6.27.2012

weird jollies

let's talk about weird things that make us happy.

when i was in high school, i would sometimes take a little square of aluminum foil to class in my backpack. when i'd get bored, i would take it out, crumple it up into a ball and then spend several enjoyable minutes smoothing it back out to flat perfection (which was ironically my middle school nickname) with my fingernail or other implements. insta-stress relief.

another one that i love is pulling off the protective plastic film that comes on new things: screens, digital clocks, appliances, whatever. bonus points if you never realized you even had a protective factory film on there and then i come along like 3 months later, spot it, and whoosh it off--leaving a pristine surface beneath.

egg shells. whenever i cook eggs, i take the empty broken shells and wrap them up in some paper towels and then crunch the mess out of them. the sound and the tactile sensation of this is SO PLEASING.

i found a new one a few days ago: efficient lint removal.

my most favorite new shirt, an ombre tiered ruffle tank (from my all-grown-up makeover post) was pilling like crazy. it was generating so many pills that pfiezer was getting nervous about their market share (oh, man. i really just said that).

so many ruined tiers...so many salty tears.

at first, i thought it was because i usually wear a long necklace with this top and maybe the links were snagging it. but even after i reaccessorized in the name of blousal longevity (i'm such a martry, i know) the pilling persisted.

in the name of being a grown up and trying to take care of my belongings, i purchased a lint shaver thing from amazon for $7. i had very little faith since i remembered my mom having one of these when i was little and it never worked (though to be fair, i think i was using it to try to shave my stuffed animals).

it arrived and i laid out the patient on the operating floor. the prognosis was grim: it looked like a thrift store cast off, all fuzzy and sad.

i cranked the little fella up and ran it over the surface of my first tier.

i mean it was a jesus-meets-leper kind of transformation. complete restoration and healing!



the process of slowly canvassing the entire shirt surface and leaving behind a snail-trail of perfection was pure ecstasy.

my shirt was brand new and all the evil linty minions were banished!

of course i had to pull them out and see just how many stowaways had been piggybacking around with me on this ONE SHIRT

i went on a one-woman blitzkrieg against all the pills in our house. the satisfaction i felt from this task can only be described as "borderline OCD."

so spill it: what are the weirdest, most random things that de-stress or strangely please you? let not make this something freaky-naughty, people; i am talking about G-rated random as hell things. plushies can just sit this one out, because that's not what we are looking for. (again, thank you 30 rock for that vocab nugget...never thought i would need to use it in a sentence).

16 comments:

  1. Um,so the other day, I saw a quote that totally defined my life...."I have CDO. It's like OCD, but the letters are all in alphabetical order....as they should be." I laughed for a second, only after proofreading it for gramatical errors :) I like bubble wrap. A lot. I like collecting all the little pieces of pancake that break off the mother ship pancake because they're so soaked in syrup they can't hold on any longer. And then I pile them up and eat them all at the end. Peeling things (fruit, sunburned skin, etc) makes me sooooo happy. Those are a few of my weird things I can think of. Glad I'm not alone!

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    1. mother. ship. pankcake. you=yes! yes....peeling/picking organic things is a secret shamelove of mine too.

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  2. When I was younger, one way I would de-stress was to lay down on the ground, look up, and imagine the ceiling was the floor and the floor the ceiling. Hahaha. I guess this new "perspective" gave my brain something to work on as it looked around. It made the world feel a little magical, too, which is nice to regain sometimes.

    Hmm. I find it really satisfying to floss. I actually LOVE flossing. It just feels so ocdgood to get crap out from between my teeth.

    When I am content and comfortable, or trying to get more content and comfortable, I will start rocking forward and back. It makes me look like a psycho who wasn't hugged enough as a kid, but I'm actually pretty balanced. It's embarrassing when I catch myself doing it or about to do it in public. lawl.

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    1. oh my gosh, are you a genius or something? the ceiling thing is AWESOME. and the rocking....hilarious! im dying

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  3. I remember sitting in church, very carefully separating my gum wrapper. (you know, the foil side from the waxy paper side). Of course I would then proceed to flatten the foil with my thumbnail as you mentioned. So funny to hear of someone else turning to foil for boredom relief.

    Can you share the exact lint/pill remover device you got? I've been afraid of them because somewhere along the way I heard they left holes. But that was probably a super old model. Thanks!

