I totally failed at writing "5 Weird Habits of Mine"

February 03, 2006 - 2:10 a.m.

Aw Lordy I got tagged from two of my diaryland homegirls and this shit is HARD, and hell, goingloopy’s request has been sittin’ in my inbox for over a month because it is about music and me + music = *deflating balloon noise*. Don’t ask. Someday I will write about music. Some day when I’m really drunk.

For now I will take a stab at MimseyLou’s tag, which is:

Rules: "The first player of this game starts with the topic "five weird habits" of yourself and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals."

This ought to be easy, because if I’m anything, I’m habitual and weird.

But this is hard because my habits are normal to me so I need someone to point them out when they are WEIRD.

So I decided to ask a couple of friends for help and what I got was:

1) Cheap.
2) Doesn’t smoke pot.

This makes no sense. I don’t think either of these qualify as weird habits. Is it weird NOT to smoke pot? Apparently so, in my social circle.

I mean, we’ve already covered most of my weird things, like how I stare at the pubic hair that is shellacked into my floor, and my longing to chew on people like they’re rawhide, and of course my unhealthy fixation with fluffy towels.

What is left besides things shared only with lovers, my secret languages, my pillow talk, my anal fixations (not)?

Later I got a reply in a text message from Belle:

“Ur obsessn w squrls. Ur arm chair psycho babble. Ur ex is ur best friend in the city. Ur blog.”

That makes a little more sense. Those are all true things and coincidentally just yesterday I got an oil painting of a squirrel custom matted and framed. Squirrel in my living room, above my couch, where it is meant to be.

I decided to ask my co-worker Himey what he thought, since he also has a thing for arm chair psychology and is forever telling me what is wrong with me. He is the only person to bring to my attention that I SNATCH paper out of people’s hands. I never *take* paper when it is handed to me, I SNATCH it, in a loud, flamboyant, two snaps up in a Z formation sort of way. His reply to my ‘weird habits’ inquiry:

1) Rude.
2) Ignore people when they talk to you.

Hmmmm. I’m starting to think I may be catching a brief glimpse of what my eulogy will be like. They’ll ask people to approach the microphone to say their final words about Shawna Mooney’s life: “She turns men gay.”

“Shawna, I think it’s totally annoying that you don't smoke weed. I am so going to light up a huge spliff and play my reggae bongos in your face the next time I see you. Ya Mon!”

Ya, indeed.

“Weird Habits” is pretty much synonymous with ANNOYING, don’t you think? Observing habits in others is almost always annoying, unless that person is in the habit of giving you really good sex all the time.

I have a couple of habits that people tend to find annoying, but really they affect no one but myself, so why everyone is bitching, I don’t know. I’ve been deliberately trying to break these for a few years now so they are no longer the albatross they once were.

1) Crack sleeping. It has always been a rule that my bed, your bed, your mama’s bed must be pushed against the wall so I can crawl into the crack. I don’t know why, but I’m pretty sure it stems from some childhood trauma. I just shove my body down in the crack and if I’m lucky, the bed is heavy enough that it doesn’t move away and I fall to the floor, though that has happened many times. Especially when I was a kid and had a small single bed, I usually woke up on the floor, under my bed, occasionally trapped, and my mom would get all freaked out. But ideally I will just remain suspended, wedged between the bed and the wall with my cheek pressed against the cool wall and an elaborate, complicated system of blankets and pillows partially under and over my body and of course special ventilation techniques. Wedging your head into a crack goes hand and hand with asphyxia so I would create small air holes and don’t even ask how because it was something I did in the fog of sleep and it was just a natural display of physics genius that can not be repeated in waking life.

I swear, I once had a boyfriend who said, "Why don't you go crawl into your CRACK, you stupid baby?" *COUGHbelleCOUGH*

Sleeping in the crack annoys other people for, I believe, one reason only. Because it scares them. Namely, nobody knows I’m there. A bed could be completely made, blankets flat, no lump of a person to be seen and then BAM! There I am, dangling in the crack like an insect in a cocoon, drooling and snoring into my air holes, my mouth emitting fumes like the tail pipe of a ’57 Chevy. I can see the cause for alarm.

2) Stairs. And the falling down thereof. Simply put, I fall down flights of stairs with surprising regularity. Sometimes it’s just a trip or a slip, but usually it’s a heel that slips right on over the edge of the step, bringing me down flat on my ass, descending into gravity’s lair until something like a wall or a door stops me. A typical scenario would be me standing at the top of a full flight of stairs, one story straight down, with brown grocery bags in both arms, peering over the top of my booty to sense the steps and then Ta daa! The slip of the heel, the fall, the desperate flailing, the attempt to grasp the hand rail, the painful yank as an arm gets caught in the railing, and of course the THUMPing and then finally coming to rest on the linoleum at the bottom, twisted unnaturally, bags torn and empty lying around me with something painful like a jar of pickles wedged into my back.

This is usually followed by a moment of silence. And then I roll my eyes up and peer at the top of the stairs where there is usually a person standing, who has come running upon hearing the ruckus, and they’re staring at me, holding their breath, waiting for some sign that I am alive or dead, that bones are broken, that I am going to start wailing.

That’s when the shrieking starts. I scream at the top of my lungs just to freak that person out for a moment and then I cackle like a witch and laugh hysterically. Because people. The whole thing is ridiculous. Of course it hurts like hell. But the idiocy of it all, the pure comedy is too much for even me to withstand. The person at the top is standing agape, afraid to laugh, faking concern. I say, “JUST LAUGH ALREADY, I don’t care. Just look at me. This is the stupidest person you have ever met in your life. Do you see me? Do you see what has just happened here? JESUS. CHRIST.”

And then that person shits a golden egg of laughter, thigh slappin, having to bow down onto one knee and grab hold of a plant stand to gain composure. Crying, laughing, pointing, “You look so STUPID!”

I lay at the bottom giggling, the pain in my shoulder blade becoming more acute.

So many times I fell at my parents’ house, the wood stairs would rumble like thunder and my mother would come running with fear on her face like only a mother can have. “Bugaboo! Are you all right?”

They have a wrought iron railing with an elaborate design that I’ve caught many in a limb in. When I was ten I would think that life would be so much easier if I could just keep pillows at the bottom of the stairs at all times.

Besides mom, everyone else just laughed at me. They suggested that perhaps I need some sort of body armor for protection, perhaps like the kind that epileptics wear?

So on my birthday one year I opened a box and inside was a helmet.

You guessed it. A white helmet. Like retards wear.

My family suggested that I get personalized license plates that read WHT HLMT. I declined. So my sister made me a handicapped parking placard that said “White Helmet Parking” with the wheelchair symbol. Precious.

You don’t know how many times I’ve said to someone: “You missed it! I JUST fell down the stairs!” or “Did you hear that? I fell down the stairs!”

Many years ago my friend Jay did a photo project of me and the white helmet, and me falling down stairs. I dressed myself to look like a retard, but why? To make excuses for my problem with balance and gravity?

So now you know the etymology of White Helmet, the ramblings of a person who needs to wear head protection in everyday life. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

And knowing is 63/126ths the battle.

And I tag…no one. Everyone. Hey you. Get on it already.

Previous - Next

The Latest Babel

The Fast, Days 1-6
January 28, 2007