Sunday, 28 December 2008

My bad "habits"

I was having a giggle earlier because my friend Robyn blogged about her bad habits and she loves me to comment so I thought it would be fun to reply by posting my bad habits. Her post is funny. You can read it here:

She's got one particular habit that cracks me up totally and that is that she has 55 lipsticks! I thought she was joking but the last time I went to her house she showed them to me - all stuffed into a drawer in the bathroom and all well used! I have only two lipsticks and regularly forget to use them! How it is possible to actively be engaged with 55 lipsticks is totally beyond me. She says it is because she has them to match her clothes. Dear God! If I did that I would have 55 black lipsticks.

Anyway what terrible bad habits do I have? Hmmmm.... well some of these aren't exactly habits but they'll do.

1. I am a horribly absentminded.
There's a popular joke that INTJs are so out of touch with reality they are prone to walking into walls and are incapable of wearing matching socks. I don't do either but I am a horrendous daydreamer and so absentminded a herd of elephants could run through my office right now and I wouldn't notice. Or perhaps I should say "what office?" Case in point. I went to my friends' new house yesterday and they asked me what I thought of the Fire Station next door. I was surprised.

"There's a Fire Station next door? Where?"
"That would be the large building RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU with the big red trucks in it that you had to drive past to get here!"

Once when I was 8, I was engrossed in reading a book in school and I looked up and the entire class had completely disappeared! Imagine that. Poof! Gone! Just like that. Apparently the teacher had tried to get my attention but couldn't so everyone just buggered off outside without me. They were gone for an hour before I noticed. Not that I cared. I was going "Yay! No people!" (see No. 7)

I can't even get my own attention half the time. There are two universes - the one in my head and the one everyone else inhabits!

2. I can't stop going why why why why?
It's probably a good thing I don't have any spare money otherwise the house would be overflowing with books on anything and everything because I can't stop reading either. I have an insatiable appetite for wanting to know the answers to the most impractical quetions; what caused evolution to happen? Why does time exist? What is infinity? How did the conditions for life come about? What is consciousness? How do you know you actually exist? Are archetypes real? What is the incompleteness of formalized number theory? ... Totally fascinating but don't ask me what the point is for needing to know all this stuff! I have no idea. I just wish it made money!

3. I get lost easily.
I've written about this before. I have absolutely no sense of direction. None, zero, nada. A few days ago I was supposed to meet my friend Lee at Borders about 10 minutes drive from my house. I got lost just looking for the entrance to the car park and had to drive around for an extra quarter hour figuring out where the hell I was. Then when I got inside I couldn't find Borders and even looked for it on the wrong floor. The stupid thing is I go there nearly every week! And it's the same for everywhere I go. Robyn (who has a superb sense of direction) loves this. Her favourite game is taking me somewhere new on purpose and losing me!

Years ago I went to Germany and learned that they put cowbells on the cows so the farmer can find them. So I bought myself a silver minature half centimeter cowbell and I wear it on a chain around my neck. Now when I get lost I can ring the bell and go "Ooooh look! Here I am!"

4. I am a caffeine addict.
I drink bucket loads of coffee. I have never met anyone in my life who drinks more than I do. I am sure that if I cut a vein pure espresso would pour out instead of blood! I could supply cafe Massimo. I am afraid to stop in case it turns out I am made totally from caffeine and would disintegrate without it. I justify my excessive consumption by reminding myself I am an "angel" without any other addictions. I only drink about half a glass of alcohol every few months, smoke a cigar once a year and don't do any drugs at all.

5. I don't eat or sleep.
It's so weird that I have truck loads of energy because I am not very skilled at getting the fuel for it - with exception of my caffeine fix. I've always thought if I were a car then I would run "on the smell of an oily rag". This is definitely a really bad habit of mine. I get up in the morning, go about my day, forget to eat anything until someone cooks dinner at the end of the day - and then I eat half of what is dished up. Then I stay up all hours of the night and only go to sleep for a few hours before getting up the next day and repeating the same thing. Sometimes I only go to bed because the birds start singing their morning chorus and I feel stupid for still being awake. I am writing this at 4am in the morning and I am still bouncing off the ceiling without food!

6. I am too outspoken for my own good sometimes.
I am horribly outspoken when it comes to injustice towards other people - particularly standing up for the little guy against large corporations, bullies and internet trolls. Bullies are my pet hate in life. Several large, intimidating corporations and internet trolls have recently been on the receiving end of my extremely undiplomatic and blunt language for their sins (trying to squash their competitors unfairly, mistreating their staff or trolls aggressively insulting and upsetting people on the net). Sometimes I think I make Gordon Ramsay and Richard Dawkins look like pussy cats. I always wonder what sort of monster I am and go read Dale Carnegie's books to figure out how to reword my wrath "politely" - but then I figure bullies deserve exactly what they get. They don't sugar coat their meanness.

