I was a weird kid

Hiiii Friends! I'm back! I missed you while I was off chasing cancelled planes and trains, gawking at the flooding and otherwise gallivanting through Michigan, my great love. I know on Mondays we talk about our weekend, but I'm not quite ready to. This weekend embodied the proverbial phrase, "a lot to chew on." I was hoping the weekend would give me a sense of clarity, a "yes, you belong here, proceed with Plan A" feeling, but somewhere between three missed planes, a train, and two cab rides to the middle of nowhere...I think I lost any ability I would have had to hear that message in my exhaustion and impatience.

So. New topic for today. I was a weird kid.

1. I ate butter. By the spoonful. 

2. I was obsessed with all miniature food. My father, loving, loving man that he was would make miniature pancakes. I was also obsessed with miniature toys. My friends and I spent hours and hours and hours of our life trying to craft miniature beds and clothes and accessories for our miniature stuffed animals.

3. Whenever the phone rang, I would drop whatever I was holding and scream "AH BYE YI YI" until someone picked it up.

4. I don't count like a normal human. Originally, I think I developed my countdown system so that it would make every exciting event seem like it was closer. But then...no one ever corrected me. Here's the "Autumn System" as my family still calls it today. In my countdown system, you can't count the day of and you can't count the day before. Because by the time you're at the day before, your event is practically already there. Plus, logically, if you count by "days" then at the day before, at no point are you 24 hours away from your event--it will always be less than 24 hours away and therefor you can't say you have a day left.

Example.

 If today is Monday, how many days until Friday? 2. That's right. Two. Because you can't count Friday and you can't count Thursday. 

Want an instant way to increase your optimism and joy? Employ the Autumn Method, where there are only two days to Friday.

5. I was every parent's nightmare. I got suspended once in kindergarten for making out with a cute little black boy in the sand box. I remember being incredibly turned off, however, when a few days later we planned a 'play date' and he wrote his address on a PURPLE piece of construction paper with PENCIL. Can you read PENCIL on PURPLE? No. I remember literally thinking "he is so STUPID" and never talking to him again.

6. I was a "pint of sass"...and I never grew out of it. That's right. To this day, I continue to be the sassiest person my family has ever had the misfortune of being related to met.My figure skating coach coined the phrase when I was a mere seven years old. Really, it's his fault. I hated it when he first said it, and the more he said it, the more determined I was to be as sassy as possible just to piss him off. Catch-22?

7. I was a klepto. When I was five, we moved from Detroit to Grand Rapids. I was pretty sad about it, but the part that made me saddest was moving away from my neighbor friend who had the world's cutest shirt that I was obsessed with borrowing. It had pink and black stripes and three pink heart buttons at the neck. I borrowed it at least once a week. I remember, very intentionally, the day before we moved asking to borrow it. She said, "aren't you moving?" and I said "Oh, not for like another week or two." Twelve hours later, the bitterness of moving was soothed by the sweet success of having my favorite shirt safely packed away.

I'll look for a better baby picture when I get home, but for now...enjoy this awful, awkward high school photo of myself. Why I thought this was a hawt pose, I'll never know. And yes, I used to dye my hair red.