Quirky? Who, me?

I was recently tagged by my good friend Jenn to post about my top three quirks, and Brent's top three quirks. I have to admit that I once thought myself quirky, until I met Brent. I am positively normal and bland vanilla compared to Brent. It will be hard to limit the list to only three. :)

Brent's Top 3 Quirks:

1. His penchant for learning vast amounts of relatively useless trivia. For example, he can quote Pi to 320 decimal places. He actually tells people that he memorized it to 314 decimal places, because that is even quirkier, but he memorized it in sets of ten, so really he knows 320. I don't know why he wasted time on this feat except to get the best of his brother who memorized 100 digits or so. That, and he had nothing better to do with his free time before he met me. He admitted this about himself on our second date, but I was already smitten, so it was too late to scare me off.

2. His penchant for collecting useless stuff. He collects coins, poker chips, baccarat chips, Old Spaghetti Factory glasses, backgammon doubling cubes, multiple and various editions of Monopoly, and various pirate paraphernalia. I refuse to go into further detail other than to victoriously declare that the pirate table no longer lives in my dining room. Unfortunately the skulls still adorn the shelves and walls. :(

3. His tendency to dominate a conversation. He often loses sight of who his audience is and he gets technical as he explains things. It's like he's at a compliance officer's party and he forgot that you were invited, rarely letting you get a word in edgewise, ask a question, or change the subject. I think it's because of his extremely high IQ. Mensans are always a little odd like that. :) Also, he unwittingly interjects the phrase "you know" between every two or three sentences.

Having written the above, let me declare that my husband is brilliant, kind, loving, hard-working, and dead sexy. I am madly in love with him, despite his idiosyncrasies.

Maren's Top 3 Quirks:

I thought it was only fair to get Brent's input on this, since I wrote about his quirks without consulting him. I don't agree with his assessment of my quirks, but whatever.

1. My ability to potently relive the past. When I share a memory with Brent I get emotional, as if I were going through it for the first time right in front of him. For example, I will tell him about how much I adore my brother Matt and how great he is (now), but when I see a picture of the little boy Matt I begin to cry as I remember how he tortured me as a child and my helplessness and powerlessness against him. It all comes rushing back and I can't help myself from reliving the emotions, even though they no longer exist for me.

2. My voracious reading. Brent apparently thinks it is quite rare for someone to read as much as I do. If so, then that is just sad. What do people do if they don't read? I can understand finding other avenues for entertainment, but what do you do for information? Where do you learn about whatever it is that interests you? Do people just remain in ignorance about the world? Reading is such a wonderful exchange of ideas between author and reader. Reading is a hundred times more interesting and entertaining than watching a movie, because so much more can happen in a book and your imagination can illustrate it so much better than an action sequence on the big screen. But whatever. To each his own. (I admit, however, that it is rather quirky to re-read the same book over and over, like I enjoy doing.)

3. My tendency to speak in hyperbole. I mostly do this when describing something negative. I often feel like whomever I'm speaking to just won't GET it, unless I exaggerate. I knew I had this problem as a teenager when my mother pointed it out to me. However, my life is so much better as an adult that I thought I had gotten over this habit. Apparently not, according to Brent.

Now, I'm not sure that those three items count as quirks. So here is my list, without reference to Brent's opinions.

1. I cannot stand to have my eyebrows mussed up. It drives me crazy. It's like petting a cat the wrong way. Ugh. Now, you may think, when does anyone have opportunity to muss up my eyebrows? All I can say is, if it's not something that bothers you, you don't notice how OFTEN it really happens.

2. I talk to myself in the mirror. All the time. Sometimes I interview myself. Sometimes I role play. I can waste hours doing this late at night. It's very therapeutic.

3. I keep secrets. Lots of them. Things that are so lame they shouldn't be kept secret, I keep secret. Things I buy, things I eat, things I read, things I write, things I wear, etc. Now we're not talking about anything embarrassing, incriminating, unpleasant, or kinky. Just normal, balanced, relatively boring stuff. Don't ask me why. I'm just very private. (I've got you wondering now, don't I?)

So if after reading this list, you still want to be my friend, consider yourself tagged. Tell me, what makes you quirky?