Odd

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, there’s a very good chance that you’re Odd. Yes, I spelled that capitalized, because you’re not slightly odd. You’re not odd in the sense you aren’t even (though occasionally you can’t even.) And you’re not odd in the sense that you try to be, or you dress funny to call attention to yourself. You’re just Odd.

Something in you is at fundamental odds with the world. You try to do the same things everyone else does, and they come out different. Sometimes this is good and people look at you in wonder and tell you how creative and amazing you are. Other times they stare at you as though you’d completely lost your mind and ask you why you thought it was a good idea to balance the antique teacup on your head at the formal tea. And you look back and don’t say anything because if you did it would go like this. “The teacup was empty. Everyone was talking about things I don’t care about. I got bored. And then I got past bored to the point where I forgot to watch my body. So it went AWAL. The teacup was in my hands, and my body wondered if it would balance on my head. There was no intervention from my rational mind. It had long since fallen asleep.”

People accuse you of looking at them funny, and you can’t say “I was actually working out Pi as far as I could go in my head.” Or “I was trying to choreograph a space battle to write the next chapter of my epic.” Or “I was wondering what color would look good with salmon and which should go on the walls and which on the ceiling.” Or even “I was just thinking of this movie/book/comic I saw/read and wondering what happens next/why the MC did that.” Whatever is your jam, of course. Instead, you turn red and mumble something about “didn’t even see you” which can backfire super badly.

So, are these the things that make you Odd? No. As I said, Odd is being fundamentally at odds with the world. It’s like everyone else got a manual for how to do this existence thing, and you’re missing it.

It’s very hard to explain, really easy to spot from the outside, if you know what you’re looking for. And science fiction is rife with it. Or was, back when it was the refuge of weirdos and misfits.

Decades ago (I have a feeling it wouldn’t be this way now.) I went to a science fiction conference somewhere in the North East. Afterwards we had a forever wait at the airport. It was a small con and a small airport, but near enough to NYC that a lot of editors had come.

I was sitting there, and got tired of the book I was reading, so I started people watching. And I found I could identify people from the con with unerring accuracy. No, I don’t mean they were wearing t-shirts or carrying books. Some of them were. But even the ones that were NYC editors, in their professional attire and trying to look oh so suave had something that gave them away. (And I don’t remember why but the airport was really crowded and there were all sorts. But our people stuck OUT.) I’d watch them until they pulled out a book, or talked to someone I knew was from the con, with the appearance of great familiarity OR — in two cases — got called to the counter for something and I recognized the names. No, my watching didn’t make them act weird because I have great practice at people watching. More on that later.

Anyway, I can’t explain it, but the way we hold ourselves, the way we move, is different. Autistic? Well, there are things in common, but most of us aren’t that obviously on the spectrum. Though we share some characteristics.

If I had to put it in a brief quip, imprecise as all such quips are, it would be this: We all act like the world is an unwanted distraction from what is going on in our heads at any given time.

This is imperfect, but it’s sort of a guide.

Whatever it is, most kids, Kindergarten or Elementary, at the age when they’re mostly ruled by instinct, see it and sense it. And ooh, boy, they hate it. In retrospect, a lot of adults sense it too. They just don’t know what they’re sensing, and ooh, boy, they hate it too, which explains some very weird and sudden antipathy or outright hostility that seems to come out of nowhere at us. (And which plagues the lives of historical figures I suspect were of us.) I was fortunate in being massive so I was mostly left alone or (merely) laughed at and played underhanded pranks on. It’s worse for the little ones.

As we get older, a lot of us carve niches for ourselves and often end up more functional — if by functional you mean contented and doing something we like — than the rest of the culture, at least now when the culture is incredibly dysfunctional. But it might take us a good while to get there. I think I’m just now reaching some sort of peace with myself. Until then our life experience is of being a square piece repeatedly trying to pound yourself into a round hole. And sometimes ejecting hard enough to bounce across the room.

