Six Odd Things

Cover of Far From Normal

Daily Prompt:  Far From Normal  Many of us think of our lives as boringly normal, while others live the high life. Take a step back, and take a look at your life as an outsider might. Now, tell us at least six unique, exciting, or just plain odd things about yourself.

These things I’m going to mention about myself are not unique or exciting, so I guess that just leaves odd.  I can probably do odd.

1.  I hate surprises.  I like to be warned and advised well in advance of things happening whenever possible.  Anticipation is more than half the fun for me.  I need time to prepare.  And brace myself.  And think up some good excuses as to why I can’t do whatever it is you want me to do or go where you want me to go or meet who you want me to meet.  I am the exact opposite of spontaneous.  Premeditated would be the only kind of murder I’d be capable of committing.

2.  I do not mind being alone.   For five or six months of the year I rattle around in this house all by myself while W is off wandering around on his island.  I don’t know why every married couple doesn’t try this, at least once.  Time apart makes the heart grow fonder.  Or makes you forget what exactly you needed that person hanging around for all the time in the first place.  Many people have wondered out loud how I can handle being on my own so much, but the truth is, if I couldn’t handle it, I wouldn’t do it.  I don’t think people need to be joined at the hip to someone else in order to be happy.

3.  Almost every day I consume blueberries and spinach AT THE SAME TIME.  Both of them are smooshed up in a blender with other stuff and unrecognizable, but this daily concoction still manages to make W question my taste buds, gag reflex and sanity.  Since he refuses to drink these things with me I’ve decided I’m going to live longer, just to make a point.

4.  I will go out of my way to avoid confrontation of any kind.  My parents never really fought long and hard about anything, but it always upset me when they had an argument or even a discussion about things on which they could not agree.  Maybe that’s part of the reason why it’s usually easy for me to see both sides of a story, and hard for me to take a stand on either one.  We had to participate in ‘debates’ at school and I never wanted to hurt anyones feelings by telling them they were wrong, and I always took rebuttals much too personally.  I couldn’t stand to hear my own kids fight about stupid things.  I often hear myself saying “I don’t want to argue with you” even when I know the other person is dead wrong.  I’ll give you my opinion if I have one, but I’m not prepared to defend it to the death.  There’s too much fighting in this world.  I am not a fighter.

5.  I have received several blog awards in the last little while and I will probably never get around to accepting them properly.    This doesn’t mean I’m not grateful, thankful and appreciative of the honor and the attention.  It simply means I am lazier than dirt when it comes to recognizing these things.  I’m sorry.  Even the thought of blog tag makes me crave a long nap.  Please look to your right at the long list of blogs I love to follow.  The list gets longer every day so keep checking back (and stop rolling your eyes about that last bit.)  There are so many amazing writers and thinkers and beautiful souls out there that it would probably kill me to pick and choose who to mention.  And I’m not yet ready to die.  So click on anybody on my list and then click on their lists and so on and so on and I’ll probably never see you again.

Sell, Sell, Sell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

6.  I don’t think I should be doing the job I’m doing.  I am not a very good salesperson.  I prefer to think of myself as a health professional first, but I’m in a retail setting where I am expected to sell stuff.  More often than not I find myself talking people out of spending their money on things they really don’t need.  I am supposed to up-sell, but I tend to undersell instead.  I’m so fed up with having a job that dwells on money and numbers and percentages and increases.  I am sick and tired of the greed.  How many millions are sufficient millions?  Can no one ever get to the point where something is ENOUGH?  Of course, due to my passive nature, I never bring this up in job evaluations.  I just lie a lot about my goals and pretend I’ll try harder.  What I really want to do is retire and sit around doing non-strenuous, non-confrontational, non-aggressive things like drinking coffee and breathing.

Even my odd things have turned out to be boringly normal.  Next time I promise I’ll try to come up with something unique and exciting instead.  You know, sort of in the same way that these things happen following my yearly evaluation.  So try to contain your enthusiasm for that.