After I delete or archive all my GMail, I read No new mail! There’s always Google News if you’re looking for something to read.
So I do; hour after after; day after day. I hadn’t planned to click or read the mail. I have other things to do that are much more pressing. But sometimes I actually read many articles. Sometimes I can stop myself in time.
Bone mentioned bedroom doors being closed. Yick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a tiny half bath in my bedroom. If I left the door open I would see white tile and a window. But I can’t leave the door open. I just can’t. Sometimes I must keep the door open for cross vent. This makes me totally nuts and I have to put an eye gel mask on while keeping the TV on with the sound on mute. I can’t look at the bathroom door at all. This is very weird and sort of precludes having overnight guests on cross vent nights. Not that I ever know when I will need it in advance. Try to keep the bathroom door open when I’m not in the bedroom.
In summer I always sleep with the air conditioning on so I don’t have this problem. In winter the cross vent from the living room is usually enough; the bedroom has a very tiny hallway so it stops much cross cross vent, unless it’s very windy. It’s often windy. I spend way too much time thinking about this.
The other day I was having an email exchange with a friend. He said he had to leave. I was deeply thinking, for me, about something and I nodded. A minute or so later I realized what I had done. Sent him an email explaining and ending with “thought you can see.” After reading that I realized that it read as if he were blind. Sent him another email explaining that of course I know he’s not blind. For some reason we’re still friends; probably because he made a Braille joke.
I never think that I’m a visual person, but I see people in the blogosphere as in a giant complex consisting of offices, schools, apartments, houses, movie theaters, beaches and mountains. Everybody is always available, never boring or having an off day. It’s an idealized world that I don’t really think about but picture. I usually do this when I’m looking at the split ends on my hair.
Many years ago I read that there was a split end from somebodies hair in a Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum. It was split in thirteen places. That is so amature; I can have over 20. Yet my hair doesn’t look like it belongs to somebody who spends her time visualizing the blogoshphere while splitting her ends. When my hair is short I never even think about it. That’s probably why I don’t like short hair, and probably why I should have it. I spent way too much money on a hair product because it said that it would keep your hair color rich looking 107% times more. I am fascinated by how they came up with that number and how I can validate it. It does keep my hair looking good.
I can be, and often am, very boring. A person in my last writing class told me that I’m much better in email and stories than in real life. Too true. I wasn’t boring when I was younger; I think that too much therapy can make a person quiet. Maybe because my last couple of therapists ended up telling me their problems. I can talk incessantly and way too fast. It depends on my biorythmn for the minute, hour, or day.
I can’t eat foods like tuna salad or egg salad unless I make it. While I love any cooked apple product, and their smell, I hate the smell of raw apples. Hate it so much I banned my family from eating apples in the car, and my mother had to take up chewing gum. I think raw apples are truly gross, and usually rottten inside. There is an exception to this: I love Granny Smith apples but never ever in a confined space.
When I worked for SSI we had truly gross bathrooms. I couldn’t even pee there; in an emergency there was a very good diner up the block with very clean bathrooms. Fortunately I know the Kegel…and could usually wait until I got home.
I have often talked about my allergy to mold and how that keeps me from staying in people’s homes. Two more reasons: I need a lot of alone time, and if the house or apartment doesn’t have a bathroom in the bedroom I’m staying in I tend to feel totally uncomfortable. I have a major love for good bathrooms which is one of the main reasons I bought this apartment.
Do love staying in hotels and motels. Even sort of scuzzy ones. My first night in Moscow, I actually spent most of the night cleaning the bathroom. My friend Angie always does that; I don’t. But a contact lens landed on the floor, I looked at it, and the grime around the tiles and set out to work. I didn’t have cleaning solutions but for some reason I had brought a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Tried to ration it, but I think the bathroom had last been cleaned sometime around the Russian Revolution. I was in the former Soviet Union in 1989 as I wanted to see it before the first McDonald’s opened. Made it by three months. Fortunately, the other cities I visited had very nice hotel rooms with good bathrooms.
When I travel now I always bring my own traveling sheets that fold up into nothing; air freshner, Lysol wipes to clean with, and now Febreeze’s spray that claims it reduces pollen while freshening the bedspread. Never know when it was last washed; even in the best of hotels. Of course I bring a traveling candle. Hotel maids love me because I thoroughly straighten out the room before leaving it each morning. Do I straighten out my apartment each morning? Most of the time but not obsessively. I am obsessive about one thing: right, clean bathrooms.
I am not a cleanliness freak by any means; if my parents were reading this they would be laughing their heads off.
I am a room purifier freak, and I constantly buy new model ionizers and air cleaners. My friend Rafe is one also; Sharper Image usually has a two for one sale and we go in on them together. I really do sometimes answer my phone “Sharper Image Warehouse.
If all of this doesn’t entitle me to The Hall of Fame of Weird I don’t what will.
I can’t comment below but I am having a lot of the same emotions you are about the BOB’s. It’s nice to be nominated, but it’s hard to fit into any one category and to “campaign” seems even less natural. What is it they say? It’s an honor to be nominated at all? I’m gonna go with that.:)
This is strange because I was just talking with my mom about tuna & eggs. She was going to make some with crackers & I told her I can’t eat either around other people; it just grosses me out. Funny you mention tuna & eggs too.
This was an interesting look at your oddities Ms. Pia. You usually have me smiling after I read your posts.
You’re a good apple!
I am also a bathroom hygiene freak and also everywhere must be clean and that is not weird.
Once I see a date picking her nose, that is the end of the romance.
If someone is not clean, I can’t even sit on the same seat with the person.
My elder sister’s bathroom is spotless and clean. And it is all blue tiles like the blue sky. And we are alike in being HYGIENIC.
I mean a gentleman should feel safe to kiss the hands and feet of a lady without fear of kissing germs.
I check the armpits, knuckles, nails, ears and soles of a date.
Pia, you should do a post on “Hygiene for Ladies”.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
I agree that it is a honor to be nominated against tough competition such as this site. I don’t expect to win either. We both have devoted readers though so maybe they could maybe your corner of cyberspace can mingle more with my corner of cyberspace. That’s a plus, right? 🙂
Love your giant blogosphere complex visual 🙂
Find myself less talkative lately, too. Not sure why, but perhaps because I spend more time alone and also a lot of my thoughts and mental energy are spent on blogging.
You know Pia, if needing a clean bathroom is weird, I think most of us would fail the normality test.
You’re great the way you are.
I find your weird things perfectly acceptable… almost normal. 😉
Happy New Year Pia…
in case I don’t make it back.
I have a problem with food being left out too long after cooking. And I won’t eat leftovers after the second day. Ever. Don’t even think about making soup out of it.
As far as split ends, I wish I had ends to split.
Bathrooms should always be clean, shouldn’t they?
I second Jane’s nomination of Pia for “Good Apple.” I further nominate Cooper for the same award.
You are not at all that weird… 🙂
One question… Will you come and clean my bathroom? That is one room I hate to clean… 🙂
Happy New Year to you!
I remember a guy on French TV : a restaurant reviewer. His review method is interesting and telling. In order to automatically eliminate a lot of bad restaurants, he has a single criterion which causes him not to review a restaurant.
He walks in, asks to use the bathroom to wash his hands (a sensible thing to do before sitting down to eat). If the bathroom is not clean, he will walk straight out again, and go somewhere else. If the proprietor can’t keep his bathroom clean, what does that say about his kitchen?
-Fruey