We tend not to fall for social narratives; social panics; social insanity. We tend to refuse to believe anything we’re told without doing a deep dive ourselves, according to our own inclinations (which means the deep dive can be effective or not.) This comes with bad sides: sometimes we careen from the main stream narrative into a non-mainstream but far crazier narrative. We join cults, come up with weird theories of everything, invent bridges across the ocean made entirely out of soap, spend years chasing some wild hare that turns out to be a bouncy ball. It comes with good sides too: we sometimes stumble, unannounced and often unintended into a a discovery no one else has made, a side door of research or creativity everyone else walked by without looking. And sometimes, rarely but sometimes, it is good.

In real life, we might not be any smarter than anyone else, but we tend to be slightly obsessive. (Or massively obsessive.) We read strange stuff. Not just science fiction. Just weird stuff. If you’re in a room with a hundred people and mention The Man Who Walked Around The Horses, you’ll get 98 blank stairs, a person who says “oh, yeah, that, he disappeared.” And one who says “Actchually it was probably a political assassination disguised as an unexplained event. If you look at the political situation at the time–” Those two are Odd, and the second has never learned to disguise it.

Because most of us learn to disguise it. To some extent. You see, most of us are not rich enough to be eccentric, so we’d just be Weirdos, if we didn’t learn to disguise it. I learned to disguise it a little better than the rest of you, because Portugal has less room for Oddity than the United States. (In fact one of the first reasons I fell in love with the US is that the culture gives you a lot more leeway to be slightly “off.”) It’s a small country, full of people immersed in an hyper-social culture. Everyone lives in everyone else’s pocket. My mom’s kitchen where she did most of her work (yes, she had a workshop. Never mind) had a continuous stream of neighbors dropping by all day and into the night. Why? My guess, they didn’t have anything to occupy them and were bored, so they drifted from friend to friend around the village.

In that type of environment and where everyone talks about everyone else, you learn to disguise. I people watched. A LOT. I remember being little, hidden under a table, watching the adults. You learn expressions and what constitutes conversation. And you start imitating. At some point, probably in school, you realize this stuff comes naturally to those around you, and that you’re still slightly off. So you learn harder. Until you ALMOST pass. ALMOST.

I’ve come to suspect I’m more disquieting because I ALMOST pass, then something creeps in that makes the whole act uncanny valley. Eh. That’s life, right?

There is nothing solid about it, and I’d think we’re just defective monkeys. I mean, there’s a weird correlation to above-normal Neanderthal DNA, but even that isn’t solid.

But then years ago I was talking to Dave Freer who is a biologist, and he explained that yes, every ape band has apes that are like us. Kind of.

He explained that — bear with me — metaphorically speaking and for shortness of explanation, most social animals are sheep: they live for the band, believe with the band, do what the band does. But there’s always some social animals (weirdly even sheep) who behave more like goats. They strike out on their own; try the new path or the new plant; and (if you follow Sama Hoole on twitter, think of Keith) always test the gate or the fence, because who knows what’s on the other side?

In human-ape terms, we’re the goats. The ones who don’t quite fit in, and therefore see things slightly askew, and therefore can see the hole in whatever beautiful dream everyone else is following. If the pied piper is leading our peers away, we’re the ones who can’t even hear the music. We might be following just as dangerous a music, but it’s not the same music. We marsh tot he sound of a different kettle of fish, so to put it.

Dave says that kind of person is essential. Societies without them — there’s no society really without them, but there’s groups that manage to get rid of them — can go down terribly dangerous paths, and there’s no one to scream the cliff ends, or the king is naked, or whatever.

This is why, btw, our First Amendment is just an amazingly good piece of social engineering. Why the censorship around the Covidiocy was a piece of nasty, and why Great Britain should repent and turn back now.

Actually the Covidiocy is a good demonstration of what we’re for. Not that all of us saw the problem with it. We were evenly divided between those on whom propaganda didn’t work at all and those on whom while the propaganda didn’t work, their need to fit in and fear of not convinced them Covid was WAY WORSE than they were told. Those poor souls careened right into insanity and were horribly unpleasant to be around.

BUT some of us were the voices that cried out in the desert and that was important. It seems that when sophisticated psy-ops are applied they shed off our brains like rain. We don’t fall for it. Heck, most of the time we don’t perceive it and can’t figure out why everyone is acting so goofy.