7. I like my own space a bit too much.
I won't be winning Extravert of the Year any time soon. My Mum told me a story that supposedly one of our relatives was a hermit that lived in a hut by himself and I used to think "God what a nutter!" but now that I work by myself I realise it's much more fun being alone or spending quality time with a few people I really like than say being out in an room with 50 vacuous advertising agency people I barely know and are never going to see again who are being loud and demanding non stop trying to impress each other. Maybe the relie wasn't a nutter afterall! Don't think I fancy the shack on Moonshine Hill though. The fact I like people might be a slight hinderance to becoming a hermit as well...

8. Er, I like weird nerd things.
Like binary code. When I am bored I get a blank page and write binary code all over it. 000000, 000001 ...... 0011110 etc... Totally meaningless and fun and definitely not something to do in public!!!

9. I am usually late everywhere.
It's a bit of a joke now with everyone who knows me. But I guess point 1. explains it! The universe in my head doesn't have clocks in it! Also I am pretty crap at telling the time. I only learned how to read analogue watches when I was 29 by buying myself a kids watch with 5 past, 1/4 past, etc written around the edges. When I was a kid I had a cute little analogue watch for a while. Kids used to come up to me and ask for the time and I'd stare at it for half an hour and then go "dunno" and hold out my arm so they could read it for themselves. Years later when I started learning foreign languages the teacher would draw clocks on the board and ask us to translate the time into the other language and I'd always have to ask for it in English first! Hence buying the kids watch - it's a bit of a pain explaining to people that you can't read analogue faces!

10. I am a giggling gertie.
I have a totally absurd sense of humour and laugh myself stupid sometimes. Often in the middle of movies in the serious bit that's not even supposed to be funny! I've gotten used to whole movie theatre audiences turning around and glaring at me now. Even better is spontaneously cracking up at absolutely nothing which I do regularly (a consequence of working by myself probably!) But I have a good excuse "sorry, one of the voices in my head just cracked a really good joke".

Recently my friends discovered my propensity for losing it when they were showing me some funny stuff on YouTube and I couldn't stop laughing at it. And I have a really stupid laugh as well! So then they started playing me stuff just so they could laugh at me laughing! Eventually I went home because I thought if I didn't stop I would throw up.... which isn't unlike me! (I think it says something when you are running around making your friend's 2 year old giggle and his mother says "Don't make him laugh too much, he'll throw up! AND THAT GOES FOR YOU TOO!!!")

11. Blah blah blah....
Ask me about anything I am passionate about (especially in writing) and you'll get blah blah blah blah ^1,000! And since I am also one of these introverted intuitive types none of it will make sense or reveal how I came to any of my conclusions. I blame it on all those science books I read. Bloody nerds. None of us know when to shut up.

On that note I am finished!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought I had already left a comment - I must be absentminded this morning. Come to think of it - I've been in my head all morning and have found some interesting stuff in there that I didn't know I had...

However, I can't share as I need to wash it out first with soap and water - I have an absolutely filthy mind!!!

Cheers
Robyn

Morgan said...

Ha ha, welcome to introversion.... Not sure about the filthy part - maybe you can teach me something about that!!!!

Anonymous said...

I doubt it very much. You may be quiet, but I believe when you scratch just under the surface, your mind is filthier than mine!!!

I know these things!

Cheers
R

Morgan said...

OK, well, I am an expert introvert after all. I am so expert at hiding stuff even I don't know what's in there! I guess I will just have to read my own poetry to find out!

Anonymous said...

When you come down - please wear your bell. I get lost down here too :) If one of us rings the bell, at least one of us will know where we are :)

Morgan said...

OK you have a deal.

Bad news. I lost the bell for a WHOLE HOUR the other day. It had fallen down the side of the sofa. In the mean time I spent my time going around and around the flat in circles like a goldfish going

"Ooh! This is new, haven't been here before"...

"Ooh! This is new, haven't been here before"...

"Ooh! This is new, haven't been here before"...

You are not going to lose me up a mountain are you?

Anonymous said...

No - we're going to walk to a shipwreck and back. I love shipwrecks. And then we have to write a ghost story about it :)

Morgan said...

OK, then as part of the story the ship has to go missing in the Bemuda Triangle!

Of course it will reappear years later when it is retrieved by aliens...

God, I have thought about our walk to the wreck and I am tired already!

Anonymous said...

it's a very easy walk - all flat in wonderful surroundings :)

I can' twait - hurry hurry :)