Favorite Confessions of a Potentially Crazy Person

I feel that my blog has been too heavy this week. After getting my nightmare off my chest this morning, I decided to save my old Myspace blogs to my computer, and shut the account down. I read as I saved them, and started laughing. Magically, I was better. I thought I would recycle the laughter. Keep in mind that these posts are all over a year old. Enjoy!

Confession #6:
I've chosen a career that forces me to stare at little black dots all day long.

Confession #11:
I have a bizarre sense of humor. Those of you who know me understand what I mean. Those of you who don’t will learn if you keep reading.

Confession #15:
Occasionally, I will spontaneously burst into song. This doesn't mean I spontaneously burst into RANDOM song. It's usually after someone says something that activates my extensive song repertoire. Then, I will just start singing. I can do this up to 20 times a conversation. I think this form of craziness is genetic though. There seems to be no escaping it. All of the Chapmans do it (my dad, his brothers and sisters, and his dad). So if I start singing while I'm talking to you, it's your fault!

Confession #17:
I may try to hide it. I might even try to deny it. But THE BOSSY lives inside of me. I was born bossy. I will die bossy. It's a part of my way too opinionated, just way-too-much-in-general personality. God made me this way. If you have a problem, take it up with him.

Because I know that many people consider bossiness an extremely abrasive characteristic, I do whatever I can to keep The Bossy hidden. When I was a child, I didn't do this so well. The Bossy kept screaming to come out. (What? It was suppressed by The Bigger Bossy living inside of my sister.)

My three favorite games to play when the neighborhood kids would come over were:
1. School -- But I SO had to be the teacher. If anyone made me be the student, I would be a BAD student. But if I was the teacher, you did REAL schoolwork from the workbooks I had saved from school over the years. My friends learned in my classroom. I was a good teacher. I still am. Maybe that's why I've chosen this career.
2. Basketball team -- I'm sure you already know that I was the coach. My team began practice by running a lap around our circular subdivision. Then they did strength exercises. Then they did drills. I was tough. I demanded a lot. My team would have kicked your team's butt.
3. Drill sergeant-- Yes, I was the drill sergeant. DROP DOWN AND GIVE ME 50!!! I was training a battle-worthy army . . . until all of the little neighborhood kids got wise and quit playing with me.
It's a good thing that people like Amber, Torey, Morgan and others like them loved me for me. I was a trip to put up with. Still am.

So, drop down and give me 30! I DARE you to tell me I'm crazy!

Confession # 21:
I have several pet-peeves. This fact goes along with my anal, OCD, bi-polar personality, so it's really no wonder. Some of my pet peeves include ignorant dogmatism, my husband not putting his dishes in the dishwasher after I've already done the rest of the dishes, and people keeping hermit crabs as pets. Can we say, “Animal torture?” One of my biggest pet peeves is the dumb quips Baptists put on their church signs.

ex. Is your pew your lawn chair or your launching pad? --- Are we scientologists?
ex. You can depend on God, but can God depend on you? ----- excuse me while I add . . . . Noooooo . . . . Well, maybe to screw up.
ex. God does not put anything on us we can't handle.---That’s not even true.
ex. Remember the banana. When it got separated from the bunch, it got peeled.—What does that even mean?
ex. Three things necessary for a Christian: Determination, Direction and God—How about Grace, Mercy, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit?
ex. You think it’s hot here? Keep living the wrong way.---How is this even helpful?

What must non-Christians think about these signs? If I didn't know that good people that just don't think put these ridiculous sayings up there, I would stay FAR, FAR away. So, if you are in charge of your church's sign, please don't try to be clever. A Bible verse or an announcement is just fine. Thank you.

Confession #23:
I love my sleep. I must have my sleep. I need 9 hours of sleep per night. I never get that. Oh well. Sometimes it's because I'm too busy; other times it's because of other reasons. When something strange or out of the ordinary occurs during the middle of the night, I get a little tickled. For instance, the night before last, I woke myself up with the hiccups. I tried every trick in the book to stop. I couldn't. When I had managed to wake up both Brandon and the dog from their comas, I couldn't help but be amused. I stayed amused until I fell back asleep . . . still hiccuping.

My best example comes from last summer. Brandon and I were in Florida while my parents were in Orange Beach. We decided to meet them where they were staying, and spend the night with them in order to get up early and go deep-sea fishing. This seemed like a clever idea at the time. I was wrong on so many levels. I had thought we would be staying in a condo, first of all. Wrong! We stayed in a one room hotel with two queen beds. (Having your parents sleeping three feet away will kill any romantic vacation spirit you may have.) Even with my parents sleeping so closely to my husband and I, matters managed to worsen. Daddy began to snore. It started out kind of like a pig's grunt, and then the dynamic expanded into the roar of a freight train. I fell in and out of sleep for about an hour. I caught winks in between Daddy's wall-rattling inhalations and exhalations. Then suddenly, I was awakened by a new sound. It was softer than Daddy's snore. It sounded kind of like a little neighing pony. The neighing settled into a rhythm of hitting the off- beat of each of Daddy's snores. Yes--my mother had turned Daddy's raucous solo into a bizarre duet. No more sleeping in between the snores. I was delirious and confused. My parents never snored like this when I lived with them. Believe me, I could have heard it down the hall (and probably down the street, for that matter). No, it was a new habit. Then I realized it--my parents were getting old, and they had lived so long together, they had subliminally learned to make not-so-beautiful nighttime music together. I began to giggle. I tried to restrain myself. I really tried. But I couldn't any longer---I punched Brandon in the side, woke him up, and said, "Listen to this. It's the craziest thing in the world."

I'm not really sure how long I cackled. I just know that the next morning I felt as if I hadn't slept. And thanks to me, Brandon hadn't slept much either. And we didn't even get to go fishing. But I got one of the greatest laughs of my life that night. Too bad I had to sacrifice sleep for it.

Confession 59:
My stomach is a diva. Its personality is larger than my own. It literally cries out for attention. My stomach embarrasses me all the time. Like me, my stomach enjoys singing, acting, can be quite talkative and has a bad habit of acting up at inappropriate times. One day last semester, my stomach insisted upon singing a very high-pitched "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" throughout my Twentieth Century Music Analysis class. On this particular day, it felt it necessary to deliver its opinion of George Crumb. I told it to shut up, that I personally liked George Crumb, and that I really wished it wouldn’t embarrass me like that in front of Dr. Mobley.

But my stomach committed its worst social crime to date during my psychology test this morning. For some reason, it thought it would be clever to make Godzilla-like laughing noises every time I had trouble with a question. Not only was that a highly inappropriate moment to make any noise at all (others were disturbed while taking their tests), but I was mortified that my stomach would be so rude to me! Of course, it fell completely silent the moment that I exited the classroom . . . . once it didn’t have an audience anymore. Hateful digestive system!