quirks

Sometimes I do strange things. Those around me make me aware of this. I laugh.
Eccentricity #1: Last night, in order to ease Mom's troubled mind, I decided to try to find my passport, along with a few other carefully hidden [lost] items. I’m darned good at finding little special places to hide things; in fact, I’m so exceptionally good at hiding important objects that I tend to forget where I’ve put them. So last night, I set off to look for my passport. This turned into looking for my lost inking supplies, journal, and scriptures. Yes, naughty me. But this task proved to be tricky due to the fact that most of my things are packed away, and being the minimalist that I am (ha, yeah, only selectively), I stored the boxes in the tightest spot manageable, with no easy way to access them. I had spent hours and hours on this project weeks ago, getting them to be as compact and unobtrusive as possible. They were crammed into the very back of a long and slender closet, so I had to kind of squeeze past all of my clothes and was behind the door. My mom came around the corner and saw me and gave me this look and asked, “What are you doing?” Not wanting her to know that I was looking for my lost passport, I said “hiding”. Then this whole rigmarole ensued and I started laughing my head off at the ridiculousness of the situation, my mom looked on quizzically, chuckling now and then, while I shoved myself even further into the closet and taunted, “try to find me.” This was a very awkward and inane experience. She left me just in time so that I could try to find my cigar boxes the only way I could with them being packed so snugly: I smelled them. I started at the bottom and worked my way up and down the boxes trying to detect the faint tobacco and woodwork scent they gave off. I zoomed in on a box and then wrangled it, and myself, out of the space (a task in and of itself) to find that I had chosen precisely the right one. Fantastic. So after much ado, I recovered one frivolous cigar box collection out of the four rather important items I initially set out for.
Eccentricity #2: My mom came into the room again and there was a dollar on the floor. She threatened to steal it, and as she reached out to take it, I hid it. Quickly. Under my foot. I was so proud of my stealth and quick thinking only to be crushed by mom saying, “I can see it”. So I put both of my feet over it. [Cue second absurd situation.]
Eccentricity #3: I was looking for treasures at D.I. Coincidentally, this too was with my mom. Just before leaving, I found this globe. It was just a volleyball-sized Earth, strangely top heavy, with the old U.S.S.R. dominating Asia. The North Pole was a bit scratched up, missing a proper stand, and since it was obsolete, I started to set it back down. That was when I discovered it was magnetic. I giggled with joy. I fixed it to anything and everything I could get it to stick to. I still do. And I still giggle.

conundrum

I went to the dentist again today. This time was just a check-up and cleaning. I liked it. I actually enjoyed going, sitting in the chair, and having them inspect my teeth. I loved when they scraped at my teeth and carefully poked, prodded, and flossed. I don’t know why.
I even liked taking x-rays and looking at how my teeth fit together. We even took one of the full-sized x-rays that show all of the teeth together, instead of just the little localized ones. They were all beautiful. It was like a little life history of my teeth. It showed the steps of growth, decay, and correction. I started thinking back to my dental childhood and the experiences with different dentists, remembering that I didn’t always dread it. In reality, I usually enjoyed it, and was fine the procedures.
The dentist asked me all sorts of interrogative questions and was really surprised that I never had braces. He told me I had beautiful teeth about a dozen times.
The only part that got to me this time was the sandy, mystery-flavored substance that they polished my teeth with, but only because it tickled. Yes, my gums are ticklish.
I was even content when we were talking about my wisdom teeth and how we should probably take them out just to be safe, even though we didn’t need to right away. He told me I was lucky not to have one on the bottom left. In actuality, I felt lucky to have the other three.

lavish attire

The other day, someone asked me what my wedding dress is going to look like. I'm not getting married, therefore, I don't know what it will look like. However, she had me discuss it at length with her, and I decided one thing. When that day comes, I think it will be an elegant ivory color. It will be simple, and it may even be calf-lengthed. I look like a giantess in floor length dresses and I have nice legs.

