Grace tagged me with this meme like fourteen weeks ago and I am only just now getting around to it. Because I am lazy. Also I have been dealing with the fallout from losing one of my jobs (not the one in the famous restaurant, fellow Savannahians (sp?)! Do not fear!) and having a lovely cold. I will tell you about all that shiz next time.

For now – My Five Weird Habits! Dun dun dun.

1) (This is a ripoff of one of Grace’s, but she cracked me up with her rendition.) When I get dressed, I have to do left appendage, then right appendage. I think this started when I was very very small, because I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t pay attention to this. I even went through a phase when I was about 8-11 where I had to start on stairways with my left foot and end on my right foot (taking two at a time if I needed to make the count end up correctly), but then I read an article in the Washington Post Magazine about a kid with OCD, and all the therapy he was going through to help him as he spiralled off into craziness, and I pretty much trained myself not to care about the stepping thing anymore.

2) I am definitely one of those people who will order a big gross meal (say, at a fast food place or the country fair) and top it off with a diet coke. Some people (mainly men, I think) would say, “Um, you’re already taking in a zillion calories, so what’s the point of that?” And I would say, “Well, if I’m gonna sacrifice 500 calories for that funnel cake, I’d better reel it in on something I don’t really care about. And the taste of regular coke really doesn’t justify the 180 calories (or whatever it is) to me.”

3) I always blow my nose after I wash my face, whether in the shower or at the sink. I have to; the water just loosens things up I guess. Moving on.

4) I wash my whites and darks together. I have done so since college and there’s never been a problem. Obviously I am excluding any brand-new red items from this rule, but once they’ve been washed once alone, they can go in too. That whole seprating thing, I’m convinced, is a ploy by the detergent people to make you do more loads and buy more soap. And I am cheap/poor.

5) I’m very persnickety about salt intake. I mean, obviously from reading about my life you know that I’m not a dieter or calorie-counter (or even a formal exerciser). I pretty much waver between periods of eating whatever I want, when I want it, with periods of eating ridiculous amounts of fruits and vegetables (to lose the five or so pounds that I gain when I’m in the former period). But the one thing I do care about is not eating lots of salt. I never add salt to fries or to any actual recipe I make, unless it tastes awful without it, and even then I add a fraction of what it calls for. Once I bought fries from McDonald’s with my roommate M and without asking me she dumped them on a plate and put salt all the hell over them, and oh you should have seen me. I was so strong! I let her eat the entire plate. I was all, “No no no, I will not put those in my mouth. Carry on without me.” I like pepper on my fries.

Anyway, so those are my five. Anybody who wants to can continue this thing on - just email or comment and let me know. That was I can link you and we can ALL read about how interesting and unique (ie. strange and unusual) you really are.