But we’re never gonna survive unless … We get a little bit crazy. - Seal
So-called normal people are boring. A little crazy is good. In fact, it’s a perfectly normal response to life. Frankly, the only truly crazy people in this world are the ones who think they’re normal.
I certainly harbor no illusions of normalcy. In this long-overdue questions column, I point out some of my personal quirks of which I am most proud. And then I want you to rate them on the 1-10 crazy scale, 1 being ‘That makes perfect sense’, 3 being ‘I guess I can kind of understand that’, 5 being ‘Um, ok.’ 7 being ‘You are fucking loco, deadman’ and 10 being ‘The authorities have been contacted.’
Feel free to add your rationales and insights to your ratings, and don’t forget to answer the 10th question, where you reveal one of your own most intimate and quirkiest quirks. C’mon, everybody’s doing it! As always, the commenting will likely be heavier over on dagblog.com.
1) Bathing
I read in the shower. I know it’s not eco-friendly, but I will often spend twenty minutes or more in a hot shower catching up on the latest current events. My apartment is full of magazines all dried up and wrinkled from having been used in the shower. I really want to invent a waterproof, see-thru device that you could place on the wall of your shower and stick a book or magazine inside. It would need to have some sort of external page-turning mechanism.
2) Flying
I am terrified of flying. I believe dying in a plane crash is one of the worst ways to go. I will often take a good close look at my fellow passengers before and while boarding a plane. I am actually not racial profiling for terrorists or looking for suspicious people, but instead I am on the lookout for rude, obnoxious jerks. I worry that if I am on a plane with enough of these people, then god may decide that I am an acceptable casualty in the name of making the world a better place.
Contradictorily, I also worry if I’m on a plane with a bunch of young children, like from some sort of sports group or camp, because I also feel god likes to do mean shit sometimes and will crash that plane if only to cause unnecessary horrific tragedy to teach some sort of inexplicable lesson.
3) Sleeping
I believe sleep is sacred. I love naps. Dreaming is super-cool, even nightmares. And I do not set alarms, except in the case of emergencies. The body will let you know when it is good and ready to get up. Since instituting my no-alarms policy, I have significantly reduced the occurrence of colds, flus and sinus infections, which I used to get twice or more a year.
4) Shaving
As you can tell from my dagbuzz videos, I don’t like shaving. I pretty much started my no-shaving policy except in emergencies around the same time as my no-alarms policy. I can’t say it’s provided a similar level of health benefits, but it certainly makes getting ready to go out easier.
Aside from the face and head, I do not like hair on the body. I tolerate hair on my chest, arms and legs, and fortunately have very little on my back, but I trim my genital regions regularly. And I cannot stand hair anywhere on women. I chalk it up to early exposure to Playboy as my first source of what the ideal naked female body should look like. It’s hypocritical because I’m pretty hairy, and unfair because it’s natural and widespread, but barring years of psychotherapy and hypnosis, I don’t know what I can do about it.
5) Fucking
I could probably write this whole post about my skewed views on sex. I think as a nation we are still oddly uncomfortable with our sexuality despite the fact everyone talks about it. Discussing sex and being completely honest about it are two different things. Here’s one of my many minority views on the matter: I do not feel it is natural to be with one person sexually for the majority of one’s life, and believe that ‘open’ relationships can work as long as honesty is the rule at all times and both people are aboard the concept.
6) Eating
I am a picky eater. I do not like eating things that are too slimy, or things look like they were once alive. I think people who like their meat rare or close to it are sick. Also, I will almost always leave a little teeny tiny bit of food on my plate no matter how much I enjoyed the dish. I do not know where this habit stems from, or why I do it – perhaps it’s an attempt to show off some willpower, or perhaps it’s an act of rebellion from hearing my dad ask me a million times to clean my plate because there are starving kids in Africa.
7) Dying (and Reliving)
I kind of believe in past lives. At least I believe that reincarnation is the most likely possibility after the less appealing but likeliest ‘we die and then it’s all over’ theory. I believe it is quite possible that our most intense fears and neuroses, like my one about flying, stem from bad experiences we’ve had in recent past lives.
I have one other potential theory – that I am living in a meta-universe that some other life form or species – not god although perhaps that’s an issue of semantics – has created as an experiment or as a game, kind of like their version of the Sims.
8) Singing
I love karaoke. I have one of the worst voices. But I love karaoke.
9) Dressing
My girlfriend calls me Sox. I wear socks all the time, except while in the shower, and on those very rare days when I wear sandals. My feet are almost always cold due to poor circulation, so it’s mostly a comfort thing, and not that my feet are so ugly I want to hide them. I especially hate being barefoot while in bed, as I equate the feeling and sound of toenails brushing against sheets to fingernails on chalkboards.
Around 10-15 years ago, there was a brief period when people who weren’t dads started wearing socks with sandals, at least with jeans, and I was overjoyed. I alternatively believed I started that trend, or was making up that trend.
10) Confessing (Your Turn)
You know the scene in the underrated movie In and Out when all the women sit around making embarrassing revelations to help the one woman with the gay son feel better. Think of me as that mom, and help a brother out by revealing one of your quirkiest quirks.
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