Those Creative Types

jLo wrote an hilarious blog post responding to Ovagirl’s meme “Six Quirky Things About Me.”  She has asked others to respond and so I thought, well, it’s been a very long time since I had an idea about what to post on this blog, so why not?

Well.  The obvious proviso is that this cannot be as funny as jLo’s because she is by nature, funnier than me. And also, frankly, she has excellent quirky material.  

1. The Gattaca Approach to Housework

As jLo started her post with a quirky thing which I noticed about her, it’s only right that I start this post with one that I almost exclusively engage in when talking to her via skype.

Some time ago, jLo and I were revelling in our newfound voIP capabilities.  We were making the customary remarks about, oh, how crystal clear it was, hey, I can hear an ambulance drive past in London.  That sort of thing.  

jLo: Hey.  What’s that sound?

Me: What sound?

jLo: The clicking noise.  It’s sort of, swish, swish, click.  Can’t you hear it?

Me: (Pause.)  Is it the line, do you think?

jLo: Hmm.  It might be.

(Conversation continues.)

jLo: Hey! There it is again!

Me: (Click, swish, click).  What?

jLo: Come on!  It’s coming from your end!

Me: (Pause). It’s the sound of my paintbrush.

jLo: You’re painting while you talk to me?

Me: No.  I’m - cleaning my keyboard.

jLo: You’re what?

Me: It’s one of those small paintbrushes.  Not like for housepainting.  You know, the little ones, for fine art work.

jLo: –

Me: My keyboard gets really dirty!
jLo: –

Me: Like Ethan Hawke in Gattaca.  I like my workstation to be pristine.

jLo: Why? In case the feds find out you’re keeping Jude Law in a back room supplying you with urine?

Me: You didn’t have to say that.  

2. Starving children in Ethiopia

This one is not so much a quirk as an individual example of the greed and gluttony that is rampant in the West.  I could blame my mum for always making me clean my plate of my food before leaving the table, but it’s not really about her.  It’s about me, being unable to start a tub of ice cream, no matter the size, flavour or general position on the sick-making scale, without also finishing it on the same day.  The same goes for a block of chocolate.  I’ve tried different tactics for trying to make it last for more than a day - even a week, that would be something.  So far the best approach I have come up with to reduce my unnecessary calorie loading is - buy smaller tubs.  

3. My favourite sub-atomic particle

I have a thing for astrophysics and quantum mechanics.  I used to want to be an astrophysicist until I met an astronomer so disillusioned by his inability to make a dint in the ultimate understanding of the Universe that he convinced me a room full of budding nerds that we were better off keeping herb gardens and keeping our eyes fixed on the ground.  Nevertheless, I persist in reading popular science books with names like “Black Holes and The Universe,” “Physics and Philosophy,” and “The Book of Nothing.”  I enjoy having my mind bent in upon itself, and I like feeling like I understand something that is, by nature, incomprehensible to human beings, even for a fleeting moment.  I have read enough to have decided that my favourite sub-atomic particle is the neutrino, because they are small, apparently do nothing, but just by existing, have something to do with the overall balance of the Universe.  I guess I feel like we have a few things in common.

4. Speaking of balance

Dr Maz and I both do this.  If we are going for a walk, we have to find something to walk to and then come back.  You can’t just walk along the beach, and stop and turn around.  That would feel impossibly weird.  When we walk together, we don’t have to justify it; we don’t even talk about it.  We just both head straight for the yellow flag, go around it, and head home, and the world has been saved from sliding off into anarchy and craziness yet again. 

5. Jackie and Ed’s Movie Show

I have the Editor to thank for this insight.  He and I did some hard-core film festival attending a couple of years ago, when I lived in Melbourne.  We would review the films we had seen to each other afterwards.  It was then that The Editor first told me that I review films in a singularly thematic way, skipping all the actual detail.  When he pointed that out to me I realised with horror how wanky my film reviews are and I tried for a while to modify them, but despite my good intentions, I’m still a hopelessly abstract movie-reviewer.  Ed, you should know better than to ask me by now!

Here’s an example of the kind of phone conversation we might have:

Me: So what was “Lars and the Real Girl” about?

The Editor: About this guy who buys a plastic blow-up doll, and turns it into his girlfriend.  And then his brother and sister-in-law take him to the doctor, and the doctor becomes his therapist.  And then…(etc).  So, what about “No Country for Old Men?”

Me: It was about the amorality of god and how that plays out in a deterministic fashion in every man’s life, and how these lives interact to create the unavoidable chain of causation that makes up the world we live in.

The Editor: Ah-huh.  So, but what was it actually about?

6. Rinsing

This is not so much a quirk as a bad habit.  Everyone I know rinses the dishes after they wash up.  For a long time, I really didn’t see the point.  Are a few suds really going to harm you?  I remember at a writer’s retreat, there were four of us sitting around and, not wanting to talk for one more minute about our attempts at writing, my friend Ro asked, “How do you guys wash up?”  Tom looked like he wanted to laugh at the question, but Ro looked very serious, and I could relate: everyone wants to know if they’re normal.

Cate answered her first, describing the fairly standard Aussie approach of filling the sink with suds and water, washing, and rinsing afterwards.  Tom piped in when he realised it was a real topic of conversation, saying that sometimes he might wash the “Asian” way without the sinkplug, tossing water from one dish to the next and occasionally adding fresh water.  

When it was my turn, I nodded and said, “I do it like that, too.  Like both of them.”  I didn’t mention my failure to rinse, not wanting them to look at me like I was causing my future children’s deformity by all the detergent I was ingesting.  Nowadays I eat organic food and I use smelly, non-chemical soaps, washing powder and even toothpaste (when I can find one that doesn’t look too gross), and I do the dishes the “Asian way” to save water.  I rinse very thoroughly, when I think anyone is watching.

 

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