People like us have existed throughout history. You can find us, if you read enough biographies. And no, it had nothing to do with “witches” or witch trials. Oh, it could be deployed against us, sure, like it was deployed against the isolated, the lonely, the poor. I suspect, I mean, that some of us were “real” witches, meaning people who did very nasty things that might or might not have had a peternatural component. For a perspective on this read a book called “The affair of the Poisons” by Anne Sommerset. (This is the link. I get no kickback from it because Amazon is too dumb to distinguish a book on an historical event from one advocating these subjects. SMDH.) But mostly probably not, since these people tended to be adept social manipulators.

It’s more the recluse who did something that no one else could understand. Either the village oddity or the eccentric squire. (And sometimes both.)

Sure, 90% of what we did was design intricate bridges out of soap, to span the Atlantic. BUT sometimes we did the brilliant thing. More often we discovered the small thing everyone thought utterly irrelevant which in turn spurned a true genius to do something completely new and useful.

We’re the square pegs in a world of round holes. But sometimes when the rare square hole appears we’re there. And when all the round holes are on fire, we can scream hard enough the little round pegs don’t get burned. (No. It’s YOUR mind that’s in the gutter.)

We’re sometimes tolerated, sometimes hated. But where we’re tolerated and given leeway as we are, by and large, in America in a way we’re not in most of the world, we can come up with the most innovative things, the most amazing ideas. Now and then. Amid bridges made out of soap.

Look, you’re an Odd. That means you have amazing potential. Sure. Everyone does. But chances are yours is unique and unexplored and strikes out in pathways no one else’s does.

As long as you don’t kill anyone and don’t start any cults, that’s a good thing.

You’re an amazing, bizarre, unique creature, with a different perspective on the world. Don’t beat yourself up for being who you are; for not fitting in.

Sure, do the minimum not to be a source of distraction or fury to the rest of the herd. Ixnay on the pantsonheaday.

But other than that? Cherish who you are. Be aware of your oddities and embrace them. Be glad you see what others don’t; think in strange ways.

Sometimes the rest of the herd needs those of us who don’t fit to tell them when they’re being spooked of the cliff.

It might not be needed in your time, but if it is, you’re there. Be ready.

244 thoughts on “Odd”

  1. I am NOT Odd. I just absorb historical information and other interesting and potentially useful facts about the past and places, and store them for a useful moment, or when someone asks a tangentially related question that could be answered with those data. And have a plague doctor mask behind my classroom desk. And have desk toys in the shape of renaissance buildings from Moravia, and a stuffed dragon in the shape of Tuomas Holopainen beside those, and on the other side of the figure of Death from a Hans Memling altarpiece in Bruges.

    But I’m not Odd. Really.

    Liked by 8 people

      1. Gaussian or at right angles, or ?

        I find mathematics confusing, up until I add a joke to my line up, and then overuse it until everyone is tired of it, with me getting tired last.

        Liked by 2 people

      1. Great. Now I’ve the lyrics to “I’m an Oddity and that’s okay!” manifesting themselves in my head. “I writes all night and I works all day/ on Wednesdays I go shopping and have lots more books to read…”

        Liked by 2 people

    3. I’ve a foot (or paw or set of claws as it were) in both camps. Possible untreated brain damage (head injuries, plural, I has them), lead poisoning, and assorted other things have changed me. I can pass a lot better as normal these days than in my definitely objectively misspent youth.

      While I cannot fathom the things that so-called normies get up to from time to time (mostly the Byzantine drama that rivals a tempestuous child of Jerey Springer and daytime soap operas with bits of Cops! thrown in for good measure), the daytime interaction trends towards the simplified rote response and codified work-talk that encapsulates the human need for social interaction sufficient to make one seem quasi-normal at the very least.

      Books are more interesting than most people, though.

      Liked by 1 person

  2. I started willing to follow the covid guidelines, even to making masks. But between this blog and personal observation, I started thinking, “Wait a minute. I’ve lived through disease outbreaks (twice) and something ain’t right.” Of course, I also came up with a rationalization for the vigorous vaccine exercise done by the Trump administration. (Namely that they knew covid was a test organism, and also knew China had Plague 2.0 teed up, so vaccinated everyone for the latter because telling the public about Plague 2.0 would tell the Chinese we knew and they’d release something else).

