So, what are your "weird" qualities - or what do other people tell you are your weird qualities? Ask someone who knows you well and see what they say.

Oh man, I am looking forward to the answers on this one.

Mine? Well, this is Danielle's list ...

Aside standing atop my car in my bathrobe taking pictures, I mean ...

I like to pour coffee, mix with cream and sugar and leave it sit until it's cold

I listen to AM radio

I wash my jewelry in the dishwasher (works good - try it)

I don't eat apple fruit - only the peel

I eat orange peels

I wear slippers to the mall (well, they're comfortable!)

I call everyone "sweetie"

(And this one hit home a bit) I won't get mad at people even when I should

I use weird words

I suspect she could have gone on for a bit. I kicked her out to catch her bus - heh.

Catherine

-- Catherine (catherine@cmjcom.com), November 08, 1999

Answers

Well, let's see now...

I love burned popcorn. Honestly. In fact, I like anything burned, just so long as it's not absolute charcoal.

I know Superman's family tree (all three versions) better than my own....

I can walk and read at the same time. I have very good periphical vision, and I could be walking along the road, reading, a car coming at me, and I'd step out of the way, all without taking my eyes off the book....

--Al of Nova Notes.

-- Al Schroeder (al.schreoder@nashville.com), November 08, 1999.

Oooh, where to begin?

I hold conversations with myself. I also hold conversations with my cats and my fish.

I keep my office at work dark.

I refuse to match my socks if I can possibly help it. (A good friend of mine, when I took off my shoes and he noticed that I was wearing matching socks, stared at me and said, "Okay, who replaced my Kris with this clever imposter?")

I am a parallel parking perfectionist.

I don't like drinking cold liquids out of mugs.

I fold myself up and fit myself into places that you'd swear were too small for me. I've gotten stuck a number of times. You'd think i'd learn, but i don't.

I'm persnickity about my code.

I remember and toss out random snippets of things on a regular basis-- conversations i've overheard, television jingles, quotes from books. i often mangle them in the process.

I'm sure there are other things, but that's just off the top of my head.

Kris

-- Kris (idat@madstop.org), November 08, 1999.

I seem to kick people in the psychic pants.When around me they are forces to see things that their ordinary lives leave out.Spirits dance around me like vapour drawing.Strange things just happen with me because I invite them.I can be speaking to my son and asking him a question and two seconds after I ask the television program he is watching will 9 times out of 10 give the answer for him!!! For years people would dismiss it all and walk away saying,"OH! You're an ARTIST!" I usually reply with NO! I am ME because no-one else wanted the JOB!! When my son was doing his vocabulary words one day he had to give the definition of STRANGE and the little 9 year old smartass wrote MY MOTHER! I have 5 brothers and sisters and they all agree to the WEIRDNESS of my life.But hey,it's a cake walk and I would not have it any other way............I was blessed with the GIFT of AWARENESS and if that is what makes me so strange I CAN DIG IT!!! If I had to define myself in one word it would be TELE-PATHETIC,this word showed itself to me during a nice HIGH!!! Riding the WHEEL of Wonder.

-- Donna Carter (DeeJaye53@hotmail.com), November 08, 1999.

i'm scared of SpiderMan, always have been, probably always will be.

i can write anything, anywhere, anytime, around anyone. and then i leave bits of things i write no matter where i am.

i can make people convinced that i know what i'm talking about by using big words and lengthy phrases.

put a cartoon on and i could be distracted for hours (not talking South Park here... more like Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, Smurfs, etc.)

i get a kick out of silly little toys you can pick up while standing in line at the grocery store. simple amusements. bubbles and stickers are a god-send.

i know literature, and shock people when i'm shocked when they don't know a classic work of lit, or an author.

major source of random bits of information that i throw out sporadically when people are being too quiet. i hear "WHY do you know that??" way too often. and i DON'T know why i know these things.

my eyes change colors depending on my mood. i don't think it's weird but everyone says it is.

when i was little is used to eat peaches with ketchup. i recently tried it again, just to see... i outgrew the obsession, but the friend i was with when i tried it again was horrified that i would even WANT to try it again.

i could go on, but i'll spare you. =)

-- El (eparkins@mail.coin.missouri.edu), November 08, 1999.

I realized recently that I am widely acknowledged as weird. It's never bothered me particularly; even as a kid I took it as a compliment. How am I weird? It's difficult to answer. I get the "weirdo" response when:

I am honest I say something funny when someone is expecting a serious response I express my most esoteric opinion, like that there should be a sport with spoken words which is like football, open to elements of training, weather, enviornment, spontenaeity & topic--live & well-paying, of course I leave the crusts of my sandwich in a pile on my plate I'd rather be alone than be with others.