More discussion on this genre of gowns to follow.

faulty romance

The problem with reading things like "Bridget Jones's Diary", or watching films infused with sugary sweet love stories, is that you get sucked into the pseudo-dramatic, hyper-romantic irony of the stories and inevitably you fall in love with a Mr. Darcy. This dilemma wouldn’t be too bad, being on Cloud 9 all the time, except that this can only happen in Fantasyland. In real life, wildly mysterious, charming men like Fitzwilliam Darcy simply do not exist. Minds get pumped full of these ideas that somewhere out in the cold and lonely world, their perfect match is doing perfect things to make their serendipitous meeting perfect. The victims of these far-fetched desires become oblivious to how tangible relationships work, getting wrapped up in their own personal soap operas, and ultimately rejecting potential suitors because they don’t say that cinematically faultless phrase that is so longed for. Expectations shoot sky-high, and when the realization comes that these charismatic, witty, and thoughtful men are only figments of the imagination, all of those overfed hopes come crashing down. This results in the typical “bitter-against-everything-remotely-romantic-and-thus-will-spoil-anything-that-smells-of-love” idea.

So really, at the end of the day, what is the point of sappy, sentimental stories? Maybe they give fleeting bliss, a short-lived state of elation, but eventually that feeling wears off and the longing needy side rears its head. Maybe it’s fun to get this romantic high now and then, but maybe it’s good to keep your feet on the ground once in awhile too. For me, I think I’ll keep that hope in the back of my mind, but instead of expecting some knight in shining armor to come in and sweep me off my feet, I’ll be happy to get along in life, living my own, real life to its fullest. And if my Mr. Perfect-For-Me comes waltzing in at some point, I’ll be happier if instead of shining armor, he’s got a less ostentatious set of threads on.

And now, I’ll happily continue to go from listening to the likes of “Eleanor Rigby”, “The Scientist”, and “Cry me a river”, and then “Brighter than Sunshine”, “The One I Love”, and “Return to Me”, and I’ll have no qualms about it.

Que será, será, right?

dentist

Last night, something felt funny in my mouth and as I reached up to investigate, a chunk of tooth fell into my hand. Frightened, I held it closer to find that fortunately it was just one of my porcelain fillings. I calmed down and thought, “Meh, I’ll get this fixed, no biggie.” I casually continued to do my laundry. It wasn’t until my mom mentioned an impending dentist’s appointment that the terror set in. I breezed through all of the psychological defense mechanisms before finally settling on repressing the thought of going to the eerily bright office with sickly sweet assistants, motorized hands, and fear-stricken, isolated patients.

I got a call at work. My mom announced that they’d be happy to see me in an hour and a half. Gasp. I suddenly felt as if I were in a gasless chamber, shrinking by the second. I started getting dizzy. It’s funny how the anxiety creeps in when you’re going to the dentist. This is the same feeling I get when I know I have to go inside Wal-Mart. Luckily, my dentist’s office is not housed in a Wal-Mart. To my knowledge no practices are contained in those dreadfully sad buildings. If mine were, I would either run for the hills or decidedly have a heart-attack instead.

The waiting room was empty of all life and the lights were dimmed to resemble a plush death row. The secretary’s desk had the creepy glow with its fluorescent light seeping into the dungeon.

“Hey!Howareyouladiestoday?
We’lljusthaveyousitdownandwe’llgetyouinassoonaspossible!
Justtakeaseatandwe’llberightwithyou!”

I wasn’t sure if she had multiple personalities or if she was speaking with the royal we. Either way, I wasn’t going to ask for fear of receiving a beheading.

The walls seemed oddly close. I numbly reached out for some reading material. Maybe it was about Angelina Jolie. Maybe it was about India. Maybe it was just fluff to take my mind off of my impending doom.

After nervously brushing my teeth, I was led back to a well-equipped room, with the weapons conveniently stowed beneath the innocent cover of white cabinets; the interrogation light poised high over head. The chair was already in a slightly reclining position. If I didn’t know that this place was a certified dental office, I would be a little worried that this equipment would be used for black market organ operations or some other shady acts performed by dodgy characters only found in Dick Tracy comics, or the likes of Al Capone. Thankfully, this was just a maxillofacial torture chamber.

