) and divorced (obviously) two times. While I wasn’t necessarily the one who wanted the divorce, I am the one who had to file…each friggin’ time. (You might note this doesn’t sit well with me, if you want to divorce me, don’t rub my nose in how much you despise me by making me file the paper work.) And no Ducky and I aren’t divorcing; it’s just the first thing that came to mind.

2) I don’t believe in funerals. I don’t. I find them macabre at best. I believe a person who leaves this plane is still with us. I talk to those who have passed all the time, I light candles in remembrance. And despite these beliefs that those we love are always with us, I will go Saturday to the cemetery with Ducky and his sisters and decorate a (explicative removed here) Christmas tree. And I will go to funerals, I just don’t believe in them, but sometimes you have to support the ones left behind with a show of support. I guess that makes me hypocritical – I can live with it.

3) I’m sadly not in the Christmas spirit this year. I can’t figure it out. I love being in the Christmas spirit. My packages are sent, the cards (what few I lower myself to do) are written and sitting in my truck awaiting a stamp I’ve not yet bought. I have no lights on the house, only the tree is up in the house…oh that is a lie, my stockings are up. But no garland, no twinkling lights, no bows on my mantles. I am sad this Christmas for some unknown reason.

4) Okay on to brighter things. While it’s not weird to have been a Girl Scout, I am proud of the nine years I spent selling calendars, cookies, and building fires. I (somewhere) still have my sash filled with stars and badges.

5) I have been raped twice. Strangely enough these were growing experiences for me. The first one I have to own partial responsibility for, the guy has apologized and we both moved on. The second I have gotten over mentally, I forgive the guy who raped me (that’s the weird part I think) but he still scares the bejeebers out of me.

6) I have this really weird memory. My earliest memory is from age two and a half, although I have disjoined flashes of memory from even before that. Despite this great memory I can’t remember individual sexual encounters (ha ha I do remember their names.) The other day I was doing my shipping and had gone to the shipping store without putting one of the zip codes on one package. Strangely enough that morning I’d seen the number – 84093 (Ha I still remember it) – and rattled it off the top of my head. It freaked everyone out in the shipping store when they realized I wasn’t from Utah. Well I’m not.

7) To make myself fall asleep (because two Unisomes don’t do it for me anymore) I name all the kids in the houses of my childhood neighborhood (approximately sixty houses.) I name their last name, each child's name (in order of age,) pet names - what have you. Anything in a list helps me fall asleep.

8) I get songs stuck in my head. I know most people do, but I’ve been getting the same song stuck in my head since early childhood. The Cascades, “Rhythm of the Rain.” Forty plus years of singing that song in my head over and over again.

9) I have this bizarrely great memory and yet I can rarely figure out what to make for dinner. I lose words often. And I will call my grandson by my dog’s name. I have no friggin’ clue why. Burp and Arlo sound nothing alike.

10) Most people in my life are a song. I hear a song and it will remind me of them. My dad is “King of the Road”. My mother is “Lavendar Blue Dilly Dilly (strange choice I know, but the other is "Mares eat Oates”. Ducky is “Second Thoughts”, My daughter Psam is “I Love Rock n’ Roll”, My sister is “Cracklin’ Rosie,” my little brother's song is "Suicide is Dangerous" aka the theme from MASH. Just a few. I can remember when a song come out by what I was doing when I first heard it. But I’m not always right. My friend Cara told me I’m a music savant.

Now looking back on this list I admit nothing is really weird, but there is nothing normal about me. I will try harder, and come up with weirder weirdness later.

Sith
Cele