    But by 2021 I was mocking our Magical Plexiglass Shields of Protection at work and chanting, “Unclean, unclean,” when they sent us home for being “exposed.”

    It now occurs to me that coming up with the vaccination theory above probably confirms my Oddity. As if it needed confirmation.

    Liked by 4 people

    1. I made masks while knowing they were bogus, considering it a social cost. (Also see: something to do with my hands.) And I did come across people who claimed that going outside was Dangerous For Everybody, even when I mentioned that for the local trails, “busy” meant that I saw groups of people 50-100 feet apart.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. I made triangular masks of cheesecloth edged with lace. Because I wanted to be able to buy groceries WHILE breathing, WITHOUT having a court-martial over it. I had friends who made masks of burlap.

        MaIicious compliance, my friends.

        Liked by 4 people

        1. Until the panic relented enough that I could go maskless without being kicked out of the stores, I took the ubiquitous cheap blue masks and cut out the inner lining so only the porous mesh was left. I could breathe and nobody was the wiser.

          Liked by 2 people

          1. I bought a shemagh and did the whole head-wrap thing, with a slit to look through. Then wore sunglasses.

            I completely rocked the Taliban look.

            Liked by 1 person

      2. I took the ‘rona seriously at first, because Darwin says that’s what you do when someone shouts out a warning.

        As the BS added up–e.g. as Fauci’s “wear masks!” evolved to “waitaminnit, DON’T wear masks cuz Health Care Professionals need them!!” and thence to “don’t go ANYWHERE without your mask!!!” (and, as Phantom points out, “the Mom&Pop must shut down For Your Protection but the BigMart is perfectly safe!”)–I quit worrying. (About the bug itself, anyway; I’m still worried about the New Normal.)

        By the time the “vax” rolled around–“we’ll use a qualitatively new drug tech to make your own body produce one specific version of one specific protein of an RNA virus that mutates faster than Chinese Whispers, what could possibly go wrong, you science-denier, you?”–I was a rock-hard NO, with a capital F.

        After all that, says Darwin, you go back to the beginning, and have a little talk with the ones who were so insistent that you Heed Their Warning.

        Liked by 2 people

      3. same here. The side effects from the initial dose were plenty, thanks. I can’t understand why anyone is still getting boosters. 🤷

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        1. I have tests this week. Two down, one to go. All at River Bend Peace Health.

          At check in, got asked about C symptoms or been exposed in last two weeks. Not once if I’d had a recent booster. (No) Did get asked today if I’d had this year’s flu shot. (No)

          FWIW One hand typing sucks. Especially left-handed, given I’m pathetically right-handed & touch typer.

          Yesterday was chemical stress echo/EKG.

          Today was aortic valve angiogram test (why I can’t use right hand).

          Thursday is die & scan mapping.

          Good news, arm not groin for angiogram. Veins very clean, good veins. Not “normal”, but given 69 years of hit & miss (ouch to nth) blood draws, & finding veins for no medical reason or abuse, not news.

          “Bad” news, severe aortic stenosis. Not maybe now. It is when it is scheduled. This does not even address the AFIB.

          Liked by 3 people

          1. If you just GOTTA have that sort of problem, you could NOT have picked a better time and place: The USA, still in its Golden Age. The Tech is better than it’s ever been, and the politicians haven’t eft it all up yet.

            Prayers up!

            Liked by 3 people

            1. Blushes.

              Thank you, Sarah.

              You all don’t know how much I’d miss everyone here. Also, what’s this “you can’t type for a week?” Then they showed me the motion to ignore. I don’t type like that.

              Don’t expect the worst. Who does? But, JIC, will leave notes for someone to access the blog or FB.

              Full truth, given my lack of medical interaction, short of standard stuff, the angiogram had us “nonchalantly” nervous. As in little to no sleep Monday night (took a good nap afterward, twice). That went fine.

              Liked by 2 people

                1. Like the Radiology Urologist doctor said “Don’t take this wrong, but I hope I don’t see you again,” (because radiology not needed) to hubby, as we were leaving the consult with him. Hubby didn’t. Surgery Urologist got hubby’s business.

