Thursday, December 07, 2006

It's All Perfectly Normal

DykeWife, currently swamped with the end of the semester, tagged me with a meme. Here are the general guidelines:

"According to the rules...Each player of this game starts with the '6 Weird Things about You.' People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you are tagged' in their comments and tell them to read your blog!

Here are six odd things about ol’ GayProffy:

    1. I don’t eat any type of seafood or fish. If it spends more the 50 percent of its life in water swimming, sitting, or floating, I don’t want to eat it.

    Why is this case? Yeah, yeah, I know seafood is so good. Blah-blah-blah – Not to me, people.

    My current working theory is that I got food poisoning at one point. Growing up in New Mexico didn’t exactly guarantee me the catch of the day. You know what I am sayin'?

    From time to time, I try to eat some fish or seafood to see if I still don’t like it (usually because I am at a dinner party serving seafood and I have no choice). Each time, I realize that it makes me almost gag. It’s visceral. Blech.

    All of that is not necessarily odd, but here is the wonky bit. I make the exception for processed tuna. Then again, I am not convinced it still qualifies as fish by the point it reaches the shelves.


    2. Phone conversations don’t interest me. With the exception of my family or friends who live 500+ miles away, I almost never initiate a phone call.

    Text messaging? Couldn’t live without it.

    E-Mail? The best thing to happen to human communication in the last fifty years.

    Seeing people in person? My preferred way to communicate with people. Let's meet for lunch!

    Something about the phone, though, just seems like so much effort. There’s the dialing, and the ringing, and the actual talking. I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

    When in high school, I remember spending hours on the phone with friends. Well, okay, friend. Somewhere along the way, though, I lost my interest in telephonic conversations. Maybe it has to do with that year in college that I worked as the telephone operator for a hospital.

    3. Secretly, I think less of people who don’t know how to drive a standard-transmission car. Intellectually, I know that such a judgmental stance reflects more about my own arbitrary life experiences.

    Still, I am always sizing people up in case I need a get-away driver. We live in dangerous times. I think that I saw Alberto Gonzáles lurking around my bushes the other day. Or maybe it was a pussy-cat.

    Whatever the case, when shit is going down, I can’t be saddled with somebody asking me, “Why is there a third pedal in this car?” You’ve got know how to handle the stick, man. Preferably, I want somebody with double-clutching action.



    I do make exceptions to this judginess: a) If you never learned to drive any car, ever. Or, b) If you learned to drive in New York or San Francisco – those two cities, and only those two cities, qualify for exemptions.

    4. The gravitas thing.

    5. I am much more likely to pop in a DVD of a television program that went off the air thirty years ago than watch any modern sit-com. Actually, I can’t even think of the last “current” sit-com that I saw. They aren’t making Mary Tyler Moore anymore, are they? I stopped watching that show when she cut her hair. Only long-hair Mary works for me.



    Come to think of it, Ugly Betty might be the only network show that I currently watch with some regularity. Everything else appears on cable, like Battlestar Galactica. Heck, I don’t even watch the new Law and Order. Give me the old days with Jill Hennessy pretending to be Jacqueline Kennedy pretending to be an Assistant District Attorney (at least in my narrative version of the show).

    Of course, watching any film or television program with me also revolves around mocking it and assessing its gender, racial, and political ramifications. At first it’s cute, but most people get really tired of it.

    6. I hate opening gifts in the middle of a crowd. Don’t get me wrong, I like getting gifts. Festive wrapping also makes everything look special. There’s something about being at a party and having gifts opened. Having all eyes turn to somebody unwrapping presents makes me as squeamish as Brittany Spears shopping in a Victoria’s Secret.

    Opening gifts one-on-one is fine by me. Giving and getting a gift seems so intimate to me. Somebody took the time to find an item just for you based on what that they think of you and your relationship. Shouldn’t that be shared in private? Or anonymously? What really makes me uncomfortable is how everybody else at the party secretly scrutinizes your reaction to the package just handed to you. It’s the same reason why orgies just don’t work out for me.


So, there you have it. Is it me, or do my quirks also make me seem kinda cranky? Eh – It figures.

Because I believe in free-choice and personal agency, I won’t specifically tag others. You will know if this meme is the right one for you.

18 comments:

r said...

