1. I love nachos. Sprinkling cheese on tortilla chips and shoving it in the microwave is not nachos. That's a snack. Nachos are a conglomeration of Mexican foods mixed together and dumped on a plate to be attacked with tortilla chips. I love nachos.
2. I like going to the dentist. I've never had a cavity, so that helps. But there's something I secretly (and I've never admitted this to anyone) like about when my dentist cradles my face to get a good look at my teeth. When I was a kid and he was a younger man, I thought from my upside-down perspective that from the mask up he looked a little like Harrison Ford. He's older now, of course, and I don't know if I'd recognize him mask-less and right side up, but I still feel a little giddy. I haven't been in over a year and I've been dying to go back. I have to figure out my new insurance.
3. I like grumpy men. They can be frustrating at the best of times and downright infuriating at the worst, but I usually get along really well with them. I even got my snarkiest, most infuriating pumpkin head of a professor who made me cry in class my first year to give me a hug at graduation instead of the stiff handshake he normally doles out. Ha! I don't think I'd want to date a grumpy man, though. I just like being friends with them.
4. During one of my early years in college, I spontaneously bought a scented body spray from Bath & Body Works. It was a floral spray, plumeria, which was unusual for me as I tended to stick to the fruitier scents, but something about it captured me. I remember picking it up in the store and sniffing it, as I did all the others. Something about it smelled vaguely familiar, but I wasn't anywhere close to being able to place it. It was like a siren song for the nose. Finally, I just bought the dang thing. Eventually, at some point, my mother saw it and told me that when I was a little girl in Hawaii, I used to pick up plumeria blossoms that had fallen on the sidewalk and carry them around in a little baggie. She told me one day that I was lucky because not every child lived somewhere where they could pick up flowers off the sidewalk. I had looked up at her thoughtfully and said, "I feel sorry for those children." Funny how scent can be ingrained in the memory, even when the circumstances are gone.
5. To me, 82 degrees with a warm wind is the perfect temperature. I can walk outside barefoot and lay in the sun or the shade. I can ride my bike or go for a walk and be just fine. The majority of people around here think I'm nutters. The majority of people around here seem to agree that 82 is way too hot. The majority of people around here look at me like I'm crazy when I'm shivering and they're wearing short sleeves. I think THEY'RE crazy. The 70s are nice, certainly, but not quite right. And I HATE it when they start blasting the AC the moment it reaches 70 degrees. It's too bloody cold!
6. I have composed Pulitzer Prize worthy works in the shower and while driving. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of them.
7. Sometimes I have dreams that are very relevant to real life. On occasion, I've dreamed of events before they've happened or of people before something major happens to them in their lives. I keep a journal of them. Most "relevant" dreams are symbolic of something going on in my life that's been on my mind. The prophetic (so to speak) dreams are very rare, but two in particular stand out. Without going into details of the dreams, I dreamed about the tsunami 3 days before it unexpectedly hit Thailand where my uncle was vacationing, eight years ago. The other was a few months ago - I dreamed about a woman who I can't stand and hadn't thought of for quite a while. In my dream she was much less provocative and far more subdued than I have ever seen her. A couple weeks later her 28 year old son died suddenly of pneumonia. Once or twice a year I'll go through my journal and re-read my entries and see if I have any new retrospective insights on them.