I see these kinds of posts on others’ blogs and from the title I first think, “oh here we go…” but often I find them poignant and funny. I can’t promise the same for my list but I feel confident that I have nailed stupid and disturbing.

1. I am bad with decimal points. I’m a CPA, good with numbers (well, integers anyway), can estimate my grocery bill pretty darn close but ask me to multiply or divide anything with a decimal and I’m rendered a village idiot.

2. I can’t hold an object on a level plane if I’m not looking at it. I inherited this from my mother apparently because I always remember my father teasing her. I’ve passed it on to my oldest son now. Sigh… This is why I was a restaurant hostess and not a waitress in my salad days.

3. Street lights and parking garage lights turn on and off when I approach or pass beneath them…with frightening regularity. When I pointed this out to my husband many years ago, he began to notice my strange power too. Heightened awareness of a random event? Perhaps. However, sometimes I go out on my front porch and if our street light happens to be off or flickering like it’s ready to burn out, I’ll point my finger at it and it will usually come back on then burn steadily. Freaky.

4. I can write short stories pretty darn fast. I find this a rather fun and curious ability. Perhaps it’s the result of practice; I don’t know. But I do know that every Sunday at 6 PM PST, I get a theme word and in less than an hour I have created a story of about 1000 words, give or take. Usually I start writing it before I have even figured out what the story is going to be. I just know that I get the theme word, step away from my computer and do some free associations. In this manner, I find a subject that ties to the theme and start writing. The end, usually a twist, reveals itself to me by the 1/3 or 1/2 way mark. From there on, it’s just a matter of making a beeline for the ending then backtracking to do a little smoothing and balancing of the first part to the latter part. Now, I’m not claiming that the stories are good, just that I can create them. Some are good. Some are cliché riddled embarrassments. I think perhaps I watch way too much television and this is the source of my handy inspiration. Whatever. It’s a fun feeling to unleash my fingers on the keyboard.

5. I used to be a Turbo Kick certified instructor though I never taught a single class in my life.

6. I still feel guilty about stealing a friend’s Barbie clothes when I was about 8 or 9. I remember leaving them on the window sill of a mutual friend.

7. I think my astrological chart is pretty cool because I have my sun, moon and ascendant in Scorpio. If you believe in that sort of thing, I should have been a preacher, a Madame or a secret agent a la James Bond. Perhaps that’s why I write about people like that. heh!

8. I love the absurd and the crude. I’ll bust a gut over movies like This is Spinal Tap or Airplane or Booty Call (yes, really) or that website “Passive-Aggressive Notes“.  I make up stupid songs and sing them ad nauseum around the house.  Example, Shawn Colvin’s  “Sunny Came Home” turned into “Baby Came Home with a Bone in His Nose”.  Don’t ask.  They never make sense.  I provide voice-overs for all my pets, expressing thoughts that I know they themselves would utter if they could.  I’ve taught my sons to do this too which both amuses and frightens my husband when the three of us get wound up.

9.  I can interpret my own dreams by summarizing them in one sentence.

10.  To this day, I have this nagging concern that I put a deposit down on a letter jacket at my first high school and never got said jacket or my deposit back when I moved.  This was over 30 years ago.  I also believe that I once purchased a Cathy Dennis single, Too Many Walls (shut up, it was the 80’s and popular then), that I then lost before I got it home to play.  I’m not sure about either purchase, but the sense of loss won’t go away.

Therapy anyone?