Jive Turkey tagged to do a meme. I have to list six of my quirks. My first thought: “Wow, Jive Turkey wants to know more about me!” My next thought: “Damn, how the hell am I going to do this?” Yikes. Thanks, man! But, if this will get me on Jive Turkey’s blogroll…I mean, I was tagged, so I must do it! What a good way to update the blog; it’s been, what, about a decade now? (A life update will be done soon. Maybe.)

1) I must wear shoes at all times. Like Jive Turkey, I almost always wear shoes or slippers around the house. I don’t really even like to just walk around in my socks. Your socks will get all dirty on the bottom. Or worse: Crumbs or dirt could get stuck on there. Or the worst yet: They could get wet. There is nothing more disgusting than wet socks. So I have to wear my shoes. Or my inside flip flops. I had a pair of Adidas slides to wear with socks, but I best be getting new ones before the winter. (Note to all: Those things stink after a while.)

2) I change my clothes at least twice each day. Well, I usually shower at least twice a day. And after I shower in the evening after a run (or after coming home from the store or a restaurant or something), I have to change into different clothes to sit around the house, of course. But they can’t be my pajamas; I can’t go into my bed in clothes that I’ve sat around snacking in. That’s not right. That all started when I was in college. I came back to my room one day to find one of my roommate’s friends sitting on my sheets because I hadn’t made my bed that morning. I flipped out: GET OFF MY SHEETS! I mean, he could’ve sat on the bus in those jeans. Public clothes do NOT belong in your bed. (On a related note, this is when I started making my bed every day, too.)

3) I love to read menus. Whenever someone tells me they went out to dinner, I ask where they went (and what they ate, of course). Even if I’ll never go there, and even though I won’t eat most things on most menus, I’ll go online and try to find the menu. Same with food blogs or The Food Network. I’ll never make any of those recipes, yet I’m constantly reading the blogs or watching a new show. I’ll never cook anything in pork fat like Emeril, I’ll never cook Paula Deen’s recipes (too much butter), and don’t get me started on how long it would take to make one of Alton Brown’s dishes. But I can’t help but watch The Food Network for hours and hours at a time.

4) I get obsessed with the news. If I’m reading an article on something and get really sucked in, I’ll search for everything on the subject, over and over. A celebrity dies? I’ll keep looking them up, as if there will be more information (um, there won’t be; that person is dead). A new political scandal? Great. How many times can I hit refresh on Daily Kos in five minutes? (Answer: I lost count.) A little kid goes missing? Well, you get the idea. I always just want to know the newest information. Probably not so much a quirk as much as it is a mental condition.

5) I can relate almost everything that happens in life back to an episode of The Golden Girls or The Simpsons. (This also applies to Sisters, Thirtysomething, or Arrested Development, but then even fewer people know what the hell I’m talking about.) Basically, I’ll be talking to someone, and I can think of a situation or a quote from one of those shows that works perfectly. This is great when I talk to a coworker (or former ones!) who know what I’m talking about when I say, “You’re only going to sit in an inch of water?” Or the other coworker who knows that if he says something about the Internet, I’m going to say “Internet, eh?” in response. EVERY TIME. But I can’t even help it. I just do it. And people don’t know why I’m saying whatever I’m saying. You might say I watch too much tv. But I would say no, I’m just a pop culture master.

6) I write down everything. Like all these quirks. And I had to check the list a billion times while I wrote it. Sometimes I’ll write a list of things to do when I go home, even if it’s the same things I do every day (such as exercise, shower, and eat dinner, as if I’ll get all confused that this is the order I’ll do things in). And it’s not because I’ll forget.* I can be slightly forgetful, but I don’t forget things I’ll need when I go away for the weekend, for example (note to self: start that list for this weekend’s trip to Toronto already!). It’s more because I might have an OCD. Write a list, check the list, pack the stuff, check the list again, check the stuff again…yikes. Oh, and I worry about the list. Um, I think they’ll have toothpaste wherever I go. But I better not forget it! It would be awful!
*Yes, I will. This wasn’t supposed to be my last quirk, but I forgot the one I thought of earlier.**
**I just remembered that it had something to do with corny jokes and stupid things like making up words like “quirktastic.”

Anyway, if you made it this far, good for you. And I’m sorry. And I was going to tag Kristin, but she said she was grateful that she wasn’t tagged by Turkey. And most of the (few) people who read this blog don’t have blogs of their own (I mean, who reads this crap anyway?). But feel free to share your quirks in the comments! Just don’t share anymore of mine.