A peculiar fancy...

I guess sometimes I like to fancy myself and my life a little peculiar.

 

Or maybe simply “awkward” is a better word.

 

Kim says claims I have “coincident misfortune syndrome” (from that old classic Pure Luck, for those keeping score at home).

 

My friend Christine told me this weekend that I’ve always been a bit neurotic.

 

Both Kim and Christine are luckily they’re such good friends, lest I’d probably never speak to them again.

 

But, it’s true. I’m a little strange.

 

Take Friday, for example. I was running around, trying to get things in order for heading down to Champaign for the weekend and creating and checking off to-do lists on any spare scrap of paper available. Those who have lived with me know this particular demeanor of mine to be “go mode,” which actually often even makes other folks a bit jumpy and nervous, a bit stressed.

 

But then I’m also just socially awkward. Or do dumb things. Both happened when I was over at Stratford Park this weekend. First, I was in Go Mode because the delicious Lopit cuisine I’d made Saturday night (you know, in an attempt to save time and avoid Go Mode) turned into some strange solid creature in the fridge by Sunday morning. So I was trying to whip up a pot of goo in the church kitchen during the first service, during which time a splat of said goo boil-boil-toil-and-troubled right out of my makeshift caldron and onto my neck—of all places. So you can imagine me, bag of flour in one hand, spoon in the other, trying not to howl in agony as this thick boiling-hot paste sears my neck. And, ya know, I’ve got no hands to wipe the thing off with, so I’m just flailing a bit trying to put something down, and therein, sending a decent amount of flour out of the bag and all over the kitchen. Add to that, the goo leaves an ugly mark on my neck that looks suspiciously like a hickie. And I speak in about… 20 minutes. Absolutely golden.

 

I think I survived the presentation well enough—I don’t have high expectations for myself and have relatively low standards in these sorts of things—but then I had a little encore of the Lopit food fest with the kiddos in junior church. During which time I (not thinking) grab a wee chair, turn it around backwards and straddle it, as I’m trying to tell a story to the kids. Well, next thing I know all the precious little girls in their cute little church dresses are spinning their chairs around and following my very-not-ladylike example. And the teacher chimes in about how they’ve been trying so hard lately to be more ladylike. And of course the damage is already done and I can’t reverse the trend, no matter how proper I try to be for the rest of my visit. SPBC parents, please forgive me.

 

You see? I’m just really awkward. I can’t tell you how many times my old roommates laughed at me this past weekend, either. I could go on forever. I’m just a social mess.

 

Sigh. So. Anyway. I suppose I oughta fancy my life and myself as peculiar as I’d like, as I’m almost certainly not overestimating. But I sure hope I—at some point in my life—grow out of this.