Weirdo

Liztastic tagged me. You know I generally loathe these things but I'm feeling rather lazy and it's slightly different from the others. Tag yourselves at will or not at all. I really don't care.

7 Weird and Random Things About Me:

1) I like to plan my funeral. I've probably told y'all that one before but here I go again. I think about death a lot. I don't dream up ways to kill people or anything, but I think about my own death rather frequently. It's quite odd but then, so am I. Part of it is this job and the fact that I write about the demise of others on a very regular basis. Make that daily. Multiple times a day. At least five. You actually get kind of desensitized to some of it to maintain any semblance of sanity. It's good and bad. And of course some things still hit you hard. I know I won't be around to hear it or know whether or not my wishes are carried out, but don't think I won't haunt you for a while if I can and you don't do what I say!! If I die before my homie Sheena's mom, I want her to sing "Sooner Than You Think (Jesus is Coming)". Miss RaRa has the most amazing powerful voice and that song showcases it like no other. Love it!

2) For a 9 or so month period (mostly during sophomore year at Hampton) I liked 5 guys named Mike. I don't know why, but I did. I've always been boy crazy but they usually had different names! Lol. So I had to differentiate by giving them qualifiers like their hometown or "Football Mike" or "Mike with the hair." Very funny. Some of them actually liked me back and some were just friends. Either way I had a blast.

3) While we're on the subject, I think there's something sexy about a Black guy named Dave. Dave is such a Caucasian name. I've found, though, that when Black guys take it upon themselves to go by Dave, they're usually quite cute. If not in looks, then definitely in personality. This one guy who went to Carolina my junior year in high school started the proof for me. Hellooooo Dave! There were two guys in college. One of them is so talented, I always wanted to be his muse. Sigh. I can't wait until he's published.

4) I believed in the tooth fairy for a ridiculously long time. This is my parents' fault. They kept forgetting to put money under my pillow for one of my later teeth. I was like, WHAT'S WRONG W/THE TOOTH FAIRY!!?! So I devised a plan to write it on different colored paper thinking that might help entice her. Nearly a week and no dice. One day I kept going downstairs to show my parents all the different things I was doing to get the tooth fairy to come. They got tired of it so while my back was turned at my desk in my room, hard at work on my latest letter to the tooth fairy (this time on pink paper. Pink paper's gotta work!!), one of them snuck into my room and put the money under my pillow. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY!! But I ate it up. Pesky parents.

5) I LOVE ketchup and Italian food, but am very tomato picky. I know this isn't that strange but it's part of who I am and very important to me. I use at least 6 packs of ketchup per container of french fries. More if they're waffle or curly fries. They're just so delish with ketchup that I can't resist. (I'm mildly okay extremely obsessed with french fries, too.) I love Heinz ketchup. Guess where Heinz is made? PITTSBURGH!! Well, originally but ketchup production is no longer here. Just baby food. Please believe I would've toured that factory like a kid in a candy store.

I like spaghetti sauce and some kinds of marinara (does that make sense) if it doesn't taste too much like tomato. I HATE squishy tomatoes, but love salsa. LOVE it. Especially the chunky. I actually can't stand the stuff that seems uber pureed. That's not salsa to me. Tomato soup is disgusting. I also am very well-versed with fast food restaurant tomatoes. Burger King's are usually perfect or a bit under ripe. Arby's is hit or miss. I never get veggies on McD's burgers since it's either a double cheeseburger or a big mac. (ALSO INVENTED IN THIS AREA!! They just opened a Big Mac museum, too. Definitely need to make a stop.) Wendy's, across the Eastern seaboard, ALWAYS has disgusting, old, soggy, falling apart, vomitous tomatoes. I can't abide by that. My burger orders there always go like this, "Single with cheese, light mayo, no onion (don't eat raw onion unless it's in salsa), no tomato, no lettuce (they always have the crappy white outer leaves)." My l.s. makes fun of me, "Yes, I would like a burger with no vegetables, and no bun, just meat and cheese please," in her syrupy Southern accent. Hater!!

I also like to put ketchup on each fry individually when I have individual packets. I saw someone do this in college while riding in a car so they wouldn't get ketchup on everything. I haven't gone back since, even if I'm just sitting in my house. It's phenomenal. No ketchup wasted and each fry is perfectly accented. (That was probably weirder than the whole rest of this post, huh?)

6) I had a limited apple obsession-- mainly just my sophomore year." As long as it wasn't granny smith, we were all good. Bring me an apple and we can be best buddies. Once I was carrying on a flirtation with this guy with beautiful locs. It didn't extend outside the cafe at first. I actually met him thru Stace. Thanks boo! He was a PharmD candidate so he had to dress up all the time. We both thought he was fabulous, although at times his clothing was a bit country and showy, but everyone makes mistakes. Anyway, I don't remember the details, but he got my number and called me.

Sometime later in the week, month, whatever, I'd seen him pick up an apple in the cafe and take it with him when he left. So around 10 that night, after a while on the phone, I coerced him, gently, to drive to campus (I can't be more specific than this or I might as well just say his whole name-- even though it's HILARIOUS!!) to give me his apple. He brought it to my dorm, I came downstairs, gave him a hug, took the apple, thanked him and walked back upstairs. I DIED!!! laughing the whole way back up. SO FUNNY!! When he got back to his room, he called me and we talked some more. Of course that incident made him more intrigued. Obviously it didn't work out. I don't remember why but we were cool for the rest of our respective matriculations.

7) For several months I painted my nails a different color every single day. Again, sophomore year. I know, bizarre and probably bad for your nails, but that's what I did. I loved nail polish and living in a dorm had me surrounded with lots of people who had lots of polish. I took advantage of that and got to work. One of my 4 or 5 roommates had a nail kit where you could make designs, too. People were definitely encouraging this little habit. My mom had beat into my head (not literally) that you should never walk around with chipped polish. So that's where it started. I didn't do my toes as much because they don't chip until weeks later. They still go the love at least once a week. Usually more.

At this point you're probably wondering what was going on in my life sophomore year for me to be so experimental. Freshman year I was way more low key (don't read that as calm or anything because I was VERY hyper) in that I went to the library Sunday to Thursday nights for at least 2 hours to make sure I didn't flunk out. I'd never failed a class in my life so don't ask why I was so afraid of it now. Maybe because I'd known so many people who did. That was mostly from them not trying, though.

Sophomore year I got a grip. I partied more. It helped that one of my homies had a car. We went out Thursday to Saturday and if there was a party another night of the week, we'd go then, too. We had lots of people contributing to the delinquency of minors providing the adult beverages and therefore had lots of fun. We had fun even without it. We had fun sitting in the dorm looking at each other. Lol. And we all still had more than a 3.0, some higher than 3.5. That's right. I roll with the smart cute chicks. Ugly dummies slide to the left. That was so wrong!!

Anyway. I was also out of my long distance relationship with my high school sweetheart (he went to A&T). The relationship didn't keep me from making friends or going out or anything, but it did keep me from flirting my face off. Now I was free!! I had a blast flirting and leavin' 'em hangin'. Good clean fun! Sophomore year was a blast. My adventurous side kicked in. Good times, good times.