In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Far From Normal.”

At last, a WordPress prompt that I think is interesting. Not happy with today’s prompt I kept clicking through “try another prompt” and getting progressively annoyed at their lack of sophistication. I’m a serious writer after all… 😉

This particular one invites the prompt-seeker to write about six things about them that are odd, or something like that. Like most people I love talking about myself, as I am the most interesting person I know! I am different, just like everyone else. So here are some of my different-nesses, in no particular order.

1. I love making up words, like “different-nesses” because sometimes conventional words just aren’t descriptive enough to convey what I want to. Or else, to convey what I want I have to say a long sentence. So making up a word is a gestaldt of a whole lot of things that are descriptive of the whole thing. My sister, brother and cousins got into the habit of meshing English and Portuguese words. It’s hilarious and only we know what we’re talking about. It’s our own language.
2. Reading is my favourite hobby, blogging and writing my second favourite. My dream is to make a living writing books. Being a book editor is second best. To spend my days around books and make money from that…what bliss that would be.
3. I’m watching all ten seasons of The X-Files all over again. Anyone else doing this too?
4. I learnt to swim when I was fourteen years old.  I was afraid of water until then. What made me conquer my fear of water? An even greater fear! Mrs Groenewald, affectionately known as Groenie to all her students. She was the physical education teacher, and was built like a shotput athetle. She had a booming voice and when she said “Get into the pool or else I will throw you in! I have no time for your whining!”, guess what I did? I got into the pool! She did teach me how to swim though, within a month, much to my surprise, I was doing the backstroke and freestyle. She was a very controversial character and drove a mustard yellow Mazda 323, in those days it had just come out. Years later, as a university student, I went back to the school to get some references, and Groenie welcomed me like a peer. She was full of surprises. A few years later she was murdered, no one has been caught for that, and I’m not familiar with the circumstances of the crime. So sad.
5. I don’t believe in bucket lists. It seems so final. Like a race to the finish. I prefer to travel to some place different each year. That’s good enough for me. I don’t want to keep a tally or make it a competition. That would be too stressful. Life is about the journey not the destination and I want to enjoy the journey because who knows what things I will encounter and learn on the way. That’s more exciting.
6. My feet get cold summer and winter so I sleep with socks on summer and winter.

So there you have it. Far from normal?