You know those things that make you incredibly anxious, although you aren’t totally sure why? Maybe you don’t. Maybe it’s just me and my awesome trifecta of depression, anxiety, and OCD. Anyway, I sometimes find myself having weird thoughts or reactions to certain information or events. And a lot of times, when I can step outside myself for a minute, it’s funny.

Funny in that “Drop-your-shoulders-sigh-give-half-a-chuckle-and-shake-your-head” kind of way.

It’s like that thing Phil Collins said. S-s-sudio. I don’t care anymore.

I figure that I might as well just start embracing it, you know?

1. I could watch two humans punch each other in the face, but if someone starts yelling at an animal, I kind of want to steal that animal in the middle of the night and love it forever.

Don’t eff with animals. Usually I like them better than people.

Except for the part where I hate cats. I mean cats scare the shit out of me. Have you ever woken up out of a dead sleep thinking someone was watching you and assume it must be ghosts? (No? Just me?) Every time this happens to me, I’m in a place with cats. And it’s always the damn cat staring at me with its glow-in-the-dark eyes. Sorry, cat people.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’ve just seen Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers too many times.

That being said, I would still rescue a cat from someone yelling at or mistreating it.

Or from a tree. But only if an old lady asked me nicely.

2. Sometimes I get my emotions confused when I’m watching sports. Especially baseball. I get really nervous or happy for my team, and twenty seconds later I’m bawling like a three year old whose new toy just got trampled by a gang of wildebeests.

I don’t know why this happens. It just does. The crying, I mean. Not the wildebeests. And I’m not going to lie to you: about 20 minutes ago I started crying while reading an article on ESPN.com. It wasn’t even one of those “club-footed four year old learns to ride a unicyle in the wake of his parents’ death; wins championship” pieces either. It was about Penn State.

Because… you know.

3. Every time I’m going to be in a car for more than an hour, I consider whether or not I should leave a “people to contact in the event of my death” Post-It on my desk.

I’ve already made my sister put some of my friends’ phone numbers into her phone so she could let them know if something really bad happens to me. Next it might be work contacts.

Then again, I guess I could always just turn on my vacation response message so it says something like, “Hi-ya, pal. I’m not around today to take this message. If I don’t return it in a few days time, please assume that I’ve perished. Have a great day!”

4. I go bat-shit crazy when people just never get back to me.

This is because I’m anal retentive about responding to all of my messages when I get them. If I can’t respond immediately, I add them to my to-do list. I’m not kidding. You should see my Gmail inbox with the “Tasks” box open. And probably at least three times a week, someone says “Wow! What a speedy response!”

Right on, bitches. Because I can’t stand having unanswered messages. I develop restless leg syndrome just thinking about it.

In the middle of editing this post, I received a work email with a question. I just answered it immediately. Current time: 2:52 a.m.

I have received three work-related emails in the last four months that say the same thing: “When do you sleep?”

Oh, that’s easy. I don’t sleep.

But it gets worse. … I mean better. When I know that Person A sent Person B a message and Person B never responded and Person A never followed up, my head actually bursts into flames. And it has nothing to do with me.

My heart rate is increasing just thinking about it.

Flames. I kid you not. I caught a beautiful person on fire last week by accident. And now she has to settle for just looking slightly below average like the rest of us (or at least me). Oh, the humanity.

Back to the point: we live in an age with lots of technology. I understand the need to unplug every once in a while, but I’ve never understood just flat-out ignoring someone. That seems extra douchey to me. Other people understand instances in which a person wouldn’t reply. These people are clearly not anxiety-ridden freaks of nature, now are they? No. That’s what I thought.

5. I will only go to church on Saturday nights because that’s the old people service.

And I’m terrified of interacting with my peers.

Also, I hate waking up in the morning. But mostly because I’m terrified of interacting with my peers. This is probably because anytime I open my mouth in a public place, some member of my family (usually one of my siblings) tells me how awkward I am and now I have a complex about it. I can’t control the tone of my voice when I get nervous, so I always sound like the lovechild of Daria and Ben Stein to people who’ve just met me.

And people who make me nervous.

We have only nicked James Cameron’s iceberg, friends. Stay tuned, because Frank finished another book two weeks ago and is just waiting for a chance to record his beautiful face reviewing it.

Care to share any of your weird habits/neuroses?