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    1. yes! my grandma would do that too. i could never get it all off in one sheet and it would just rile me up.

      the lint shaver thing is linked to above on amazon. due to the raw edges of my tiers (as designed) some of the raw threads would get sucked up in the holes if i didnt hold the area i was going over flat while i shaved. but it would just pull the thread so i was able to smooth it back, it didnt yank holes in my stuff or anything, which was encouraging since this is one of the more delicate things i wear and was highest risk for getting snarfed down by the shaver.

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  4. Even numbers. The car radio volume and tv volume has to be on an even number! If it's on, let's say 17, I have to turn it up or down 1. My husband will put the tv on an odd number just to drive me nuts. Even numbers make me strangely happy!

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    1. now that is funny. you are kind of like rainman a little bit, huh? the himan brain is a weird place.

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  5. I LOVE taking the protective film off screens! But, I also try reeeeeeeally hard not to at first so it will stay nice. But then I end up picking at the edges until they don't stick anymore, then it's pointless - and ugly - to leave it. And off it comes! Ahhhhhh....
    I'm totally OCD about chapstick. I have to have it with me 24/7/365. If I don't, I suddenly have chapped lips. And while it's in my pocket (right, front, thankyouverymuch!) I pick at the plastic label on it until it comes off. Total stress reliever! I have 21 tubes of chapstick, most of which are different brands because I don't ever know what brand I bought last! I could go on and on...but since this is my first comment on your blog (I think) I won't scare you. this time. :)

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    1. ewwww! the partly off protective film is so nasty! like with the curled corners? give me death over that, please.

      i love your collection of anonymous chappies.

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  6. you can also use a razor to shave sweaters and the like, just be careful not to snag the fabric, especially in knits.

    To pass the time while on camping trips when I was little, I used to get a square of foil, crumple it, and use the back of a spoon to smooth it out. Soulmates? Probably.

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    1. i had read that somewhere, but was too nervous. and honestly, those damn schick quattro blades cost like $4 each anyway so it was almost more worth it to me to have the special guy for $7, ya know?

      soulmates...totally. the back of a spoon is one of my most preferred tools for that.

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  7. dude...cradle cap is the BEST. i didnt happen to mention any of my weird biological ones for fear of being gross. but YES. when jesse or judah get a splinter or having something needing to be squeezed or extracted i will FIGHT for the right to do it. so sick. proof that we are descended from apes?

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  8. I totally get the peeling off protective films--I also have to peel off all stickers from the new things that I buy. Including every. last. piece. of sticky plastic from new cds/dvds. And price stickers from anything I use in the kitchen. I HATE when they leave nasty adhesive that attracts dirt and feels...just...nastily sticky. Yanking price tags off of clothes gives me a weird satisfaction.

    I also have to have clean laundry folded a certain way. (I blame working in retail, especially the LOFT. I spent so many hours refolding the same tables of overpriced sweaters.) I love seeing a huge mountain of jumbled clothes transformed into neat little piles.

    Oh, and we cloth diaper--when I do diaper laundry, I get an OCD high when I get them all folded and put away in ROYGBIV order.

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  9. I have 2 shavers! 1 that plugs into the wall and a battery operated one for the car. I'm a picker of ALL things: fuzz, strings, ear wax, boogers, pimples, peeling sunburned skin, etc. you name it, I'm obsessed. Thankfully Josh embraces and accepts it. Our first load of laundry, he asked how to fold the towels. He knew if he did it the wrong way, I'd unfold them and redo it. Straw paper and gum wrappers get folded the same way when they are emptied. The car is parked a certain way in the garage and the radio, AC, lights are turned down/off before the ignition is off. I could go all night but you get the idea. That pic floating around FB about having a Party for OCD people...I'm the one who'd clean the house rather than participate in the meeting ;)

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  10. A bit late on this one...but my first thought was all of the gross things I do like peeling sunburns, or popping ingrown hairs (disturbingly satisfying). I always enjoyed doing the same thing with foil or gum wrappers in high school! Perhaps my main weird jolly is that I could the letters in a word on my fingers until it ends in an even multiple of 10 (ex. 20, 40). It looks like I am just doing a drum solo in my head....This is much weirder, but I also do the same thing with counting, with my teeth....It is hard to explain but the teeth that can touch their pair (the front 6) I count letters to a word until they end in a multiple of 12. I mentally "jump" over every telephone pole by tapping my foot while driving to Waycross or somewhere else rural (too many straight poles in Atlanta). Last but not least, I memorize poetry and say it in my head, or to Sibby, basically all day long. Let the Rain Man jokes commence!

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