My fairyblogmother and soul sista' did a little thing the other day where she lined out five kinda weird things about herself for a meme. Since I'm a whole lot like her, I didn't think they were weird at all, but then that's just me. I never have been much of a follower so I suppose a lot of folks think I'm weird. Let me fill you in on just a few of the ways:

1. I can sleep for ten or twelve hours and not feel a bit guilty about it. While my friends are up doing stuff and not wasting a day, I'm under the covers with the dogs re-charging my batteries for the next adventure. This was definitely NOT the case for about twenty years when I was an uber mom/employee/caretaker/younameit. My eyes would pop open at the crack of daylight with mental list in hand of "important things that can't wait until tomorrow." Now I make a loose list of things that need to be addressed within the next week or so like showing up for work or makin' a phone call. So far, the world hasn't ended because I choose to take care of myself and rest when I need it. Which is often.

2. Some people fall in love once and stay there forever after. I have been in love no less than ten times in my adult life, many of them while I was married to the wrong guy. That should have told me something right quick, but I'm a loyal sort.. especially when it comes to my BabyGirl, so I stuck it out and got my heart broken over and over by guys who loved me as a friend but never crossed the line to choose me over the complications involved. I've become much more cautious with the old heartstrings because of that. Life is too short to expend emotional energy on people who can't or won't let you touch their souls. My biggest fear is that I will become so accustomed to my way of being that I won't need companionship. I doubt that will happen.

3. Shy to a fault as a teenager, I rarely dated, danced or sang out loud. Always on the periphery of the cool crowd due to my inner rebellious hellion nature, I found myself just as comfortable with the hippies and the rednecks as with the socialite wannabes. That refusal to be pigeonholed still remains an integral part of my character and my friends are as different as daylight and dark. When I like you, it shows. When I don't, I can't hide it very well. Fortunately tolerance has empowered me to like most folks in a quirky kind of way that has allowed me to enjoy meeting new people where they are and appreciating them for their differences. Except when they're mean. Those idiots are big fat zeroes in my book. BabyGirl had a keychain one time that summed it all up quite succintly: "Mean People Suck."

4. There are a number of things that bring me joy and at one time or another I've explored taking one or more of them on as a vocation. I've downloaded greenhouse plans and dreamed about financing. One year my specific requests for Christmas from my parents included several books on palliative care. There is nothing sweeter to me than drinkin' beer and cooking. I write. And read. And write some more, yet "the book" has never taken on life more than a b**g post one day at a time in this poopie little life of mine. Somehow I am afraid that by trying to make a living at something that brings me joy, all of the joy will be lost. Does that make sense? Dreaming for the sake of it makes a whole lot more sense when you have a job that you're damn good at, even when the powers that be don't recognize that fact. Big Ernie knows, and that's all that counts.

5. I have been against the war in Iraq since it first began, before it was cool to be that way like the polls say that it is now. My reaction to the terrorist acts of 9/11 was one of shock and disbelief that people in this world despised our country enough to plan that long and that hard to bring us to our knees. I cringed when our government sent too few troops with too little armour halfway across the world to search for the elusive demon that is hatred of western ways. Islam, at heart, is not a violent way of life, just different. Radicals of that particular belief system are no more dangerous than Protestant extremists who dare to tell us how we should conduct our lives here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I continue to read the reporting of this man each time a dispatch is sent. The ones who are there are the ones who are telling it like it is, not the politicians.

Bonus Wierd! Good little southern girls never place their loyalties outside of the SEC. Except when they have bad flashbacks of Florida under Spurrier's vein-throbbing hatred of the UT Vols year after year after year. Y'all think I'll get shipped up North if I holler "Go Buckeyes"?

Just wondering. ^j^