Five Weird Habits of a Highly Ineffective Blogger

Lizzy of Night Bird's Fountain zapped me with a meme-gun.  She asked me to list five habits of mine that could be called weird.

I had trouble with this one.  As I wrote to Lizzy, "What if one of my weird habits is thinking I have no weird habits?"

But, after consulting with people I thought were my friends, I've come up with a list that seems to fit the bill.  Here are my five weird habits, numbered in the order I thought of them not ranked by degree of weirdness.

Weird Habit Number One:  It takes me two pots of coffee to get one full mug to drink.  This is not the perfectionism of a java connoisseur.  It's senility.  I have a habit of pouring myself a cup, setting it down, and forgetting about it.  By the time I've remembered it, and remembered where I left it, it's gone cold.  So of course I have to dump it and pour another cup.  Which, after a few sips, I set down and forget about.   If I do this enough times I will eventually have sipped an entire cup's worth of hot coffee.

Weird Habit Number Two:  I pace a lot.   A lot a lot.  Especially when I'm on the phone.  But I pace when I think too, and when I'm bored.   I've done twenty or thirty laps around the kitchen table (often with a cold cup of coffee in my hand) just while ordering a pizza.  I've driven colleagues insane with my incessant pacing back and forth in front of their open office doors.  One guy I worked with complained that, going back and forth in front of his door I reminded him of a guard in a prisoner of war camp and  I made him feel like he was a captured spy waiting to be taken out and shot at dawn.

Weird Habit Number Three:  I'm told I have an odd pattern of speech, alternately hyper and mellow.  I'll shift gears a couple of times in the middle of a sentence, racing through some words, drawling out others, and stuttering the whole way.  My pal Margot says talking with me is like listening to a mashup of Jimmy Stewart and Woody Allen.  And, here's the weird part, I have a habit of...

...

...

...pausing.  I'll be in the middle of a thought and I'll just stop...

...talking.  For no apparent reason.

I know what's happening.  I've finished with the thought in my head and started working on the next one.  My mouth just didn't keep up and suddenly it's being given orders to start a new sentence while it's still trying to get out the end of the last one.  The result is lockjaw.  But to people who have to listen to me it appears as if I've suddenly developed aphasia.  My pauses tend to come when the next word is obvious.  "Hemingway wrote The Sun Also..."   "I'd like to order a cheese..."   "Honey, have you seen my cup of..."

My students used to get so frustrated that they'd start finishing my thoughts for me.

Prof. Mannion:  For tomorrow, read the second chapter in your text...

Pause.

Students:  Book!

Weird Habit Number Four:  I can't take a compliment.

I can borrow one.  I can rent one, beg for one, fish for one, I can even steal one, right out of your driveway.  The police will find it in the morning in a ditch on the other side of town with four flat tires and an empty gas tank.

I'm also pretty good at giving them, backhanded and otherwise

I just can't take one.  Embarrasses the hell out of me.

So to all the folks who have very kindly left notes here in the past complimenting this or that post, let me say, Thank you.

Now can we talk about something else?

Weird Habit Number Five:  I try to turn all conversations that verge on the personal into jokes.

Weird Habit Number Six:  I can't keep to the limits of an assignment.

Ok, that's it for me.  How about you?  How about your spouse/significant other?  My spouse/significant other has only one weird habit---she only reads my blog when I've written something embarrassing or critical about her.  So I'm not going there myself.  But I'll bet your spouse/significant other doesn't read this, so why not take advantage of the opportunity to vent?

Comments

[Shakespeare's Sister]

But I'll bet your spouse/significant other doesn't read this, so why not take advantage of the opportunity to vent?

My spouse does read this, but I don't actually think I could come up with anything about him that he doesn't already know I think is weird. Nor him about me. When your primary method of communication is mercilessly mocking each other until you both collapse from laughter, not the tiniest shred of weirdness ever goes unexplored.

[Mike Schilling]

I'll stick to one: I have a trick memory for things I've read about, and no governor on when it's appropriate to relate them. Thus a conversation about whether Bush is the most incompetent leader ever gets hijacked by a description of Frederick V, Elector of the Rhine-Palatine and how his extraordinary dimness triggered the Thirty Years War.

[Linkmeister]

I'm with you on the pacing. I had a 20-ft phone cord for the phone on my office desk 25 years ago, and I used every inch of it. The six other people in that office were usually amused, but not always.

Lessee. I've got to run out of cigarettes and matches in a matchbook at the same time. If the wind blows out a match before the cancer stick is well and thoroughly lit I'll use the car lighter (or a butane one if I'm indoors) to re-light, rather than a new match.

