Saturday’s Strange Seven

I’ve officially made it as a blogger. Not only have I been tagged to do a meme but I’ve been tagged by more than one person to do the very same one! Three times, to be precise, first by Jayne, then by the lovely Stella and last but not least by Ben. The tag by Stella possibly means the most to me and not just because I have a penchant for Australian girls (although I do, very much so).

No, the reason it means a little bit more is because Ben and Jayne are regular readers of my blog and we’ve known each other through the blogosphere for years thanks to a traffic exchange that I refuse to name. Stella, on the other hand, discovered my blog thanks to NaBloPoMo and if she becomes a regular reader it shows the value of taking part in such an event. If I can get just one new reader it’s been worth taking part.

Onto the meme itself and the rules are pretty straightforward. They are:

• Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
• Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Ok, that was simple enough. Now, onto the actual list of seven strange things:

1) I love the smell of cigarettes. Some may not find that particularly weird but I’ve met a lot of people, including smokers, who do. I’ve found most smokers hate the smell but I actually find myself sniffing my fingers after a cigarette. Whenever I walk past someone smoking I stop to smell.

2) Despite loving bananas I hate anything that’s banana flavoured. I have no Earthly idea why but that’s just how it is. Although I do like my bananas to be firm and a little green. And no, don’t read too much into my liking to eat bananas, firm or otherwise. I like the taste, not the shape.

3) Until recently I hardly threw anything away. The most strange of my “collections” has to be the fact that I had every ticket from every train or underground journey I’ve ever taken. I was actually very loathe to get rid of them believing every single one of them had a story behind them until it was pointed out to me that I probably don’t remember the stories now.

4) My memory is a strange beast. It is practically photographic in some cases, absolutely terrible in others. When it came to exams I just remembered stuff, it went pouring into my brain during classes and came pouring out the second I got into an exam hall. I always forget birthdays and names of people I haven’t seen in a long time yet I’ll never forget a face. Sometimes my brain races ahead so fast during a conversation I actually forget where I was or what I was going to say next, but I can remember what I was going to say a few sentences down the line.

5) Oddly enough I get on better with people older than me or younger than me but rarely people whose age is close to my own. I suspect this is because the younger people engage my immature hyperactive mind that’s still locked in a childhood stasis where older people engage the judgemental cranky side of me that’s gotten old before my time. Secretly I suspect the reason I hate my peer group is because many of them are more successful than I am but less deserving of it.

6) Although I am a sceptic at heart I have had experienced deja vu in my dreams more than once. Many times it has been of a distinctly trivial nature. For example once I imagined an ice-cream store that was decorated in pink and blue opening up on the highstreet. The following week a new Baskin-Robbins (and I’d like to point out that I’d never even heard of Baskin-Robbins before that point as they were just starting to open stores in this country) opened in the exact location I’d seen in my dream. However there was one dream that was quite spooky.

I dreamt I was marrying my then girlfriend on the beach. Later, in conversation, I found out not only that she wanted to get married on the beach (we’d never discussed it before) but the ring I’d seen in my dream was exactly like one she’d already picked out when she was planning out her “fantasy” wedding. That wasn’t even the strange part. In my dream when I lifted the veil the face that looked back at me was not my girlfriends. Little did I know that the dream was telling me that my girlfriend was not who I thought she was. A few months later I found out our entire relationship had been based on lies and deception.

7) These were actually not the seven weirdest or most random things I could think up about myself but the seven most suitable for public consumption. I was actually able to reel off a few utterly insane things and then realised you guys reading it might actually worry that my brain had become detached from reality. Honestly, I’m not joking, my brain can be seriously warped at times, but I didn’t want you guys thinking I was some sort of sociopath or a serial-killer in the making because I’m not.

In an homage to Stella and Nablopomo, and because (although few people seem to have followed this) the rules say to tag seven random people, I’ve decided to use the Randomizer to select the seven people I’m going to tag. They are:

• LA RN at Flesh and Bones
• Jo at more than milk
• Elsa at Trained Monkey
• Stefania at CityMama
• Casey at OzweegoVille
• Menchuvian Candidate at His Monthly Obligation
• Joyce at Mom’s Musings