Tagging the Social Crevices of America
2006-01-24, 15:58

If there's been one major personal consequence to our being so busy over the last 12 months, it's that we're severely behind on our movie watching. This will probably be the first year that we (or at least I) haven't seen any of the Best Picture Oscar nominations before they're announced, maybe even before they're handed out. Tragic, truly. I've always considered myself an avid film watcher, and I suppose I'm just biding my time until I am one again. And oh yes, I shall be one again.

A couple of weekends ago we relieved ourselves of the burden of being that last people on Earth to not have seen Napoleon Dynamite. Seems like it's one of those loved-it-or-hated-it movies. You can put me on the low end of Loved It. It seems to me like the result of what would happen if Wes Anderson decided to make an 80's teen movie. Or it's an example of what pop culture degenerates into when it reaches the last social crevices of America (like rural Idaho, for instance). I think the movie would only be funny to those who actually knew (or were) people like the ones in Dynamite.

It seems that I have been, ahem, "tagged" by a friend/blogger. My first question after finding this out was whether I'd have years of bad luck unless I passed it along, which I may or may not do - we'll see how I feel about it by the end of the list-making process, participation in which is being forced by my Pathetic Need to Be Part of the Internet Community and my Vested Interest in Being Less Negative and Unjustifiably Condescending. Not to mention my Need to Use Capital Letters Whenever Possible.

Anyway, ahead lies a list of FIVE WEIRD HABITS:

1. I have to touch things while I'm walking, if anything's nearby. Excluding people, generally. I'm not sure if it's a balance thing, or whether it's to compensate for my terrible eyesight, but my hands are antennae/feelers as I walk. Consequently, I have an acute sense of touch (cue the wife: "You bet your sweet bippy he does!").
2. I can't go to sleep if the bedsheet and cover (weather warranting) aren't evenly distributed on the bed. As we're preparing to saunter into Slumberland, I'll have to get up and even things out, and H will ask me, "What're you doing?" and I'll reply, meekly, "There's an imbalance." Consequently, she thinks I'm crazy. No surprise there.
3. If someone around me says anything remotely close to a song lyric that I know, I will usually (unless it's socially inappropriate, like in a work meeting or at a funeral) sing a little of the song. I think I inherited this one from my dad. Consequently, I have mixed feelings about it, at least when I think about it that way (usually I don't).
4. I have this urge to finish other people's sentences - not because they're going too slowly, but just to see if I'm right about what they're about to say. Call it a social experiment, call it trying to learn how people think - I won't bother to go into heavy detail here. I know it drives people crazy, especially my wife, who thinks that I'm stepping on her Constitutional rights every time I do it. Consequently, she hates me (or, she would: however, see answer number one, above *wink*).
5. I always - always - have a song playing in my head. What is it now, you ask? Accidentally In Love by Counting Crows (I must've picked it up subconsciously via the Canned Corporate Office Radio I'm assaulted with daily at work). It gets bothersome sometimes, like if it's a particularly annoying song (it's not always one I like that's playing) or if I can't tune it out when I'm trying to sleep. And often it's sparked by answer number three, above. Consequently, I may be crazy, but I get my own soundtrack.

Wow, somehow I thought that would be harder to do, or at least harder to narrow it down to five things.

After today, after today, consider me tagged. (Yes, now Sting is playing in my head.)

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