Oh man, I am so with you on the seafood. I like to say that I don't eat anything that swims in its own excrement.

My father scuba-dived as a hobby, and in the mid-seventies lost his job.

That meant 4-5 nights a week of fish, fish chowder, fish cakes, lobster, scallops, all kinds of horrid things. Like you, every once in a while I'll try something, just to see if my tastes have changed.

They haven't.

My one exception is Mrs. Paul's fish sticks. I don't know if one gram or two of fish product counts though.

Dorian said...

I can't eat sea-food either. I'm not sure why, but apparently I got really bad food poisioning from oysters when I was a kid, so I may just have a bad subconcious association with it. I can't stand talking on the phone either. I can only drive an automatic transmission, much to Pete's disgust. Well, that's not quite true. I can DRIVE a standard transmission, I just can't get it to go again once I bring it to a stop.

Anonymous said...

I hope that during your time on the east coast you begin to appreciate the joy of aquatic protein sources. Just say chowda a few times.

That said, no MTM after long hair? And no choices on TV anymore? Come on, fella, Boston Legal has Betty White, Suzanne Sugarbaker and Shatner, who is the male equivalent of Wonder Woman any day. That show yanks more has-been stars than the Love Boat, without Bernie Kopell or Gopher.

Finally, in response to Rebekah, I'm sorry of Mrs. Paul's fish sticks is the exception in your life. My question is why she hides behind a masculine-dominated name? Why not Sally's Fish Sticks? Or Nancy's? What is Mrs. Paul hiding anyway? Should she be outed?

Doug said...

Hehehehehe, you said "pussy" and "handle the stick."

Yes, I'm immature. ;)

I was gonna ask if you had a "happy" quirk, but #4 kinda rules that out.

vuboq said...

I've met several people who have phone-a-phobia. Personally, I kind of like talking on the phone.

And I don't eat seafood either, but it's a choice (vegetarianism) rather than a revulsion. Except for oysters ... them things are NASTY.

Adam said...

The phone thing must be common amongst academics. Brad is the same way and his colleagues actually dread speaking to one another on the phone as well, I think they even light candles and pray to the id of email. I'm actually quite similar, I'd prefer to text message.

I don't like to open gifts in front of a crowd either.

Anonymous said...

1. I LOVE seafood...all seafood. The last time I went out I even ordered Calimari (octypus) as an appetizer. It was very good.

2. I loathe talking on the phone. You might even say I have a phone-phobia. This has always been the case. Neither do I text message.

3. I can drive a standard.

4. I think I saw an episode or 2 of Mary Tyler Moore years ago, but I've never seen That Girl. (Still love me?)

Anonymous said...

Seafood smacks of cannibalism to me. Also, I think being force-fed fish through Lent is what sent me on my godloathing journey; Mom's tuna noodle casserole would have turned Jesuits into Satan worshippers. But I've learned to like some shellfish and I'm addicted to New England Clam Chowder. Keep trying GayProf, you might find a fish you like.

People who cannot drive a stick are... pathetic. Sorry, but it's true. Though in my old age I've switched to automatic. Why the caveat on NYC and SF?

I don't know if the "phone thing" is exclusive to academics but I'm beginning to wonder if GayProf might be my half brother. Need to have a talk with Dad... who has always avoided communicating telephonically and over the past few years I've become the same way.

GayProf said...

Rebekah and Marsmsu: Oddly, I have a personal connection with the Mrs. Paul's line of food stuffs that I will reveal at some point.

Dorian: It's all about finding the right pressure point to get the car going again. You know, Wildcat would want you to drive a standard.

Doug: I thought that these were the happy quirks.

VUBOQ: Yeah, I respect that your vegetarianism includes seafood. It seems like cheating to say that you are a vegetarian and then chow down on a lobster. That's like saying I am a vegetarian, but still eat pork and chicken.

Adam: The phone thing among academics might be related to all of us being a socially awkward crew. It's kind of a prerequisite for the job.

Cooper:

1. It doesn't bother me if other people eat seafood. Just don't try to convince me of its virtues.

2. Learn to txt mesg.

3. Good boy.

4. Of course I still love you. It just might be the case that you will be strapped to a chair with toothpicks holding your eyes open to watch That Girl. Think of it as the gay[er] version of Clockwork Orange.

