reinje's Diaryland Diary

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Can't Get You Outta My Head

Top five things a person can be compulsive about:

1. Cleaning
2. Eating
3. Exercising
4. Practicing
5. Picking your nose

And what about neuroses?

1. Food poisoning
2. Illnesses of various kinds
3. Is the oven off (this one doesn�t actually do anything for me)
4. Paranoia
5. Am I pregnant/not pregnant

Fact-checking:

1. Balancing your checkbook
2. Checking to see that you have not left your banker stranded in the airport at 11:00 pm again because he has no black car service. *
3. Checking and re-checking that you added or cancelled any meetings, reservations,or events that are of earth-shattering significance. *
4. Getting the date right for your Metropolitan Opera audition. **
5. Bringing music to a recital you are playing for. Also clothes, so you are not naked like in your dreams.***

* N.B. You get paid for this

**N.B.E. True story, but a long time ago. And there were no paychecks to lessen the pain.

***N.B.E.E. The first part of this I am not going to get into. The second part (mavenhaven knows what I'm sayin'): I am simply appalled at how often I show up to play a recital two hours late without music, (or with totally inappropriate music such as my third-level Bastien book or some random Xeroxed pages of show tunes/hymns), naked from the waist down or entirely nude.

Regarding the food poisoning: He is a little nonplussed by my occasional questions about food, especially restaurant food. 6 years ago, I wasn�t �one of those picky eaters,� and prided myself on that fact. Some time during graduate school, when I mined the lowest ring of purgatory, thoughts of food-borne illnesses beset me. Since we moved to New York, however, we have been collectively afflicted with ptomaine a grand total of 6 times in a little over a year. The offenders were (in order): calamari, ground beef (that one came from our freezer), oysters, and Chinese food.

While I am not one to gloat, I feel some satisfaction (in spite of the abdominal cramping) that I �predicted� I would suffer six years ago. As my dear and sainted mother used to say, �It�s just the Law of Averages.� Now I know what she meant!

The best part about getting food poisoning is that I don�t have to fear it anymore. When I had never had it, or at least, when I didn�t realize I had had it, I feared it. Now I�ve had it so many times in a row that I could probably conduct all kinds of gastrointestinal experiments without being the worse for wear.

Here are some other random compulsive activities:

1. Counting
2. Reading signs out loud
3. Ear worms (these seem involuntary, though - I had a mini-crisis at the tender age of seven after several days of having a song in my head; I thought I was the only person in the universe who heard songs like that. Remember those days?)
4. Sikj kjleeven (this one�s quite naughty. Tee hee! taipraita?)
5. Not stepping on the cracks, or stepping on them symmetrically. Any symmetrical activity, really.

All right, that�s food for thought. And I�ve NAMED all of you - so tag, you�re it!

This is the song that never ends,

Reinje

12:46 p.m. - 2006-02-01
1 comments

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