I’ve been tagged by jennifer at imagined-community for the “7 weird and/or random things about me” meme. (For those who aren’t familiar with the term meme even though I’ve explained it to you at least three times now, dear, you can refresh your memory of its definition here.)

Well, at first I had some trouble with this one. I think mainly because I consider the whole premise of this blog to be showing off my wobblier bits (no, not those wobbly bits, it isn’t that kind of website) in a strange and wonderful alchemy of entertainment and self acceptance. So, in effect, the weird and/or random things about me is why we’re all here.

I sent my husband an email asking him to name something weird about me, and he said it was a trick question and he refused to answer it. Finally, I turned to some old picture albums for inspiration, and found a little help there. So, with a personalized twist, here are my 7 things. Six of them are true. One of them isn’t. Can you tell which one is a lie?

1. When I was a baby, my Mom and Dad called me “Schultzy” after the bumbling but good-hearted Nazi soldier (does this strike anyone else as a highly ill-advised concept for a sitcom character? And yet, there it is) on Hogan’s Heroes because they thought I looked like him. Sometimes parents are mean.

3. When I was a child, my invisible friends were Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. (Both Jewish.) (Not that it matters – I was just having an Adam Sandler moment.) (Nevermind.) Mostly it was Spock, but I think the two seemed like such a matched pair inside my head that I probably didn’t think Spock was allowed out without the Captain. Regardless, I was pretty much doomed from the beginning to love science fiction, technology, and boys who played D&D. To the controversial question of whether or not geekdom is truly nature or nurture, I’m going to have to say it was in my genes all along.

4. When people see all of my lists and forms and calendars and processes and methods and formulas and systems, they think I’m a naturally organized person, but that’s because they never saw my desk in 5th grade when it was so full of crap that some of my notes fell out on the floor and as a result Luke Hoy knew that I liked him and everyone knew I hated the school librarian. I won’t say that I vowed from that moment on to become a neat freak, but I’m sure it’s had some influence. Nowadays I think it’s the illusion of control that I’m seeking. It quiets the voices inside my head. So to speak, of course.

5. I lived in Oklahoma from the time I was 5 until I was 14. I never picked up the accent, but I do have the cadence in my speech pattern, at some times more than at others. I could just be imagining that, though, because no one notices it but me and you’d think it would be the other way around. I still miss the fireflies and the thunderstorms, there’s something about a flat landscape dotted with oil wells that I find achingly beautiful in a way that I can’t fully explain, and I miss the summertime there even though I think that nowadays the humidity would chew me up and spit me out.

6. I actually thought this was a good perm.

Being tagged for memes makes me feel noticed and a part of things, (my love language is totally affirmation) even when I know it’s been a random draw and not an actual reflection of affection or inclusion. But then I never tag anyone else because I hate to be a bother. (I’m sure that a therapist could find something in that.) But if anyone feels inspired to share their own weirdness with the world, consider yourself tagged! (Especially if you have your own bad perm photo.)

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