                  About almost same attitude the heart doctor had last June. Difference with heart doctor, we were hoping under the “not for years”. Unfortunately, neither of us got that wish.

                  Liked by 2 people

          3. had ablation last year for afib. That plus meds SEEM to have things under control. If my beta readers would please let me know if my mscript is gibberish I’d be more certain.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. Current tests are just dealing with the aortic valve. Doesn’t touch the afib. Joy of joys, replacement of the aortic valve, whether TVAR (vein) or SVAR (open surgery) can in small percentage cause afib to start occurring. Response? Well, that is a given.

              I have a consult on the afib late May. So far the medications prescribed last June & July have prevented anymore afib occurrences. Last one was in July. Two more prescriptions added. The point is, the journey is just starting.

              I’m glad that your afib seems to be under control.

              Liked by 1 person

  3. “you turn read and mumble“

    “mall airport”

    –

    Not laughing at these. Because, weirdly, they work in context. 😘

    Besides, I rarely get to be the one who notices first.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Wow, went from “first” to 5th comment, in the process of commenting!

      Recently went to niece’s baby shower. Overheard her mother (sister, the youngest of us) mentioning she was introverted. Um? Wait? What? If she is introverted, OMG, what am I? I would say she isn’t introverted at all. Or at least she’s overcome it a lot more than I have. FWIW, our middle sister is the extrovert. Or learned to be. Middle sister taught middle school science. Little sister and I are both software. Little sister deals with gatherings with a lot of people a lot better than I do. She always has. Okay, she didn’t talk until she was about 3 or 4, but that is because she had two older sisters to talk for her. When she did start talking it was full sentences.

      Liked by 2 people

      2. I’ve found over the years that the real tell for “introvert or not” is “does being social exhaust the individual, or energize them?”

        I can be social all day long if it’s required. I’m even fairly good at it (or used to be, I do wonder sometimes now…)–I had to be, given how many years I spent working in retail! But it’s exhausting, and NOT something I seek out as a means of replenishing myself. Parties? Even if it was for me, or for my dearest friend in the world (thankfully she’s as introverted as me) it would still be akin to a circle of hell. I could do it, but I definitely would not feel amazing after. What performing arts I did as a kid/teen I was decent at, but exhausted after–applause didn’t energize me one whit, but others I knew loved and thrived on it.

        Liked by 4 people

        1. “real tell for “introvert or not” is “does being social exhaust the individual, or energize them?”“

          –

          The first time I “heard” (read) this, was here on Sarah’s blog.

          Fits me. Between driving to NE Vancouver (WA) from Eugene, the party, and back, on a Sunday, I was exhausted. I-5 wasn’t even that bad (except that stretch south just after 205 merges back in to I-5. Why was it 4 lanes of stop-go? No clue.) Even through Salem.

          Our extended family gatherings exhaust me. These days there aren’t as many people, not like there were growing up. Now even with the nieces children, the gatherings are maybe 15. Growing up, it was anywhere between 50 and 60 depending on who showed up. No Thanksgiving with over here and Christmas over there switch; they just brought the in-laws.

          Serious, I didn’t learn about swapping holidays until I got married. Even then we usually saw mom & dad regardless. Maybe not on the specific holiday day, but some time that holiday weekend. In-laws rarely. Just Eugene, before we moved back, was easier stopping by, coming or going, to La Pine.

          Funny thing. I tried the “integrate the new relatives”, invite. Didn’t work. They had a problem with that idea. FWIW, sisters didn’t have any better luck. One sister’s in-law clan is smaller (4 adults, 3 children) than mine (8 adults, 5 children). The other sister’s in-law clan is huge, and is spread out all over the country.

          Like

          1. We have had a guest the last couple of days, a member of our volunteer group. She’s a very nice person and I’ve enjoyed her company. But she talks. A lot. Probably because she’s a solo traveler and she’s getting in conversation while she can.