As the chair was positioned horizontally, I tried my best to settle in comfortably, but this was impossible. My eyes glazed over, appearing to be reading the magazine, only to have the mind behind them drift in a haze of confusion, fear, and disconnectedness. The classic dentistry walls were covered in a burgundy and forest green motif with depressing water colors whose hues had bled too much. The tunes being emitted from the ceiling were smooth hits such as “I just called to say I love you” and “Unchained melody”. These only furthered the ominous mood.

The procedure was to begin, my eyes firmly closed, along with my hands gripping tightly to one another. I crossed my legs and curled my toes, and was ready to be mummified. Many moments later the actual man in charge slithered in. I’m completely convinced that he was once a rambunctious Hell’s Angel, a fiery three-ring circus leader, or an ex-convict doped up on enough meds that he passed for a mellow guy. He simply had to have some sort of dark past that could catch up to him at any time. But he sure had a good poker face. Good enough to conceal this from the rest of the oral hygiene scene, but I saw straight through his slightly catatonic ways.

The anesthetic needle was inserted into my gums and I instantly froze. I had no desire to have this metal fang snap off inside my face. It also felt as though it just kept going further and further in until I could feel it in the tips of my little curled-up toes. I was promptly abandoned, left to wither in a most uncomfortably numb state.

He asked if it was okay to go on. I winced in reply. He proceeded. His hands moved swiftly as he put some cotton in my mouth. Then the metal came. The strange blue glow with an orange diffuser shone through my eyelids.

“Let’s have that condenser.”

Heaven only knows what that is, but I hoped this tool doesn’t hail back from his gypsy head-shrinking days.

And then Clay Aiken’s horridly disturbing song “If I was invisible” came on. In spite of my awful surroundings, I nearly burst out laughing as the drills and other attachments were performing their tasks. The circumstances forced me to listen to each stalker-related lyric as I sank deeper into the chair to subconsciously get away from it all. I had to bottle my timid giggles, else I’d be missing far more than one little filling.

fix it up

Over the past few days, I’ve picked up a few new habits. I’ve been doing things out of the ordinary, which for me it probably means that these things are fairly ordinary. Point being, I got a haircut. Yeah, I don’t do these very often. I don’t need to. Yet I jumped into my friend Josh’s car and we headed to the stylist. I even knew exactly how I wanted it coifed. And as a cherry on top, my hairdresser found a solitary corkscrew-curly hair. (How did she single this piece out of the millions of strands? I don’t know, but I’m officially amazed.)

I also officially “worked out”. This happens rarely because I’m usually bouncing off the walls with energy anyway, spontaneously dancing and prancing about, so I don’t take the time to do organized fitness activities. I don’t know why I decided to do some honest-to-goodness exercise with boisterous music and a sports bra to boot, but I was invigorated. My kitty was terrified, as was Caitie a bit later. She told me that I wasn’t allowed to exercise if these would be the results. Boo.

On with the strange happenings, I cleaned my room. No, not like “look, ma! I shoved everything under my bed and you’re not going to notice” kind of clean. The kind of clean where boxes are stacked orderly, clothing is hanging in closets and shoes are even put into a confined space. Talk about strange. In my life’s status quo, bedrooms rarely get tidied, let alone deep cleaned.

There was a raccoon eating cat food on my side porch. I took a photo of it.

I was a nanny for four children and on a separate occurrence, I tended a baby. I haven’t babysat in years and I’m not a “baby-person”. Sorry, Gerber.

Instead of staying out at all hours, I went home early from socializing, and one night, I willingly didn’t even go out and play with friends. Fast times.

I’ve read ten novels in six weeks.

I resisted the temptation of calling a few people I shouldn’t call right now. And that’s how it goes. Good girl.

I went to some of my favorite stores and left without buying anything. This really happened. I promise. I didn’t even buy shoes. Really.

And last, but not least (but not really the last and maybe it’s not the least.) I’ve made goals. I’ve cleaned up my beliefs and renewed my passion for life. It’ll take a bit of work to keep this up, and I’ll undoubtedly falter. I’m okay with that.