-- Celia White (celiawhite@hotmail.com), November 08, 1999.

Weirdnesses I talk to myself when I am driving I often close my eyes anywhere and pray I will pour out my heart/mind to strangers I talk to my dog as if he was a person (he is a person not a dog) I like to fry my hot dogs and eat them on toast with mayonaise

-- Jonny Ray Keen (jonny@freenet.macatawa.org), November 08, 1999.

Oh Catherine, you inspired me to ask my daughter Bethany (who is the arbitor of All Things Weird around here).

Here's her list:

You talk to us about a lot of stuff, but don't preach. Like religion - you know about a whole lot of them, but don't tell us which one is right and tell us we have to figure out that part. My friends mom would kill her if she said she wanted to be a different religion than her family.

You joke like us - you know all our punchlines and beat us to them.

You never watch TV, but you know all the lines to all our kids shows better than we do, but you can't remember the name of the movie you just watched.

You dance a lot, but you're trapped in the 80s.

You wear weird nailpolish - not just normal mom colors like pink or red, but blue and green too and you have about 50 bottles of the stuff!

You dress weird, like a totally different person if you're at home, or going out or going to work. (and still trapped in the 70s and 80s...)

You still think everything should cost a dollar.

You confuse all our names, and sometimes make up names that don't belong to any of us.

You know our music and talk about it instead of putting it down.

You switch moods fast! (This because we were in the middle of cracking up and she said 'bite me' and I went into immediate mama mode)

'knows everything about everything'

Direct quote: 'had tanya and didn't stop there.... no no wait, had ME and didn't stop there.'

you wear 'witch' shoes (lace up black shoes)

You have 50 cookbooks and never use them

you have a photographic memory (but can't remember their names?) She explained this one - I forget the names of things but remember events and conversations and things I see. I just can't remember what to call them... everything's a 'thingie'

"You're not related to half of Maryland (that makes us all weird here)"

We can't give you any papers unless you sign them right then and we take them back, because you lose them five minutes later.

You won't tell us how to get to your webpage!

You would actually call me upstairs just to ask me what's weird about you.

(Thanks Catherine, that was a lot of fun!)

-- Lynda B. (lyndacat@bigfoot.com), November 08, 1999.

Well, the full list would take a book. I'll just babble about them til I hit a blank spot.

I'm still wearing sandals. In November. In April, I will still be wearing boots. I touch my upper lip to the bottom of my nose when I'm thinking. I will do something obsessively, hours a day, for a month and then not do it at all for months and then go right back to being obsessed. I alternate between total sedentariness and kinetic energy out the wazoo. I have to remind myself not to use weird/big words - they come more naturally than 'regular' words. I prefer my contacts but I wear my glasses anyway. I talk to myself a LOT. Sing too. I have an oral fixation (stop snickering!;) ). I spent all of high school wanting to shave my head. (yes, it's shaved now.) I respond to facetiousness by pretending to take the facetious statement completely seriously. I do this so well that I hear, "I was KIDDING!" and "You take everything so LITERALLY!" all the time, even though I seldom do. I answer questions as fully as I can, no matter what the circumstances. I consider myself a 'saxophonist' even though I haven't played saxophone in literally about 2 years and I play penny whistle all the time. I chatter incessantly but I prefer listening. I don't drink (have never been drunk) because I like the taste of alcohol too much. I am physically affectionate to the point where acquaintances who haven't realized that yet think I am sleeping with most of my friends. At one point in my life, I WAS sleeping, or had slept with most of my male friends. Nowadays I'm lucky to have sex more than once a week. And that's sexier than the other was. I seem most transparent to people who don't know me very well yet. I can't play music or sing without dancing (at least a little bit) in place. Even when the instrument in question is larger than a small child. Same with attending concerts. A friend of mine refers to me as "The Bopper". I'm still afraid of people's parents. Heck, I'm still afraid of 'grown-ups'. If I'm people-watching teenagers, I feel 15, not like 'one of them'. I knew more stuff before college than after (damn biochemistry pushed everything else out of my brain). I really really really LOVE my mother-in-law (how weird is that?). One of the most common descriptors used on me is "my weird friend Marianne". I have a LOT of weird friends that don't realize the irony of that descriptor. Heh. I am most diffident when most vulnerable. I am fully capable of doing this for another 10 pages. BUT I WON'T. Heh.

-- Marianne Aldrich (marseillaise@hotmail.com), November 09, 1999.