            I know I’m an introvert, but I actually enjoy public speaking, in certain circumstances. And I found myself thinking, “I’m not exhausted.” Then I realized I’ve had the best sleep in ages, and this morning I woke up wanting to do absolutely nothing. (The lady is leaving later this morning).I’m fighting it off a little, but I have no idea if I’ll get anything done at all this afternoon

            Liked by 1 person

          2. Easter and Thanksgiving at the farm: Mom’s 5 sibs +spouses and kids, various great-uncles and second cousins. I never even made it to the kids’ table. I’d take my plate and eat under the piano. 😉

            Liked by 1 person

        3. My sister told me I had to be “on” for her wedding so I psyched myself up in preparation and slept for a solid ten hours after the event.

          Liked by 3 people

        5. Groups really wear me out, never been good at group dynamics and socializing. Helps if I find one person to concentrate on interacting with. I can be very social with an individual, with a bunch of people? Nah, it isn’t going to happen.

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          1. This is how I acquired older DIL. Okay, more complex. But I was teaching a workshop and they made us socialize with everyone in big parties. She reminded me of my childhood best friend, so I clung to her like a burr.
            Later she sent me a novel to beta. I was very very busy and older son was not.
            The rest is history. Also, writers court weirdly, I guess?

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          2. A pattern I’ve seen is that the amount of conscious adjust-to-interact/translation increases the “makes tired” effect a lot. If you can get the social-stress-level of being alone, but it’s with someone else, then they don’t drain the battery and will even help recharge it.

            Smalltalk is, if you are close enough culturally, a way to identify the low-required-investment individuals.

            Liked by 1 person

      3. I went through phases. Very introverted as a young teen, then I discovered theater. I am an extrovert now but still need my alone time for creative stuff.

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        1. Toastmasters in mid-’80s taught me how to give speeches, MC, and quick short on any given topic, formal setting. Can do it. Do not like to. Walls do not pulse in and out, and I remember doing it. But it is exhausting. I get no energy boost at all.

          Liked by 2 people

    2. Also see “AWAL” — Absent Without Any Leave.

      Actually works better than the (presumed) original, in context.

      Only, now my inner muse/whatever is going on somewhat about Gateway Typos…

      Like

      1. Definitely fix that issue. Otherwise if you type “The Silly Seething Syncophant” you may be mistaken for Gollum…

        Like

  4. “We all act like the world is an unwanted distraction from what is going on in our heads at any given time.”

    Best description I’ve seen. Thank you.

    Liked by 5 people

  5. Hah! About your being able to spot Con people, FenCon this year in Dallas was disorganized to the point that they didn’t have badges until Saturday morning. I noticed it made no difference. None of us had any trouble spotting the Con people vs. everybody else.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. *Eyes books on everything from cloth of gold to Tokugawa Japan to Appalachian fireflies.* Odd? Whyever would one think that?

    Word, all of this. My best efforts at blending in fail horribly. Especially if someone asks that deadly question, “What do you really think?”

    (Oh boy that one gets me in so much trouble. Especially if I’m already tired and thus speak before I think.)

    Came to the Coof I did indeed get very very sick. But I figured what we needed was to get it over with faster instead of slower, so it had a chance to burn out in most of the population and therefore give vulnerable people a better chance to avoid it. *Shrug*

    Comes to the whole sheep thing – a few days ago I wanted to bite heads off, ’cause where I worked ignored its own safety regs in the extreme. The fire alarm went off for almost half an hour, and no one left.

    This is a bleepin’ ear-splitting alarm, literally, and all the employees were stuck because the customers would not leave. They wanted their stuff checked out and they Did Not Care. And if we’d left we’d probably have been fired.

    I was right by an open door, and if there’d been any trace of flame or smoke I’d have been out it and *bleep* the job. But still. What the heck, people. Why.

    My ears still hurt, and I am angry.

    Liked by 7 people

    1. I’m sorry.

      I could never have work retail. I doubt I’d last a day, let alone a week.

      One of the things I do, that I trained myself to do, is ALWAYS say “thank you” to retail. “Please” doesn’t always make sense (like at the checkout), unless they ask questions that “Please” makes sense. But “thank you” always applies.

