When you’re strange…

Ok, I’ve been monumentally bad at keeping in touch via phone with friends and family. There are so many people to call and every conversation ends up being over an hour. It is exhausting trying (and failing) to keep up. Hopefully this blog will help a little in bridging the gap. If not, just give me a bit of time, I will call soon.

In the interest of making this a place where I censor myself (and what makes me “me”) as little as possible I am going to lay my quirks and habits on the table. Yes, I’m strange but I really am fine with it. Feel free to point and laugh.

• I have the tendency to eat condiments as a meal. Anything that isn’t a liquid is fair game: a can of black olives, a jar of green olives, pickled okra, martini onions, garlic stuffed green olives, maraschino cherries…the list goes on. I don’t eat them all at once though. It’s usually one can/jar for the meal. Colin’s potential reaction to me serving him a jar of mustard with a spoon for dinner forces me to do this mostly while he is at work. Even when eating “normally” I tend to focus on one item. The appetizer menu is my favorite, I love having a plate of one thing (calamari! fries! fried okra!). I have the tendency to order two of the same side instead of a full meal when eating out. Once I lock on to one thing I will eat it day after day until I cannot look at it any longer. ( My current obsession is with dried apple chips. They are beyond fabulous.) I will go to great lengths to satisfy a craving because I know from experience that it won’t just go away.

• Lately I have been very interested in ethical living. I’ve spent a great deal of time making changes to my everyday actions and I’m still in the process of nailing down what I believe. I’m sure there will be a post on this topic in the future. It’s been a while coming with several things pushing me into this direction. This past March I started reading the No Impact Man blog. I find all of it extremely fascinating and I’m excited about the national attention he’s getting in America. Not to climb fully onto my new soapbox but America, as a whole, is widely in the dark when it comes to ecological actions. Try this. (In case you are wondering, no I haven’t watched an Inconvenient Truth….yet.) In the same general topic I have a plant that isn’t dying (an amazing feat!) as well as my new herb garden, completely formed, planted and cared for by my fumbling hands.

• In the past few months I have a new love for reality television. This covers a wide spectrum of shows such as Shear Genius, Top Design, ANTM, Top Chef, Biggest Loser, Work Out, Split Ends, and even Flavor of Love: Charm School and Fear Factor reruns. Sadly there are even more still. This year is also the first year I’ve watched American Idol every week. (I like Blake but I don’t think he’ll win.) I like to think I am drawn to these shows because I love documentaries but maybe I just love trashy tv and gay men bringing the drama. Oh as far as tv goes I just watched the newest episode of The Office and I could float away right now. I’m so very happy.

That may be enough for now. Pretty soon I may be adding links to my favorite blogs and the like. I’m not sure yet.