You know something is wrong with you when…

• You pour a beer into a glass and your first thought is to take pictures of it rather than drink it.
  
  
• You like staying up late… and getting up early… and don’t mind (and usually don’t even feel) the sleep deprivation.
  
  
• You even get up before sunrise on a Saturday just to take pictures. Three Saturdays in a row.
  
  
• You don’t feel guilty ignoring “No Trespassing” signs on abandoned property for a photo.
  
  
• You cut the end off your toothpaste tube to clean it out rather than just throw it away and buy a new tube of toothpaste. You even do this with the trial size toothpaste tubes.
  
  
• You convince yourself you’re saving valuable pennies and avoiding the headaches of shopping by doing so, but then shamelessly blow $900 on a new camera.
  
  
• You pick litter off the beach or grass or sidewalk. Just because you’re inspired when a friend is doing it.
  
  
• You like to donate blood. Every 60 days.
  
  
• You get extremely excited over providentially running into an almost-stranger for the third time in a month, and there is no romantic feeling provoking the excitement, but your friends give you suspicious looks anyway because what else would cause such giddiness??
  
  
• Your excitement grows exponentially the more people you tell about this providential run-in, even though their eyes glaze over and they mumble things like “huh...” in response.
  
  
• You think plaid pants on guys can be sexy.
  
  
• You’ll tell people that you think so.
  
  
• You look for excuses and occasions to wear argyle socks.
  
  
• You’re left-handed but play every sport as though you were right-handed.
  
  
• You actually like the graveyard shift when driving.
  
  
• You do geometrical math proofs in your head while you drive.
  
  
• You also take pictures while you drive.
  
  
• You’d rather undergo physical pain, like burning your hand by catching a falling hot waffle iron, than be slightly embarrassed by having the waffle batter pour all over the floor.
  
  
• You find that alcohol has no effect on you before 4 drinks, but a couple of pixy stix will make others think you’re drunk.
  
  
• You enjoy sleeping on floors, and don’t mind living without a bed for weeks or months at a time.
  
  
• You find fasts from T.V. and music and food are positive and productive experiences.
  
  
• You actually enjoy hanging out with former high school teachers.
  
  
• You don’t like wearing gloves when you do yard work. Even when you start bleeding from thorn pricks and scratches.
  
  
• You like to pick dirt out of the soles of your sneakers with a toothpick or a Swiss army knife.
  
  
• You find yourself writing essays on such things as the constitution of ice cubes and having opinionated stances on such trivialities.
  
  
• You long for the time when writing an essay on quantum mechanics was your homework.
  
  
• Your friends and family give you weird looks because sometimes you can’t stop smiling to yourself or will randomly start laughing even though nothing external provokes it.
  
  
• You find that something as simple as a bumper sticker, a sweatshirt logo, star-gazing, or a photograph will make you cry but you are dried eyed and nearly unperturbed by physical pain, depressing news stories, road kill, and gaping, bleeding knee wounds.
  
  
• You ignore people who tell you that your hair is light brown and insist it is dark blonde with no legitimate reason for this preference.
  
  
• You hate shopping and malls and consumerism and materialism but you own at least 20 pairs of shoes.
  
  
• You realize that living in 7 states and 8 towns in your lifetime doesn’t seem like a lot, that driving 12 hours through the night alone doesn’t bother you, or sleeping in bus stations while backpacking in Europe was not a big deal, or forcing yourself to sprint 2000 meters on an erg for competition was gratifying in the end even though you felt ill, that moving to another state for college was exciting, that losing your traveling companion while hiking in the middle of Yosemite National Park and hiking an extra two hours by yourself was a good challenge, and living in an apartment by yourself was perhaps mildly unpleasant, but moving to another state by yourself now scares the living daylights out of you.
  

(So this makes me... a photographic fiend, an extreme penny-pincher, a hypocrite, a stoic, an emotional train-wreck, a geek, a road hazard, a criminal, a dependant, an ascetic, backward, confused, stubborn, paranormal, pathological, an intermittent good Samaritan, and I still haven't even mentioned a sinner and a recovering Pharisee... So I’m just plain quirky among many other, possibly contradictory, things. Which actually might be normal...)