My new name is "Quirky Q. McQuirkster".

It's been a while since I swiped a blog-meme thing from Michelle, so here's a new one: we're supposed to list five of our personal idiosyncrasies. OK, then. (Here's Michelle's post.)

Now, there are some habits that might strike the casual observer as idiosyncrasies, but are really quite easily explained. For instance, a non-classical music lover -- or a person who likes it but isn't really into it -- might think it weird that no fewer than six different recordings of the Berlioz Symphonie fantastique grace my collection, and two different Lohengrins, and a handful of Beethoven Sevenths and Ninths, and so on. But to people in the know, this is not only not unusual, it's expected: in fact, if I did not have multiple recordings of various works (not always all of them; gotta prioritize, money being what it is), it would be a substantial checkmark against my Classical Music streetcred.

And in Buffalo, it's more of an idiosyncrasy to not have some piece of autographed Buffalo Bills memorabilia than to own one. (I have a baseball cap signed by former Bills kicker Steve Christie.) Anyway, here are my five:

:: Like Michelle, I too count steps on nearly every staircase I encounter. I don't think this is terribly odd, really -- in fact, it comes in pretty useful sometimes to know that the stairs in my apartment building hallway number thirteen. Believe me, when you're carrying something large and heavy and you can't look down to see what your feet are descending upon, stair-counting is of immense use.

:: Whenever I eat chicken wings, I usually consume the "drumsticks" first, leaving the "forearms" for last. This isn't ironclad, really, but I never finish up with a drumstick: I leave at least one forearm for the very last one. What's weird is that I used to do the exact opposite, leaving the drumsticks for last. Why, I don't know, since I'm honestly not sure which portion generally contains more meat. (As a sub-quirk, I use an entire mature Ponderosa Pine's worth of napkins in the course of a meal of chicken wings.)

:: I have to peel oranges by using a knife to cut through the peel in quarters and then remove the cut peel. I hate doing it in any other way, and I especially hate digging into the flesh with my nails to get the peeling started. That leaves chunks of orange peel under my nails, which drives me crazy.

:: Sticking with food: when eating pancakes or waffles, if a large pool of syrup is not still on the plate after I've consumed the final bite, I haven't used enough syrup. Pancakes and waffles are, to me, little more than a Maple Syrup Delivery System.

:: Last one, and the obvious one, I suppose, given my photos here: if the daily temperatures are in the mid-60s or lower, and I'm not either working, in church, or in any other situation requiring Wrinkle-Free Dockers, I'm wearing overalls. I think that counts as a quirk, since I never see them on any other men outside of the livestock pavilions at the Erie County Fair.

That's me: I'm just a weirdo. How about all of you people?