Weird Things I Love
Weird things I love:
- When I break an egg, I love getting the shell broken in just one crack, like a professional chef. And then, when I peel the shell off a boiled egg, I like to put the egg shells into a little plastic bag, all together. Then I fold the bag up, and I crush the eggshells all together in my hand, reveling in the crunching, crushing power of the fragile shells getting smaller and smaller and smaller as I crush them into powder. I love this feeling.
- I am obsessive about my books and DVDs being in the proper order on my bookshelf. When I get a new book or DVD, I spend a good five minutes pondering where it should go in the order, based on my internal system of categorization. Do I like it enough to put it with the really, really good DVDs? Or does it go on the bottom with the semi-good ones that I don't like as much? And if it does go with the good ones, where exactly in the order of good ones does it go? Between Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica? Between Doctor Who and The Office? My obsessive system of categorization based upon preference and personal taste is something that satisfies a tiny little OCD part of myself. I love it.
- Holding a mouthful of bellini in my mouth, right over my tongue, without swallowing. The cold slush will quickly melt, leaving behind a rapturous peachy alcohol rolling on my tongue, sending chills of delight shivering up and down my spine. Finally, after savoring this rich, exotic flavor for several seconds, I will swallow, before taking another sip to repeat the process.
- Waking up to morning wood. What a good reminder that I'm alive! ...Even if it sometimes does make it more difficult to pee if it lasts too long.
- That cool breeze one gets in early, early spring, when the sun is warm enough to flicker delicate tongues of flame along your skin, warming the surface of your body, but then the breeze still contains the slight bitter chill of winter, and the two sensations--of soothing warmth and prickly cold--play across the skin, causing both goosebumps and shivers at the same time. What a great sensation. It is one of the reasons why spring is my favorite season.
- Laying back and letting my imagination run wild. Getting that spark of imagination, that first idea, that first "What if...?" that translates into a situation in my mind. A world that gets painted first in broad strokes of imagination, and then progressively fleshed out as I follow those strokes with a finer brush, clarifying the edges, adding in detail, reading into the broad template a finer network of story and consequence out of which arises a more complete picture until all the details exist and I can step back and regard the whole piece as one complete picture. Sometimes, this process can last years. Other times, it will happen in just seconds or minutes as I lay back on the couch, just letting my brain run wild. However long it takes, I appreciate every step of the process with a thrill of amazement, because though the universe is full of a lot of amazing scientific and natural discoveries to be found, from planets orbiting distant suns in far away nebulae, down to the very mathematical principles upon which our entire universe is founded--despite all that existing, waiting to be found, whenever I imagine, I am creating from nothing. What I come up with doesn't exist waiting to be discovered; it is entirely willed into existence by me, and unless I tell someone about it, I will be the only person to ever know of its existence.
- The feel of a tree branch's bark pressing against my chest and stomach as I lay on the branch, book held down below the branch, reading in a tree, the gentle susseration of the leaves around me wooing me into my book.
- Reading out loud. I love reading out loud. I love coming up with voices for characters, imagining the voice they would have based on their personality, giving personality and tone to the words on the page, hearing them spoken. I will even do it in odd situations--for example, when I read Star Wars novels that include a Hutt, rather than imagine the Hutt speaking English as they are doing in the book, I instead imagine that the words I am reading with my eyes are the English subtitles to what they are saying, the way it was done with Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi, and instead I will imitate Huttese with my voice into the empty room, just for the benefit of my own ears. I know I probably sound ridiculous, but I love it.
- When I break an egg, I love getting the shell broken in just one crack, like a professional chef. And then, when I peel the shell off a boiled egg, I like to put the egg shells into a little plastic bag, all together. Then I fold the bag up, and I crush the eggshells all together in my hand, reveling in the crunching, crushing power of the fragile shells getting smaller and smaller and smaller as I crush them into powder. I love this feeling.
- I am obsessive about my books and DVDs being in the proper order on my bookshelf. When I get a new book or DVD, I spend a good five minutes pondering where it should go in the order, based on my internal system of categorization. Do I like it enough to put it with the really, really good DVDs? Or does it go on the bottom with the semi-good ones that I don't like as much? And if it does go with the good ones, where exactly in the order of good ones does it go? Between Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica? Between Doctor Who and The Office? My obsessive system of categorization based upon preference and personal taste is something that satisfies a tiny little OCD part of myself. I love it.
- Holding a mouthful of bellini in my mouth, right over my tongue, without swallowing. The cold slush will quickly melt, leaving behind a rapturous peachy alcohol rolling on my tongue, sending chills of delight shivering up and down my spine. Finally, after savoring this rich, exotic flavor for several seconds, I will swallow, before taking another sip to repeat the process.
- Waking up to morning wood. What a good reminder that I'm alive! ...Even if it sometimes does make it more difficult to pee if it lasts too long.
- That cool breeze one gets in early, early spring, when the sun is warm enough to flicker delicate tongues of flame along your skin, warming the surface of your body, but then the breeze still contains the slight bitter chill of winter, and the two sensations--of soothing warmth and prickly cold--play across the skin, causing both goosebumps and shivers at the same time. What a great sensation. It is one of the reasons why spring is my favorite season.
- Laying back and letting my imagination run wild. Getting that spark of imagination, that first idea, that first "What if...?" that translates into a situation in my mind. A world that gets painted first in broad strokes of imagination, and then progressively fleshed out as I follow those strokes with a finer brush, clarifying the edges, adding in detail, reading into the broad template a finer network of story and consequence out of which arises a more complete picture until all the details exist and I can step back and regard the whole piece as one complete picture. Sometimes, this process can last years. Other times, it will happen in just seconds or minutes as I lay back on the couch, just letting my brain run wild. However long it takes, I appreciate every step of the process with a thrill of amazement, because though the universe is full of a lot of amazing scientific and natural discoveries to be found, from planets orbiting distant suns in far away nebulae, down to the very mathematical principles upon which our entire universe is founded--despite all that existing, waiting to be found, whenever I imagine, I am creating from nothing. What I come up with doesn't exist waiting to be discovered; it is entirely willed into existence by me, and unless I tell someone about it, I will be the only person to ever know of its existence.
- The feel of a tree branch's bark pressing against my chest and stomach as I lay on the branch, book held down below the branch, reading in a tree, the gentle susseration of the leaves around me wooing me into my book.
- Reading out loud. I love reading out loud. I love coming up with voices for characters, imagining the voice they would have based on their personality, giving personality and tone to the words on the page, hearing them spoken. I will even do it in odd situations--for example, when I read Star Wars novels that include a Hutt, rather than imagine the Hutt speaking English as they are doing in the book, I instead imagine that the words I am reading with my eyes are the English subtitles to what they are saying, the way it was done with Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi, and instead I will imitate Huttese with my voice into the empty room, just for the benefit of my own ears. I know I probably sound ridiculous, but I love it.