Me? Weird habits? Get the f...

My friend Tosikko challenged me into this meme about five idiosyncratic or weird habits. I enjoyed Tosikko's confessions very much, but I'm not so sure whether I can live up to her expectations. Well, let me see...

1. I can't sleep in the same room with a ticking clock. I have to remove the batteries or take the clock out of the room (and if I can, put it somewhere behind closed doors). I've done this even in a hotel: I sneaked in the middle of the night into the hall and took the batteries out of a ticking clock and tried to hide them. My mother-in-law once said: "You must be pretty difficult to live with." Elina got angry when she heard this.

2. I'm the only living person I've ever heard of who eats sour bamboo shoots. (Others have died.) They smell like a sewer that hasn't been drained for months. If I eat them at home, I'll have to shut the can to keep the smell out of other peoples' noses.

3. Collecting various stuff: I start a new collection six or seven times a year. I've been collecting old handkerchiefs (and, please, don't ask if they are clean or used when I purchase them), old bikes, old photographs of bikes, postcards with architectural items, old porn paperbacks, old T-shirts and ties, preferably from the sixties and seventies, vintage plasticware, stupid children's books (I'll have to write about these later on and post scans), old bookmarks and publishers' and book shops' catalogues, etc. Usually I forget about all of these in a few months' time, but sadly the collections remain. (Except for the old bikes: a friend of mine has them. We managed to purchase some 30 old bicycles before burning out.) I also like to think that I have collections of shirts and jackets. I have to justify them somehow. Lately it seems that I have collections of shoes and men's underwear, too.

4. Even though I've been known to put large amounts of money into books and clothes (and also luxury food), I just can't pay same prices for music. Even a CD that costs 10 euros is too much for me, but I wouldn't hesitate to put the same money into a good T-shirt. Same goes for DVD's. They are way too expensive for me. (But if I find a crappy old VHS with a same movie or some obscure hidden gem for 1,5 euros, I'm game.)

5. I can't stand seeing food thrown away. I finish other peoples' food more likely than throw it away. I've been trying to learn away from this and I didn't nag at Elina the other day when I saw the spaghetti I'd been trying to salvage in the garbage.

(I can easily top Tosikko's reading of narratological theory books in a train. I once tried to finish Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom in a train. I had some 30 pages to go and I thought I could manage it, even though the book is notoriously hard to read. (I don't remember anything about it, except for this anecdote.) Then I met a friend who was headed towards the same place as I was. She was especially talkative and even though I sat the whole trip with Faulkner on my lap, she wouldn't let me read. Then just 15 minutes before the train arrived to Turku or whatever place it was, I had to take a shit and I took the book with me to the toilet! I seem to remember it was winter-time, so it was pretty chilling to sit in there and read Absalom, Absalom...)