When I think of more I'll let you know.

[Echo4Mike]

Pacing? Pauses in or distracted speech? Lost cups of coffee?

Hm.

I only say this primarily as an avowed liberal and certainly not a doctor, but have you looked into ADD? I mean, uh, not as a lifestyle, but as a treatable condition?

I sound like an Eli Lilly Chatbot, sorry...

[Jennifer]

My name is Jennifer and I am a pacer...

So, I am guessing there are many pacers out there and if there are that many is it really a weird habit or just a habit? Maybe it's a lifestyle choice.

Also- some of the things mentioned sound more like quirks... when is a habit a quirk and when is a quirk a habit?

[Linkmeister]

A quirk becomes a habit when it takes religious orders.

[Jennifer]

Linkmeister- Pweheehee! Or... is a quirk a defrocked habit?

[Lizzy]

I don't think my husband is going to read this post Prof. Lance. Sorry, I am lucky I can get him to read my own. Well, that is not exactly true...but sometimes it takes him a couple of days. I will finish a post that I think is really good and all he will say is "Por fin terminaste."

Maybe when he becomes a Professor he will read more blogs. He is too busy defending his thesis.

Does your wife call you Professor? Anyway, sure hope you find your coffee cup.

[helmut]

Lance - I'd like to congratulate you on this terrific....

[blue girl]

Great list of weird things, Mannion! Really!

Gawd. Just kidding. Don't be so weird about me fake-complimenting you.

Here's one of my weird things: Our cats' litter box is in the basement, so the door going down to the basement has to stay open. My husband and son think the door can just be opened as much as possible or halfway open or whatever. All willy nilly! They could care less. They have no precise measurement of how far the door *has* to stay open. They are such neanderthals. Anyway.

To me, it *must* only be open *just enough* for the cats to be able to get downstairs, which is approximately 5 inches.

If that door is open more than approx. 5" or less than approx. 5", I can't function properly. I will keep glancing at it. And even if I am at my most comfy on the couch, it'll get to me after a few minutes and I'll have to go and put it *just right.* Which is, of course, open only approx. 5".

I've got another weird thing that involves my eyelashes, a blow dryer and straight pins. But, I'll save that one for another time.

[denisdekat]

"It takes me two pots of coffee to get one full mug to drink. This is not the perfectionism of a java connoisseur. It's senility. I have a habit of pouring myself a cup, setting it down, and forgetting about it. By the time I've remembered it, and remembered where I left it, it's gone cold. So of course I have to dump it and pour another cup. Which, after a few sips, I set down and forget about. If I do this enough times I will eventually have sipped an entire cup's worth of hot coffee."

My My mister manion, how wasteful of you! Coffee is precious, eveyr drop of it! We talked once about the Coffee cantata did we not?

[KC45s]

Lance,
In the hopes that one of your smart readers knows the clinical name for this malady:

When shopping, I cannot take the box/bag/can sitting in front. I have to remove the box/bag/can and take one of those behind it. Same item, mind you. Just ... not ... the ... one ... in ... front. If only one of an item is left, I have to think twice before tossing it in my cart. No lie. Do I feel exposure to the unwashed masses going down the aisle corrupts the front item? I don't know.

[Linkmeister]

KC, one of the things that's taught when working retail is to rotate your stock. The oldest stuff comes out to the front and the newest goes to the back of each shelf. You may have absorbed/observed that somewhere and subconsciously prefer the newer item.

How's that? ;)

[Mudge]

My only weird habit is my denial of having any weird habits.

[Uncle Merlin]

I have to count my teeth with the tip of my tongue at times. Not always but at times. Sometimes I count them in fours and sometimes I count them ALL!
I have a friend in Chicago that must start the stairs on the right foot and has to end on the top step on the right foot no matter the stairs are not even. He will shift his gate on the way up to hit that top step on the right foot.

My tenant cannot tolerate any water drops on the counter around the sink, it has to be flat and dry.

My Mom had to count the walls in the room repeatedly. 1..2..3..4...etc.

[drouse]

I've got a couple that are similar. I have this life long habit of not eating unless I have something to read. I have been known to wander around the house looking for my current book while my food goes cold. The other one is that I don't stop talking. Instead I don't start while I follow a train of thought through. Used to drive my Ex absoulutly mad.

[mac macgillicuddy]

What is this? The Confessions of the OCD?

[blue girl]

Yes Mac, I do believe it is. We weirdos must stick together!

[cali]

I probably have lots of weird habits but somehow after reading all this, I can't think of anything except that I have to sniff my husband's chest every night in bed when we tuck in. Have to have my snuffies...that is all.