      I’ve also been the person behind someone giving the retail staff a bad time, “mumbling” (audible, so mumble isn’t correct, but not actually talking to anyone) about being “rude” or mean, however it is they are bulling. At some point, I’ll say, for anyone listening “She”, meaning clerk, “has to be nice. I don’t.” It feels weird. Always have the feeling of “not a good idea”, regret, of attention. Even though bullied appreciates it. But mouth beats “maybe this is not a good idea”, every single time.

      Liked by 4 people

        1. “simply cannot do Office Politics. At all.“

          –

          Neither can I.

          It was good, for a lot of other reasons, that I did not get on with HP, in 2003, before I got hired with the small local firm. I could never deal with office politics.

          Never had to deal with politics with any of my jobs once I switched to *software. Part of the reason was there were no politics to deal with in either the small firms, or if corporate, the departments I was with. Corporate, my managers had to deal with office politics, but I didn’t. Office politics might have affected me (I can think of a few instances, one that happened before I even started), but I didn’t have to actually be involved. Very unusual, I know.

          (*) Shouldn’t have had to with the job in ’79. But it turns out that I **was the “office politics”. Office politics was the reason I was hired. Office politics wasn’t why I (and 110 others) lost our seniority in 1982 (those few who eventually got back on, took 10 years) but not for lack of trying.

          (**) “We don’t accept applications from women.” (Major oops, in 1979.) … “Your wife is a forester? Will she apply?” We didn’t know the first had been said to someone, until much later. Not that either of us were actually anywhere near an office, beside the point.

          Liked by 3 people

          1. Even though I am an introvert I was a decent salesman at the deli/butcher shop coaxing little old ladies to by ground round at .89 a lb instead of .69 for the plain ground beef and convincing them they might want to take home a nice slice of actual NY cheesecake (shipped from NYC!) for $1.25 for desert. The butcher loved to had them of to me as I could sweet talk even the the most curmudgeonly of them. Not sure I could have done sales as a living I “people out” really quickly.

            Liked by 1 person

      2. I did work retail for almost a year, various upscale clothing outlets – but perhaps it is likely that I acquired enough protective coloration to get by as an adult. I also worked in a phone bank for a year, which was absolute hell and I hated every minute of it, but I needed the money …

        As for an Odd …I do remember not fitting in real well from Kindergarten on, but after about 8th grade I didn’t give a sh*t for the social/mind-games that most of the other kinds were into. I was one of a coterie of bright and geeky intellectual types, some of whom were very odd, indeed.

        And then I was a military broadcaster – and among more odd and creative types. (And yes, some of them were … very strange people, indeed.)

        Liked by 3 people

      4. Depending on whose definitions you like, most Odds would also fit the “serial killer” profile nicely. When I started carrying a gun every day (exercising my Constitutional rights; I basically live in Mayberry) I thought about that a lot, and started making an effort to be nice to people. Most of the people I see are gas station attendants (because I use cash) and grocery store clerks.

        Not creepy over-the-top Dale Carnegie stuff; just “Forty on pump six, have a nice day” or wave on the way out the door. But after a few months some of the clerks would greet me as I walked in the door, and sometimes chat briefly. Apparently even my minimal amount of polite interaction was enough to be memorable.

        Watching the people ahead of me in line, most of them seem angry. Maybe it’s just not-angry that stands out.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I’ve heard of an office where, after an office shooting, one worker read off a list of warning signs that someone might be an officer shooter and then wondered if any of the people working at the office didn’t fit that.

          They all fit the profile, and no one came in and shot up the office.

          Liked by 1 person

    2. Try getting software people to leave for a drill. Severe case of “the world is an unwanted distraction from what is going on in our heads at any given time.”

      Was on the emergency teams at a couple places (odd even among those folks) and found a good suggestion that worked sometimes.

      I’d pull out a notebook and ask the programmer “How do I contact your survivors to tell them you died in a fire – talk fast.” (DIAF has its own lore and context – it’s not a wish for good health.)

      Liked by 6 people

    3. :ehug:

      On answering questions– my folks managed to get me to internalize ‘get them to say the actual question they want answered’, partly because of the thinking-at-right-angles thing, and partly because there are a lot of predators who thrive off of changing what the question meant after the answer has been given.