Laura Elizabeth: Given how I am slowly morphing into my father the more I age, my paternity can't be doubted.

tornwordo said...

Wow, that phone thing is weird, just like me. I loathe the telephone, loathe it. All of your listed alternatives are superiour.

(rebekah spent 3 years in Japan. imagine the food issues she had. Even their potato chips and desserts have fish in em, lol)

Anonymous said...

I'm not a phonophobe myself, and it's hard for me to understand. Oh well. Isn't rice grown in water over 50% in water? I think the gift thing is difficult. As a giver of a gift, I have a desire to see the other person open it. I'm not quite sure how to reconcile the two because I think it is akward to open a gift in public, just like I hate having Happy Birthday sung to me.

Anonymous said...

It could be just me... but doesn't Alberto Gonzáles have the slightest resemblance to Adm. Bill Adama from Battlestar Galactica?

As for the meme:

1) I could live entirely off of salmon and fatty tuna sushi.

2) I don't do phones well either. My preference would be IMs or text messaging (if it weren't so bloody expensive... but then again, I'm a bit of a cheapskate)

3) I own and drive a standard. But I hate it when I need to drive thru Manhattan. I think my next car will be automatic trans. as I find myself getting lazier as I get older.

4)I vaguely remember watching MTM, but that was only because that was on when I came home from school, right before the "New Scooby Doo Adventures" on channel 5. Today, the only thing I keep paying the cable bill for is the Sci-Fi network.

Anonymous said...

I spent a few hours reading your blog and I think it's one of the best I've found. Even with that Wonder Woman fixation you have.

Roger Owen Green said...

Golly, gee, I WOULD create my own list, but there is absolutely, positively nothing weird about me. But maybe I'll ask my friends.

Anonymous said...

1. I love seafood of all kinds, with the exception of fresh-water bottom feeders and mussels. You're in Boston, now is the time for all good Southwesterners to get in touch with real seafood. Start with a nice clam chowder followed by haddock fish and chips. Fried scallops are one of my favorite things in the whole world.

2. I don't like the telephone either. My friend once told me "You give bad phone." To me it's strictly a utilitarian device, nothing fun about it.

3. I cannot drive a standard, I tried on several occasions but it's a "walk and chew gum" thing. Yes, I know, pathetic.

4. I have no gravitas.

5. I loved Mary Tyler Moore but couldn't force myself to watch an episode now. I love "Ugly Betty" but it seems to be losing its edginess. They should have the character "Walter" get hit by a cement mixer truck.

6. I don't like opening gifts, mostly because I hate being the center of attention and I'm a bad actor. I cannot feign delight or gratitude.

Anonymous said...

OK, who else is playing? this is fun

Anonymous said...

I too won’t eat any seafood. I usually just tell people I’m allergic to avoid the questions. I don’t understand why some people can only drive an automatic. I learned to drive stick on two different cars. One was a 4 speed with an H configuration and the other was a 5 speed – meaning that 1st gear and reverse were in the same positions… I still only buy cars with manual transmissions.

I hate chatting on the phone too. I worked as an operator at a hotel and told myself my dream job was to never talk on the phone. I went into teaching…

For old TV I love my Netflix subscription. Lately I’ve been obsessed with British TV. E.g.the original Office is much better than the US version. Monarch of the Glen, Coupling, and House of Cards are all great shows too. I met Mary Tyler Moore several times working at that hotel. Um, not a pleasant guest…

GayProf said...

Torn: Fish in desserts sounds like a nightmare to me.

Kalvin: Yes, I suppose rice is grown in marshy, wet conditions. I refer only to fauna, though, not flora. Seaweed is fine by me as well.

Seeker: Yeah, SciFi is my main outlet through cable. I also like it for the internet, though.

MadGayHousewife: Admit it: You like my blog because of the Wonder Woman fixation.

ROG: I am sure your wife has a list of your quirks (which I am sure are all very endearing).

Mike: Yeah, I don't understand why Walter is still around. Betty sticking with him seems out of character. The Mexican version, La Fea más Bella, also had a similar clownish character. That was worse for me, though, because that character shared my last name. I took it personally.

Michael: VUBOQ did this meme. Also, DykeWife did as well.

Jason: I also only buy manual transmission. It is an odd point that I make. Not sure why.