Ehem, me-me-me-meeeee

I've been tagged by the lovely MLE for a little meme. The rule is that I have to list 5 Secrets About Me that I haven't previously revealed on the blog.

1. Well, the first one is going to be the easiest: my name. I'm a Jenifer. Now you know why I use an alias. Although mine is spelled differently, I am still one of the bazillion "Jennifers" that were born in the 70s. I still have flashbacks about always having to be "Jenifer K." in school. For this reason, I also don't respond to my name in public since it's almost never meant for me.
2. Along those same lines, I've always been more of a "Jen" than a "Jenny". And no, Jenny is not named after me...well not really...we named her after my uncle's puppy (we thought it was a cute name despite the funny looks we knew we were bound to get), which turned out to have been named by my grandma, after me. Oh well.
3. When I was a kid, I couldn't eat a hamburger without it "exploding" as my mom always said. I would eat about 2 bites, then pull off the buns, wipe off the condiments on the wrapper, then eat the patty. Gross, huh?
4. I submitted an essay to Cast-On last season and Brenda accepted it. She even had me record it, which I did in my brother's nifty recording booth. But, she ended up not being able to fit it into any of the episodes. The good thing is that because of all the submissions she received for the "sense of place" theme, she decided to make it a regular part of her show, so it may still turn up yet. I never mentioned it, because somehow, I knew something like that was going to happen. Stuff like that always happens to me.
5. I'm extremely competitive, which I combat by not being competitive at all. I've never liked how I feel when I get competitive (all tied up and crazy), so whenever something comes up, I do all this "talking myself down" stuff so that I'll be ok if I don't win. It's still always an effort, though.

I've also been meaning to answer the 6 weird things about me meme for, well, forever. So, while I'm at it, here it goes:

1. I have a thing about using appropriate sized paper clips for the task at hand. Nothing bugs me more than a large binder clip being used to hold 4 sheets of paper together.
2. When I close my locker door at the gym, I always have to open it back up to check that it is in fact my locker before I lock it. Why? I'm paranoid that somehow I am going to lock the wrong one and my stuff won't be locked up.
3. I can't help but take it a little personally when the air freshener in our public office bathroom goes off when I'm in there. I know it's automatic, but sheesh, is it me?
4. I can't go to bed with dirty feet. I shower in the morning, but if I wear sandals or go barefoot during the day, I have to wash my feet before I go to bed.
5. I NEVER flip ahead in my calendar to see what the next month's (or day's) picture is going to be. I think it's fun to be surprised. So, imagine my shock and horror when B sat and read his entire "You know you're a red neck-a-day" calendar that he got for Christmas.
6. Now, I don't know if this is really something "weird" or just something I do, but I'm a bright side of life kind of person, so whenever someone tells me something bad that's going on, I can't help but respond with "At least, [insert random positive thought/outlook, no matter how ridiculous or far-fetched here]. I'm sure this makes me super popular at pity parties.

Well, that's it for me. I think you probably know more than you ever cared to. Please feel free to snag either meme, although I'm pretty sure I'm one of the last to answer the weird things one.