As I'm getting older, I'm coming

to these very strange yet "self realizations". They're happening to me every day in the past month. I go through this every few years about something. For awhile, it was clichés. I never realized that I didn't understand clichés until they really started to make sense to me, like lyrics of some deep and applicable song.

As meaningless as these "realizations" are, sometimes when I think of them and understand myself better, I actually get chills. (Not all of them. Just some). Anyway, here's a collection of my (often shallow) realizations that are consuming me lately.

1. I only like peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches when the peanut butter and jelly are spread to the very end of the bread.

2. I do everything in a hard way. Even drinking water. I gulp very hard.

3. I can't stand high ceilings with hardwood floors. I like my environment to be cozy and minimal in design. This is because I feel overstimulated by life and want to feel peaceful where I live.

4. I don't think Woody Allen is funny. Hannah and her Sisters is an entertaining movie but I didn't laugh out loud...once.

5. I have this weird resistance to putting food away. I will do everything else (clean the kitchen etc.) but I don't want to actually condense and put the food away.

6. In the same way, I resist actually sweeping the dirt into the dustpan and there are often little piles of dirt in the kitchen.

7. I like "Women's Literature". I never thought I'd be one of those people, but I am.

8. For music, I like songs with repetition.

9. I never liked the Muppets as a child. And even now, I still don't.

10. There's something about eggs that makes me feel physically sick. Especially sunny side up or overeasy eggs.

11. If I ever talk out loud to myself, I am recounting something I'm worried about either saying "Maybe I did handle that wrong"or "Why aren't you coming over" (as if to the person). This very disturbing quality happens in the morning when I'm groggy.

12. I enjoy "getting work" like a drug rush. When I get hired for something I feel like I've caught a fish. Getting paid and doing the work is not nearly as exciting. In fact, as soon as I get work, I feel an immediate rush that goes away in about 5 seconds. It's like drugs.

13. Copywriting is like math to me -- specifically, it's like a proof.

14. Being "emotional" is a choice for me. I can let myself go or I can hold it in. I feel this side of me is almost more male than female.

15. When I give to people, they are grateful but resentful (this is a brand new one). People don't actually like people that help them or give to them. It makes for an immediate target if anything goes wrong.

16. I dream about strange behavior in people I know or think I know often. My dreams are never that creative. I.E. Last night, I drempt my cousin J held me up at gunpoint.

17. I get amazing ideas for paintings right before I'm about to fall asleep and from the window of a plane.

18. I have no pickiness when it comes to TV viewing and will watch anything except for sitcoms (which offer no satisfaction for me). I realized I particularly like shows where their trying to find a killer (Law & Order is my favorite) or teenage kind of shows (Evergreen is a really good show). But honestly, anything that's not non-fiction will do.

19. I don't really have to drive anymore because Mike always drives and I don't absorb location because of it. I never know how to get anywhere because I tune out.

20. This is weird. Every OTHER day I'm productive. The following day, I do nothing. It's very weird.