"That's what I sound like!?"

This is one of those things I like to think I am not alone on, but I'm pretty sure I am. I touched upon this idiosyncrasy in an earlier post, but I whole-heartedly believe that it deserves its own time.

ANYTIME I hear my own voice (whether it be on a voicemail or an old home movie, or anything else) I cringe at how it sounds. I am mortified and embarrassed to hear myself speak. My voice is nasally, and not nearly as deep as I think it sounds in my head. To tell you the truth it seems a bit effeminate and obnoxious, and because it higher pitched than I would like, I may or may not sound like a child...or David Beckham. As luck would have it, I spend a fair amount of the work day on the phone, and I'm pretty sure the person on the other end is wondering why a flamboyant child, who probably plays World of Warcraft, is on the phone with them.

.

Now I am a pretty confident person, so to hear myself and hear what other people hear on a daily basis, is a major blow to my ego. I mean, if I were anyone I wouldn't talk to me.

If my voice could be depicted in a Microsoft paint drawing, this is what I would look like. :-)

Tongues...ew.

One thing I tend to focus on a lot is the look of some one's tongue. You are probably thinking "seriously...how often can you see some one's tongue?" It's actually easier to see than you might think, you just need to be paying attention at certain times - like disbelief, yelling, or most often, laughing. It's easy to see a dirty tongue because of the stark contrast between the color of the tongue (red) and the nasty while crud that cakes on it when unwashed.

HAHAHA...okay so this is extreme but you get the idea.

So I don't know about you guys, but when I see this, I can instantly feel my own tongue after a long day, dying to be brushed - de-caked, if you will - so that the fresh red tongue can shine through...no? just me?

Nowadays there are all sorts of tongue cleaners (see below) but I have found a good ol' tooth brush gets the job done most effectively.

I think the bristles of the brush work well on the texture of the tongue to get all the bacteria and dead cells out, whereas and the lame things they have now, just don't do the trick. Look, the tongue is gross enough as it is, keep it clean!

Car Stickers

This is not a compulsion, but rather something I obsess about, and comment on, every time I see it. Picture this: You roll up to a red light, and as you get closer to the SUV in front of you, you see a white sticker on the rear window. "What is that?" you say "oh wait, I know what that is, that's a tombstone. Like the ones in a graveyard." And so it is. The sticker is a name of a person as well as their date of birth and the date of death. Like this...eek.

Now more commonly you see the name of a family member, or someone who is not a celebrity. But I don't understand when it became commonplace to put "Rest in Peace" stickers on the back window of a car? Did I miss a memo that went around to everyone in the world telling people that the proper way to pay respect to loved ones who have passed was to put their name and dates on your car? Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of remembering a loved one with like a tattoo, or something else more permanent, but putting a sticker on your car, where birds shit, and rain falls, and crap like that...it just seems a bit unnecessary to me.

My dislike of the memorial sticker does not compare to my disdain for the family sticker. This is a terrible idea! Who thought it would be a good idea to put the first and last name of your whole family on the back of your mini van for all to see. Call me paranoid, but now John Q. Pedophile can go up to little Billy Smith and say "Hey Billy, your mommy, Susan, wants me to pick you up from school today. Come home with me." And then BAM, Billy is accosted because this man, although strange and unknown, knows Billy's name, his mother's name, and the family name. Worst, idea, ever.

my Handwriting

As I made out a greeting card for my grandmother, I was reminded of the fact that I can't stand my handwriting. It's sloppy. The lines of the letters don't touch. I mix printing and cursive. I cannot write straight, and I cannot stay on the line.

As a matter of fact, the only "C" ever received from 1st grade all the way until graduation in 12th grade was in 5th grade handwriting. I was shocked an appalled to have gotten a "C" in something, but soon after I realized the error of my ways. Let me personify it this way: if my handwriting was a person, it would be a gangly, preteen, on the cusp of puberty running for something, and maybe even tripping and falling...and scraping its knee. It sucks. I hate looking at it. I hate looking at it as much as I hate hearing my voice on a voicemail message or in a home movie...but I digress.

In an effort to compensate for hating my handwriting, when I write things for public consumption (work notes excluded) I will write them in a strange way to try and fool myself into thinking that someone else wrote it. I will make big swooping curves on letters with curves in them, and make letters with points (like M, N, or W) very sharp. I feel like this distracts me (and hopefully others) from how juvenile my writing looks, and I hope people say "wow this handwriting is strangely appealing." No one else probably notices or cares, but this is something I think about on a daily basis. *sigh*

Condensation

I cannot handle the condensation on the outside of anything...cups, glasses, water bottles, car windows, etc. I consider it the silent killer. While I try to let it go, there is something about those little droplets of water that screams at me... "dry me, dry me!" So I do. You will never see a glass of mine that is not on a napkin, a coaster, a towel or some combination of that. (I prefer the napkin on top of the coaster...the napkin to dry the condensation and the coaster to protect the wood underneath). If I see a glass, condensation running rampant, water ring on the table, smeared remnants of the previous water ring all over the table, I have to dry it up. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

For example, I set my morning iced drink on a stack of napkins (4-7 napkins) and as the glass/plastic sweats those little annoying droplets, I periodically use one of the napkins to dry the cup, 360 degrees around in a methodical up and down motion. I then toss the napkin in the proper receptacle and rest at the site of the clean cup. Obviously, the colder the drink and the hotter the room, the more of a problem I have (see below). But I deal. Wipe, rotate, repeat.

Thanks to Purdue University, here is an illustration of how my enemy wins on a daily basis.

keep music personal

All too often, while at the gym, or at the movies, or just plain walking around, there is someone who is blasting the music on their MP3 player so loudly that I can not only hear the song, but even make out some of the words. This irritates me to no end because it throws me back to the early 90s when people would carry around their whole boombox in a failed attempt to be "rad" or "hip" (insert other early 90s term for cool). I don't want to hear your crap music, if I did, I would be listening to it on my ipod, and not being distracted by yours.

VS.

The way I see it, technology has provided us with the ability to make our music personal, so please take advantage of the miniaturization of music and keep it personal.

Oh, and one more thing...it's so bad for your ears that any "coolness" you gain by blasting your DJ Jazzy Jeff (or whatever the kids are listening to these days) will be eliminated 1000 fold when you are 55 and deaf, and people have to yell at you, and then you HAVE to crank-up your music just to hear it even a little bit!

Toilet Paper

To me there is only one way to put the toilet paper on the roll. I HAS to be put with the available end coming over the top of the roll. If I see a roll with the TP going underneath, I have to stop and fix it no matter where I am.

The Right Way

The Wrong Way

Also, I hate industrial, mass-produced TP that you find in public settings. In order for it to fit in the holder, and not need to be replaced often, it has to be thin as $h!t - no pun intended - and that makes for a terrible wiping experience. Now I don't carry my own roll of TP around with me, but I can see how that is not too far off.

Welcome!

This is my first attempt at blogging. The jury is still out on whether or not this will work, but it might be fun to do. I have no grandiose plans for this blog, I'm just going to use this space to vent...or rather, share my thoughts as well as vent. I tend to spend way too much time thinking about things no one else notices, and if they do, they sure as hell don't care about them. But I do and this is my way to cope with that. Enjoy!