Tagged by Jennifer

I'm at the end of my blogging rope here, as I know very few bloggers other than the one who tagged me.  The challenge is to reveal ten weird habits or odd things or little known facts about myself.  The first six people who read this blog get to do the same (not counting Jennifer, since there are no tags-back).

1) I've had nightmares and night terrors since I was three years old.  As a kid, I would wake up, scared $h!t-less, turn on my closet light, and play quietly until morning came, too shaken up to even attempt further sleep.  Every now and then, I still wake up shaking, but adulthood has dimmed... whatever it is that's been going on with me all this time.

2) I become physically ill when I get angry.  It gets a lot easier to be easygoing if you know you'll give yourself a migraine or end up throwing up if you don't let things roll off you.  (Gosh, do I sound well-adjusted so far?)

3) I am a Socratic Taoist - and yes, I made that up, but I had to because nothing else seemed to fit.  I apply Western Dualistic Philosophy to Eastern Mysticism about the unknowable world.  Basically, I believe only people - specifically individuals - can be changed.  I am responsible for everyone I touch, or can touch.  If I let you do something that we both know will bring you to harm, I have failed us both.  It leads me to be nosy, argumentative, and judgmental... concerned, open-minded, and compassionate.  As for how I arrived at this world-view / faith / belief....

4) My father was Catholic and my mother Lutheran.  I was raised Lutheran.  After their divorce, my father became Baptist, while my mother traveled through Unitarianism to arrive at some... Southern Charismatic thingy.  I have been Lutheran, Atheist, Agnostic, Gnostic, Pagan, Wiccan, and several flavors of non-practicing before arriving where I am now: relatively happy, fairly centered, and as "at peace" as someone of my complex temperament can hope to be.

5) I still go to Christian Bible classes and prayer groups every once in a while.  I've even been mistaken for a biblical scholar, a life-counselor, or a philosopher a time or two.  And no, I don't do it to "twist Bible-Thumper's tail".  If what I believe cannot stand the company of other faiths, I have to find something else.  I've been pretty good lately, and maybe even helped a few people along the way.

6) My hands and feet are the only parts of me that aren't functionally hyper-mobile.  However, I've dislocated fingers and squished them back into place, little worse for wear.

7) I believe I was born with some kind of psychic ability or abilities, but they didn't survive my journey into adulthood.  That said, I think most "psychic powers" are hallucinations, delusions, scams, or - most likely - extensions of senses that we haven't been trained (biologically or socially) to make use of, rather than magical or supernatural abilities.

8) In the last few years, I have come to define every woman's attractiveness by how much she resembles my wife.

9) While shopping, walking through public places, or waiting in line, I will pick out people at random and try to come up with a sentence or two that would be a good lead in to a story about them.  Women usually get romance or romantic-comedy type leads, while men usually are described as action movie principals (heroes or villains), but I'll even flip that around if I'm bored enough, or I spot a woman who looks particularly fierce. ;-)

10) I tend to mistake the size of a person's personality for their actual physical dimensions.  Tall, shy people seem shorter than me, while I still feel like I'm looking up at outgoing people.  For the record, most days I still see myself as 5' 7" tall and 110 pounds: small and puny, like my Junior year of high school... and the days I think otherwise aren't necessarily the better times in my life.

As I said at the beginning, I tag the next six non-Jennifers to read this.  What ten things do we not know about you?