Weirdness

Romina cheered me up (gracias!), and a meme is always a nice distraction, and this is kind of a tough one, requiring thought...

Six weird things about me

1. My thumbs don't bend in the middle; how to explain? I have the joint right after the thumbnail, and then nothing, then it bends where it connects to the hand. You know how people's thumbs hyperextend if too much pressure is applied? Not mine. I have regressive thumbs -- they're more like power grip thumbs, versus precision grip thumbs, which most people have. They do help me carry things and climb better, I find. But such thumbs are what our primate ancestors had, so they're throwback thumbs, not future mutant thumbs.

2. I used to want to be a fighter pilot as a kid; I used to love to fly. Then, in 1997 and 1998, I became totally phobic about flying, and haven't flown since then. I can't really account for it, to be honest. Some kind of existential angst thing, fear of being a passenger, a control issue. I feel like if I were flying on my own, I'd be fine with it; it's the helplessness of being a passenger that gets to me. Same reason rollercoasters have historically made me very uncomfortable.

3. I have texture issues with food -- anything like jello, whipped cream, aspic, anything frothy -- it makes the hair on my arms stand on end; I won't eat it. I'd puke if I had to eat anything goopy like that. I used to not be able to each peaches -- the fuzzy skin would give me the willies. But I got over it at some point, and now I love'em.

4. My brain is like an automatic mood jukebox -- it'll unconsciously come up with a theme-appropriate song that I'll hum or sing or whistle, without actually being aware that it somehow ties into the situation, until I'm doing it and will think *Hey, that relates to what I'm doing right now.* I think it's a left-handed thing, the whole right-brain dominant thing. Unfortunately, I can't think of any examples at the moment, but it happens all the time.

5. Another left-handed thing -- sometimes I'll be at a loss for words, and my brain'll stitch together words to encompass the word I was trying to say to begin with. For example, if the word I wanted was "comb" -- "Could you pass me the comb?" -- what I'd actually say would be "Could you pass me the..uhh..spikey hair stick?" Which is a very right-brained way of interpreting a comb, when you think about it. I do that all the time.

6. I'm very nihilistic, but at the same time, think that life is sacred -- it's like the meaninglessness of the universe to me makes our own existence all the more special, makes love and life and laughter all the more vital. Even though I don't think there's any higher meaning to our lives, and that at some point an asteroid will come and wipe out human life (if we haven't wiped ourselves out first), at the same time, it somehow increases the value of life to me. I extend that to all life -- like if there's a bug in the house, I'll catch it and set it free, versus squishing it. I'm very anti-war and anti-death penalty because of that attitude; anti-poverty for the same reason -- if this is all there is, as I see it, we owe it to ourselves (and to everything living) to make it as good as it can be. The very pointlessness of our existence provides the motive and the meaning for our existence to me, weirdly enough.