"You wanna start something, tough guy?"
I'm Not from Jersey. My Hair Isn't Enough
Quirky Doesn't Even Begin to Describe It
I'm In Need of Some Bad Medicine
Fiction: Very Slightly Off Balance
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
I Can't Guarantee You Won't Be Arrested
The Key to Living in New Jersey
Poetry Corner: Something's Fishy
Stuff That You Didn't Even Want to Know
Stuff That Doesn't Suck Like a Hoover
I
never claimed to be normal
I've come to the conclusion it would be a good idea to make an all-inclusive
list of all my quirks. It would be useful for potential lovers as well
as co-workers or roommates (and I would hope they wouldn't be one in the
same). I like to think that I seem pretty normal on first meeting. I have
a job, an apartment, and a car, all the trappings of a normal, functioning
adult. But after you've known me for about two months, my eccentrities
start to come out. Sometimes these quirks are a surprise even to me. For
example, I have just discovered that I tend to over-react to things. I've
probably been doing this for years and I never noticed it until I was
talking to a friend who has known me for ten years, with a few stretches
of silence from my end because of this over-reacting thing. I never saw
it this way. I always thought the rest of the world should know better
than to piss me off. But, when I called this young man to ask advice about
a tiff with my bedmate at the time, he reacted in mock alarm when I confessed
that I might have blown things a little bit out of proportion. I guess
you learn something new every day.
So here's my list. Just don't say I didn't warn you:
I
over-react to things (we've gone over this, lets move on)- I hate to wash dishes so I will sometimes leave them in the sink until I can no longer drain pasta and then just wash them all at once.
- Sex doesn't make me tired. It does the opposite. I want to chat afterward. I don't need to talk about what we just did. A lovely discussion on the virtues of a Granny Smith over a Fiji apple will be just fine.
- I'm really clean. Some would say a neat freak. I can count on one hand the number of days I've neglected to make my bed in the last two years.
- Meat Loaf. Not the entrée, which is lovely with mashed potatoes and green beans, but the rotund Texan crooner. I can listen to "I Would Do Anything for Love, (But I Won't Do That)" over and over again for hours.
- I'm obsessive about George Clooney, Japanese cooking game shows on cable, lip balm, needlepoint pillows, a good apple, and guys who treat me badly.
- Patience is not a virtue I posses.
- I'm shy. People who have just met me don't believe me when I tell them, since I can more than keep up my end of the conversation. But lucky people who really know me will say it is true.
- My right breast is slightly bigger than the left. My gynecologist says it's normal, but it still bothers me.
- Old Ebenezer had nothing on me. I'm cheaper than a pregnant homecoming queen from Parkersburg, West Virginia. Flashy new clothes, exotic summer vacations, cars that run properly, meat at the dinner table: all highly overrated in my opinion.
- I refuse to brush
my hair on Sundays. Beauty is overrated.
When I get drunk, I've been known to yell at the television and then fall down laughing hysterically. And then I call people long distance and leave unintelligible phone messages. At least I'm a happy drunk.
I suppose the goal is to find a guy who doesn't find all these quirks detrimental, but actually endearing. Some are qualities that not even a mother could love (the over-reacting thing for one) and I'm working on it. I've lost the companionship of some lovely gentlemen because of it, but then again, if they were so lovely, they would have forgiven me. But they didn't. So I just had to take my mismatched boobs somewhere else.