Pointless Incessant Barking

Dear Cathy,

My mother pointed out that I’m one of a rather select group that you asked to participate in the little “8 interesting things about me” project. Not only am I flattered, I’m also sufficiently self-involved to really enjoy a guilt-free opportunity to write about myself. This isn’t to say that I don’t usually write about myself, just that I’m less likely to feel embarrassed about it in this context.

And so, without further ado, I present you with eight things about me, which will hopefully provide at least a little amusement:

1. I’m not one of these people who have a slew of neat little party tricks. I can’t touch my nose with my tongue, I definitely can’t do a standing backflip, and, to the best of my knowledge I’m not double-jointed anywhere I shouldn’t be. I do, however, have one little talent that either impresses people or causes them to look at me like I’m Linda Blair in The Exorcist. I’m a lefty who also has an odd ability to write backwards nearly as easily and as neatly as I do normally. I don’t think I ever learned how—I just looked at the letters and instinctively inverted them. I’m told Da Vinci, a fellow lefty, also did this, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, flippin’ sweet.

2. When I was about seven, I developed a series of rather unusual habits, some of which have stuck with me. When I take a shower, for example, I always kick the tile just above the drain plug six times. For about two years, I had to go to bed at exactly 9:17. Walking down the hallway at my father’s house, I try to step only on the bumps in the carpet. Sometimes they take the form of games or challenges: If I reach the stop sign before I can count to thirty, I win. I’ve always thought of them that way, as games, although I’m told by people in a position to know that they’re more along the lines of tics or compulsions. I suppose some people would advocate medicating them away. I’ve never wanted to. They are so much a part of my mental landscape that I think I would miss them if they went away.

3. I misspelled the word “occasionally” on a spelling test in ninth grade, ruining my perfect spelling record. My asshole English teacher announced this in front of the entire class, and I’m still bitter about it.

4. When I was seventeen, I wrote an essay that was selected for broadcast on KQED’s Perspectives series. The essay was about why I was a vegetarian, and why I continued to struggle with the temptation to eat meat. A year after it aired (about six and a half years into my vegetarianism), I caved. I secretly fear someone will call me out on it.

5. Some kids go through a shark phase. Some go through an astronaut phase. At ten, I went through a serious Eleanor of Aquitaine phase. I read anything I could get my hands on, and would parrot everything I learned to anyone who would listen. My father jokingly remarked that I was the world’s foremost eleven-year-old scholar of Eleanor of Aquitaine. What’s frightening is that he was probably correct. Once I entered middle school, however, I realized that a small-scale obsession with a relatively obscure monarch of the twelfth century would do little to advance my social standing. This began my long career of trying to be liked and yet not sell my soul, an unhappy compromise I have yet to fully master. Ultimately, this all became fodder for my Stanford admissions essay. Writing is a strange kind of alchemy, transforming bad experiences into good essays.

6. I once locked my keys in the car. With the car still running. For an hour.

7. When I’m really and truly deadlocked on a paper, there’s only one thing that undoes the writer’s block: Broadway musicals. I can’t lie, there’s something about the original Broadway cast recording of A Chorus Line that always pushes me through those last heinous pages of a truly wretched paper. In general, I have fairly decent musical tastes, but Broadway musicals are my tragic and colossal downfall. Sure, they’re cheesy and bombastic, but I’m a sucker for a sweeping melody.

8. I fondly wish that Clinton Kelly of “What Not To Wear” was both straight and my boyfriend. But then, who doesn’t, really?

I hope you feel enriched by this newfound knowledge.

Cheers,
Susie