I like to revisit favourite movie scenes. I’ve seen “Manhattan is flooding” from The Day After Tomorrow so many times I can recite the dialogue verbatim. Seeing Aliens break through the barricades on LV-426 is always a pick me up.

I drop in on favoured scenes from books, too. As with movies, there are specific books I prefer to revisit. Much depends on my mood. I know already which book will make me feel what thing. Some have been revisited so often, they flop open to the desired page as soon as they’re pulled from the shelves.

Ever have a Magnum Ice Cream Bar? They’re the bomb. Chocolate or some other topping coats an ice cream bar on a stick. I get Double Caramel. Two layers of frozen chocolate with caramel in between. There’s just one problem. I don’t really like ice cream on a stick. The wood touching my teeth makes me shudder. I do, however, like the coating. I eat the chocolate and caramel off and chuck the rest. I’ve done it since I was a kid. I want the topping, not the insides.

It’s not unlike the bread thing.

I like bread crust. Not boring crust from plastic bag bread. I want good bread. With good crust. A nice hearty sourdough. A good loaf of French bread. I love grabbing some from the bakery first thing when it’s fresh. What I want, however, is not the bread, but the crust. Crust is delicious. I peel away the bread guts (I save them to toast with butter later), heat the crust in the toaster or microwave, add butter and garlic salt, and boom! Bliss.

I eat oranges like apples. I peel off the skin while keeping as much of the pith intact as possible and munch away. I don’t separate it into sections; I eat it in the round. I eat kiwis that way too, skin and all. It makes my children cringe.

Various shelves in my house are littered with stuffed animals. There may or may not also be a bin. I love stuffies; I find them appealing. I try not to touch them when I’m shopping; I avoid all eye contact. If I look, I touch and if I touch, I buy. I worry they’ll feel rejected if I withdraw my attention. Once home, they can’t sit by themselves. I worry they’ll get lonely. All stuffies must be in pairs or better. I know stuffies don’t really have feelings. It’s just a thing.

I used to wonder about this stuff. I was concerned about my normality. I wondered about my quirks and what they meant.

Does watching movie snippets indicate ADD? Does delighting in epic disasters make me a sociopath? Does arranging stuffed animals in layouts meant to stave off loneliness mean I’m a lunatic?

That’s the problem with having a mental illness. You start to see everything through that lens. Everything becomes potentially neurotic. Everything is potentially pathological. It leads to a lot of navel-gazing.  

But, as Sigmund Freud probably didn’t say: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.  

Perhaps I like what I like simply because I like it. Perhaps some part of me doesn’t care about normal.

I may do some odd things. Or, it could be that the things I do are as common as dirt. It doesn’t matter. Having neuroses doesn’t mean everything is neurotic and quirks don’t have to be a problem.

After all, it’s our differences that make life interesting. We’re all odd and quirky in some way or another.

“Normal” is like “perfect”. It’s over-rated.

What are your odd and secret quirks?