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 but I think she was actually a magpie bird in a past life...

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.
I'm a horrendous daydreamer. I am brilliant for dreaming up a million ideas instead of the thing I am supposed to be doing. 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! Apparently the teacher had tried to get my attention but couldn't so everyone just buggered off outside without me. I think they were gone for an hour before I noticed. Not that I cared. I was going "Yay! No people!" (see No. 7) But I can't even get my own attention half the time. There are two universes - the mundane boring one with taxes and traffic jams and chores and the other one in my head which is much more fun so guess which one I spend more time in!

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? 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?... Totally fascinating but don't ask me what the point is for needing to know all this stuff! I have no idea.

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 in Albany. I got lost just looking for the entrance to the Albany Mall 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 regularly! And it's the same for everywhere I go. Everytime I have to go on the motorway I forget where the on ramps are - and they are only 3 mins drive from my house! I've even gone for a short walk around the block from my house and had to ask a passerby for directions how to get home again!

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 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 once a year and don't do any drugs at all. Angel huh? Ironically there is one person I admire who makes me look like a demon by comparison - Gene Simmons. Somehow he manages to NOT smoke, drink or do drugs AT ALL. He's never been drunk, or high or smoked in his life and that's a feat for a rock star. I truely admire him for his firm stance on this but, hell, I thought I was good but even I can't live up to that (with exception of the drugs).

5. I don't eat or sleep.
Yep, 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!

6. I am too outspoken for my own good sometimes.
I have a terrible temper when it comes to injustice or stupidity from people - particularly standing up for the little guy against large corporations and bullies. Progressive Enterprises, Warehouse Stationery & Vodafone have recently been on the receiving end of my extremely undiplomatic and blunt language for their sins (ie: trying to squash Pak 'n' Save, mistreating their staff and giving customers shitty service). I always wonder what sort of monster I am afterwards and go read Dale Carnegie's books but then I always get a reaction too so maybe I shouldn't worry. Sometimes things turn out well. For example once when I was working for Sony, one of the retailers phoned up to order TVs for his store. We all knew he had been stealing TVs from us somehow by giving us false information but no one had been able to prove it and catch him. One day he phoned up and got me and I gave him a violent ear bashing. Shortly after hanging up my boss called me into his office. I was sure I was going to get fired for attacking a customer. Instead he shook my hand and congratulated me on sorting the arsehole out. Apparently I had frightened the guy so much he had phoned my boss straight after me, confessed to his misdeeds and agreed to pay back everything he'd taken!

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 realised it's much more fun being alone than hanging out in an office with 50 other people being demanding non stop. I can do whatever I like with my day, in any way I like and not be bothered by anyone except the people I choose to hang out with. So maybe the relie wasn't a nutter afterall! I am sure other people think that is weird though.

8. Er, I like weird nerd things.
Like binary code. When I am bored sometimes I get a blank page and write binary code all over it. 000000, 000001 ...... 0010110 etc... Totally meaningless and fun but 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 a few years ago 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. I think it was originally my Mum's. 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 when you are 20-something!

10. I am a giggling gertie.
I laugh myself stupid sometimes. Once I had to leave a Billy Connolly concert because I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. Recently my friends discovered this 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. A bit later I was telling Robyn about this and we were having a laugh about it and er, maybe I had better not finish this story!

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!