Six Weird Things About Me

Grace (that hot Asian imp) fairly forced me to write this. OK she really just suggested it and I'm just so self centered that I wrote it.

1. I'm colorblind and that makes colors look different to me. It's about as common as left handedness just not as visible. For me and most people like me, deuteranomolous trichromats, two of the three receptor groups have roughly equal sensitivity to light at their respective part of the spectrum. The other one is not as sensitive. (Almost all people have receptors sensitive to three peaks in the color spectrum. The mutation that does not produces an individual with four peaks of spectral sensitivity called a tetrachromat.) Green and brown look mostly alike to me, blue and purple too, and red and orange. It is difficult for me to tell the difference between the green and orange indicator lights that are so common on battery chargers.

2. For me, colors and the numerals from zero to nine, have very distinct and unchanging genders and personalities. So do knives, forks, and spoons. Don't as me how or why, but a fork is female and so are the numerals 4, 5, 6, 7, & 9, and the colors red, and yellow. 4 and 6 are passive, 5 is assertive, and 7 is aggressive, etc., etc.. As far back as I can remember I have thought this way.

3. I am an atheist, which is somewhat less common, here in the USA, than left handedness. For me there is no god(s), and when you die, that's the end. When I go to church events like funerals and such, I think about the religion of the other people as an interesting way of looking at the world around us. When people say they have asked their god for forgiveness or guidance or some support, I think to myself that they have really asked themselves for these things and to the extent that they "received" it, they have helped themselves by the power of their own thoughts. If the mental construct of a god helps them to achieve this, that's great.

4. When my brother and I (maybe it was just me?) got caught looking at dad's Playboy magazines (for the articles!) mom pulled out a bunch of centerfolds and put them up around the house. She thought perhaps this would desensitize us to the sight of naked women and reduce the taboo curiosity that drove us to look. It didn't work at all, but it was quite a conversation starter for guests.

4.a. I still like looking at boobs. (OK, not so weird eh?)

5. I cry when I try to tell people about playing the part of Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird. There were only eight words in the one line that I had to speak, but I had to convey my love for the Finch children and my desire to keep them safe, and I had to demonstrate that I was terribly afraid of people and the world outside my house. Every night the performance moved the audience to a verbal reaction when I delivered my one line, "Miss Jean Louise, will you take me home?" I cannot tell or write about this story without choking up. Sometimes I can't finish the story.

6. When I write poetry I start with the title and write until the poem is done. Other than a feeling that is represented by the title (which is almost always one word), I don't know what the poem is going to be about when I start, or what the words are going to be. When I read the poem later, I am usually surprised at what I find there. Some of my best poetry (OK that's my opinion) was written when I was very sad.