Strange Little Collecting Project

If the people who know me best described me using only ten words, “hypochondriac” would appear on most of their lists. I spend entirely too much time in (obsessive) self-reflection to deny these charges. I am unable to watch shows like House, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, ER on syndication, etc because within minutes from the rolling credits, I am checking for swollen glands, signs of MRSA, going through my files to check my last tetanus booster, or Googling the symptoms of flesh eating bacteria (don’t ever click the images tab if you do this, by the way). I have come to the realization that I am, in fact, a hypochondriac. In my defense, it is not entirely my fault. In college alone I had my share of ailments. My freshmen and sophomore year I was plagued with a lingering case of mono thanks to the gross intimacy of dorm-life. Despite the blisters on the back of my throat, the 102 degree fever that I had for weeks, and an immune system that still limps a little, mono wasn’t ...

When I was a teenager, I remember being at a friend’s house and calling home to ask my mom if I could spend the night. When I hung up the phone, the girl I was with looked really confused. “What?” I asked her. “Wasn’t that your mom?” She pointed to the phone mounted on the kitchen wall. “Yeah, why?” “You didn’t tell her that you loved her before you hung up.” “And?” I asked, mirroring her confusion. “Aren’t you, like, supposed to do that?” For both of us, it was one of those moments that you have as a kid when you realize that other families do things differently than yours. It was like the moment that I realized that some families ate asparagus, and some families even ate asparagus without blessing it first. Some families put ice in their milk, and some parents let their kids watch Married With Children. It’s not a moment of judgment; it’s simply an epiphany that the world exists differently in other homes than it does in your own and has for many years. After this experience, I s...

I used to pick up hitch hikers all the time, like once or twice a month. It was when I was about 18, 19, 20 years old and I felt like the world was a place full of good people. I wasn’t a complete idiot about it; it’s not like I was picking up men walking down the Blue Ridge Parkway dragging clunky garbage bags behind them. And I always approached it with the thought that these people were taking as much of a chance on me as I was on them. (Yes, I realize that this isn’t a logical argument in any way because I know for a fact that I am not a psychopathic killer where as I am not entirely sure about the hitch hikers). Either way, some of my most memorable social encounters have been with hitch hikers. When I was a senior in high school, I picked up a man one Sunday who was stranded in my church’s parking lot with a flat tire. He was trying to put his spare on, but his spare was flat too. I stopped to see if he needed any help and he asked me if I would mind driving him down th...

Thanks to science and possibly Eve (depending on your religious affiliation and your interpretation of religious texts), for about two days a month I crave the worst foods in the world. I’m a relatively healthy eater most of the time. My diet consists of raw fruits and veggies, nuts and beans for protein, cheese and whole wheat breads and pasta, fruit juices and coffee. I typically don’t like to eat foods that my great-grandmother couldn’t have found on the planet when she was around and eating. But there is a two or three day span of time when my body starts to turn on itself and this little voice, that sounds a lot like David Sedaris, starts bossing me around. “You want a frosted blue-berry Pop Tart. You know you want that Pop Tart. And you’re not going to put it in the toaster-oven, oh no. Because then it will be all dry. Put that pop-tart in the microwave so it’s moist and then show it whose boss. Do it.” A pop-tart is one of those foods that I broke up with a few years ago. One re...

So my morning was kind of like the Bermuda Triangle. Only with fire…and near decapitation. I couldn’t get out of the bed until 5:45 which is ridiculously late, and if this doesn’t seem late, than I hate you and your normal-time-starting job. I would have been able to get out of the bed except my apartment is heavy on the charm, light on the insulation. (Hardwood floors + 50 year old fiberglass insulation) X the original windows ÷ insufficient weather-stripping around the doors = 58 degrees inside my apartment with the heat turned up to 75. On a 19 degree morning, my sense of self-preservation kept me under the warmth of my three down comforters. Especially since those beautiful hardwood floors feel like the 9th circle of (Dante’s) Hell. I finally got out of the bed and went through my typical morning routine. I sprinted like Flo Jo into the kitchen, turned the oven on to 350, and opened its door so my kitchen (the coldest room in my cold apartment by far) would be warm enough to eat br...

So, I’ve been doing this blog thing for about a year now, and I never really thought about why, other than the obvious reasons. I love writing, I always have, and the one thing that a writer can’t get enough of is an audience. It’s the most blatant and embarrassing form of egotism in my life and I’m a little ashamed of myself every time I post a blog, but I can’t help it. Some women are proud of their breasts and they push them out there for the world to see on a daily basis. I guess this is just my version of that. My blog is like a giant push-up bra for my thoughts. All I want is for people to look at them and maybe even react a little. I realized that my blog doesn’t have a mission statement, which is fine. Push-up bras don’t have them either. But, I kind of wanted to write one anyway. So here it goes. One of my favorite things about people is that they are storytellers. In college I took two classes about the art of storytelling, both with one of the best teachers I’ve ever met, Th...