Only Six?

Antique Chinese Basket with Dicentra Designs fiber

(because this is a serious fiber arts blog)

Vanessa tagged me with the “Six weird things about me” meme back on December 14th, right before our electricity and internet access went out in the big PNW storm . I tried to wiggle out of it since I was so late catching up, but Vanessa insisted I pony up with all my amazing weirdness.

It was incredibly not difficult to think up six weird things. It was, however, challenging to get the list down to just six things. I suspect it might be impossible much harder to come up with a list of “Six things about me that are not weird”

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 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.

1. I can make my eyeballs jiggle back and forth really fast. A skill I discovered around third grade. So if you were to look at me while I’m doing this you would see my eyeballs quivering. Not surprisingly it tends to gross people out (not nearly as rewarding at my age as it was in third grade). Must be an inherited tendency because my youngest son can do it too.


2. I can pop my left hip out of the socket. I don’t do it much any more because after I showed my doctor once she said, “Hmm, interesting. You probably want to stop doing that.” (I have hyper-mobile ligaments so all my joints move more than they should, allowing me to do fun things like bend my thumb down to touch my forearm).


3. One of my ears gets really red when I’m concentrating intently on a task. Which ear is dependent on the type of task I’m working on: If I’m working on a left-brained task involving logic or math, my right ear is red, but if I’m working on a more creative right-brain task my left ear is red. I don’t remember if they’ve ever both been red at once.


4. Seeing someone cry makes me cry – even if I’m not sad. Actually, sometimes just having someone tell me a story involving someone crying can make me cry.


5. I still have one of my baby teeth. It never came out because there was no tooth behind it. I worry that one day I’ll bite down too hard and knock it out because there are no roots on baby teeth. I also never got any wisdom teeth. (This may come as no surprise to those who actually know me.)


6. A co-worker and I regularly donate blood at work during donation drives (this is not the weird part). To make it more interesting, we race to see who can donate their pint in the shortest time. We’ve gotten to the point where the ‘pretty close’ time from the clock the blood bank uses on-site isn’t close enough. We’re seriously thinking about investing in stopwatches for accuracy. Amazingly we can’t seem to get other people to join our Competition Speed Blood Donation Team. (the blood bank staff seem quite amused – I hope they’re not quietly discarding the ‘crazy people blood’ after we leave)

I guess #’s 2 and 5 might count as 1.5 things each since I managed to throw in an extra factoid in each of those items. But that’s basically your six things. Basically. (extra points if you know which cult movie classic I stole that last line from!)

Hmm, my list seems to contain a number of body-based oddities. I’m not sure that just looking at me would make one automatically assume I’m a freak of nature, but seeing them all lined up in print does kinda make it seem that way.

I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t already been tagged. I will be a non-rule follower (quite uncharacteristic for me) and not tag anyone myself. Ooh, such a rebel!