My friend Nadine would often run her eyes over my face and say thoughtfully, “You are so odd.” A hug would follow.

I’ve been thinking about oddities lately, wondering if my students will pick them up, if that’s a positive or negative thing.

I looked down at my work snack, an enormous bag of shelled peanuts which I crack open and inevitably dust myself with peanut dander. This bag is the size of a tire.

In graduate school, everyone carried a water bottle. In terms of carting assorted items around, I am a minimalist. I hate carrying around wallets, purses, bags, and extraneous stuff. I think it says something about the way you approach your life if you’re constantly carrying THINGS. Like, you can’t survive without it or something.

In lieu of a Nalgene, I carried a cup with me. Acquaintences and friends lovingly laughed at my bringing a cup to class. Well, why the hell not? It forces me to finish my water when I have to leave, it’s lighter than a freaking bottle of water, and the water fountain is always available to refill it with new, cool water. A cup! How novel.

I love cleaning my and anyone who will let me windshield wipers at the gas station and take jewelry off so often that I lose earrings and bracelets within weeks of buying them. I buy scrapbook stuff on sale even though I have yet to make a scrapbook, sleep with clothes that I MIGHT put on during the night, and have reoccuring dreams since I was 11 about Michael Meyers. Bad movies are the ones I cannot tear away from and I would die to meet Sylvester Stallone.

I sing scales in the car to improve my voice even though I know I’m way off, write songs about wanting to write books, and self-debate every freaking 4 months if I should spend the extra money for what I really want at the grocery store: Charmin. I never buy it.

An artist once told me, “You’ve got to embrace your weird. That’s key to good art.” Meaning, celebrate your quirks and off-ness.

Celebrate your weird.

Word.