Mossy Cottage Knits

Since, Apparently, My Weirdnesses Aren't Self-Evident...

(Note to kmkat: To find your blog, I Google on kmkat knit blog. Google invariably asks if I’m looking for kumquat knit blog. First, no, and secondly, how is that any more logical of a search, dude? Wait a mo’. I’m going to go click on the link to see if Google does, indeed, find any knitting blogs that mention kumquats. This should be interesting. Talk amongst yourselves.

...

I’ll be damned; there are. Girl on the Rocks mentions kumquat marmalade, and Crazy Aunt Purl has a link to the blog of a woman who lives in the "Kumquat Capital of the World" (only one step up from our local Puyallup, “The Hop Capital of the Word”), and then the hits degenerate precipitously into, for example, a list of words beginning with "k," which would, by its very definition, contain both "kumquat" and "knit," despite how much our brains would like us to believe that "knit" starts with the letter “n.”)

Yeah, mon, I’ve been memed (or, to use a new word I just learned today, “blemed” for “blog memed”)! Unlike Norma, I welcome memes with open arms and flapping, beckoning hands—perhaps even those glow sticks they use for guiding in airplanes—but only because they’re this lazy blogger’s way of having something to write about. Since I find myself with no stories and no photos today, meme, or bleme, it is.

The rules, which I have no intention of following, because, as you'll see, I'll list eight things, not six, and tag one person, again, not six:

"People who get tagged need to write a blog entry of their own six weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose six people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you are tagged' in their comments and tell them to read your blog!"

Six Eight weird things about me:

1. When I’m standing up, I can’t see my feet. I will leave it up to you to figure out why. (Although since I’ve already gone there, I'll add that a few weeks ago, I couldn’t find the dog. Come to find out she was standing at my feet. Yes, I was unable to see an entire dog. TMK, who was standing not ten feet away and could see exactly what was going on, found this very amusing.)

2. Since I was born in Peru, my birth certificate, issued by the American Embassy, is in Spanish and, technically, my real name is Ryan Morrissey y Fry. (Before I renewed my passport, I had to rely on my birth certificate to get me across the U.S./Canadian border, and the mash-up of officialese, American Embassy emblem, and Spanish confused the crap out of the border guards. One time, when a U.S. border guard started knitting his brows and taking in a deep breath as if he were going to say something Official and Bad, TMK grabbed me by the arm, declared “She’s with me” and pulled me into the United States. Problem solved.)

3. (Elaine, skip this one. No, really.) As I’ve mentioned before, I am the Champeen of the Unloved and Ugly. I'm obsessive about saving insects, spiders, worms, even slugs, and killing one will put me in a really deep, almost pathological funk for a couple of hours. I like the fact that I’m willing to save the wee creatures of the world; I hate the fact that I'm uncontrollably compelled to. It makes me do stupid things, like stand in the shower, completely naked and wasting hot water, using a piece of paper to scoop up a spider that had been plastered to the wall by a large, errant drop. (My efforts paid off. I deposited paper and many-legged passenger on a hall table and by the time I came out of the shower he was gone. He’s now probably sitting in an overstuffed chair somewhere, puffing on a pipe, regaling his grandchildren with a grandiosely exaggerated story of the rescue. In fact, in his version, he probably rescued me. And, of course, being a spider, right after he finishes the story, he will eat his grandchildren. C’est la vie.) I also hate the funk. It is very deep, dark, intrusive, and inordinately unpleasant and all you can do is wait it out. No amount of rationalization or self-reassurance will make it go away. Fortunately, it can be relied on to be temporary.

4. I talk to myself. Out loud. All the time. In the car, I convince myself that people think I’m talking on the phone and they can’t see the phone because I have one of those earbuds in. But I’m not and I don’t. I don’t even own a cell phone.

5. I’m obsessed with getting and giving courtesy waves when I’m driving. If I let someone merge into my lane and they give me a courtesy wave, I’ll feel giddy all the way to my destination. When you let a bus or a truck merge, the drivers say “thank you” by flashing their flashers. These flashes have now become my commuting Holy Grail. (BTW, men courtesy wave much more than women do. Curious.)

6. I love down comforters even though I get extraordinarily, even putridly, hot when I sleep under them. You know the scene in Shrek where the Princess sings such a high note that a bluebird in a nearby tree, who is trying frantically to sing along, explodes? That’s how hot I get, hot enough to explode in a violent puff of blue feathers. I believe Cuzzin Tom and I are the same this way.

7. I am an extraordinarily light sleeper, left over from when I used to share a room with my sister who, at the time, had breathing problems. Whenever she coughed, she choked, so I had to wake up from a dead sleep, leap across the room en pointe, and pound her on the back until her air passages cleared. This left me permanently fidgety and restive where my sleeping habits were concerned. A week ago, for the first time in 46 years, I slept through my alarm clock. TMK came anxiously into my room, heart a’hammerin’, because she was convinced I was dead, being, as it was, the only possible explanation. Come to find out it I was deeply asleep, the comforter was mashed up over my ears, and the ringing of my tinnitus matched the muffled ringing of the clock. I was, in fact, not dead, just getting ready to explode in a violent puff of blue feathers.

8. I have epilepsy.

Although I love memes, I do not love passing memes on. However, with her permission, I am going to tag TMK.

P.S. Dulaaners, if you need to be inspired, see the photo in Cuzzin Tom's entry for today.

Posted by Ryan at December 20, 2006 10:08 AM