      I need to design a shirt that says something like WARNING: I AM TIRED. HONEST QUESTIONS MAY GET UNVARNISHED ANSWERS.

      Liked by 3 people

        1. Same. When tired, whatever’s on the brain comes out. Usually in a loud, thick, and annoyed southern accent. Fortunately, my superiors put up with me because I get things done.

          Liked by 2 people

  7. On Covid, I remember the “We’re All Going To Die” nonsense concerning AIDS.

    Of course, that nonsense was memory-holed by everybody who believed in the Covid nonsense. 😡

    Liked by 3 people

    1. *Snrk* I remember that too.

      Actually used that against a religion teacher who was, shall we say, against the idea of active preventive measures against sexual assault. I pointed out that if they had AIDS weren’t they trying to commit murder?

      You could hear the ensuing logic fault in her head, I swear.

      Liked by 3 people

    2. i still haven’t figured out how doctors managed to forget everything we were taught about immunity and contagion in one swoop. Does that make me the Odd?

      Liked by 3 people

      1. “i still haven’t figured out how doctors managed to forget everything we were taught…”

        Let me assure you, they did not forget that stuff. What they did is scarier. They all shut up.

        They all saw what was happening, and what was coming down from the government about rules etc., and what nursing was doing, and they all stopped talking. They don’t even talk to each other about it. They -still- don’t, and it’s been 5 years now.

        There are a few mutants and retired curmudgeons out there who won’t follow the unspoken rule to shut up, and for those few heroes I give thanks.

        Liked by 6 people

        1. i know that’s what it looked like, but I was talking to doctors, still am, and they parroted the party line even in private with people(me) they know. People I worked with, looked at the empty ER and talked of all the people dying. I think they really believe what they were told, and managed to forget everything they knew. It was very disorienting.

          Liked by 3 people

          1. I agree, for two reasons. One, it’s “cognitively cheaper” to just believe, rather than consciously keep up a pretense; and two, if your livelihood depends on your staying undercover, never break character.

            Liked by 1 person

          2. The whole COVID thing made me understand how people dealt with life in the USSR, I think.

            There was the Official Word, and your lying eyes. And believing your eyes could get you into trouble.

            Liked by 2 people

          3. I suspect part of it goes back simply to people can’t believe their authority figures are lying to them, or at least mistaken. If the aurhorities tell them it’s happening, it must be happening somewhere. If it’s not happeing to your area, it must be happening elsewhere and you’re just lucky. Because they wouldn’t lie to you.

            There’s no telling how far up the food chain this attitude might go.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. My best definition of Cognitive Dissonance: “When Reason threatens to take one’s mind where Emotion forbids it to go.” Orwell’s “Crimestop” is a common reaction to that.

              “People I trust are lying to me!” and “I can’t agree with that [person|idea]!” pretty reliably trigger Crimestop.

              Liked by 1 person

        2. i know that’s what it looked like, but I was talking to doctors, still am, and they parroted the party line even in private with people(me) they know. People I worked with, looked at the empty ER and talked of all the people dying. I think they really believe what they were told, and managed to forget everything they knew. It was very disorienting.

          Liked by 1 person

      3. a) Formative experiences can shape your thinking. Med school is sleep deprivation plus overwork, plus a pattern or style of evaluating written claims. You can get cohort by cohort changes in professional schools, and they aren’t inevitably good.

        b) Most professions make some ‘don’t make me look bad’ arguments to the recruits.

        c) The amount of leverage provided over MDs and others is not good.

        d) abuse of feed cohorts in primary/secondary for the 40 and under cohorts is not good.

        e) The basic foundation for interpretting scholarship is pretty seriously misunderstood by some at universities. They are always proposing that new supersedes old. The old freaking earned whatever trust or distrust people had for how those older scholars handled stuff. IE, conservatism and skepticism are maybe dead among some academics. IF the new violates core assumptions used by the old, the new needs to earn trust independently of the old’s trust.

        Liked by 1 person

    3. i still haven’t figured out how doctors managed to forget everything we were taught about immunity and contagion in one swoop. Does that make me the Odd?

      Like

    4. i still haven’t figured out how doctors managed to forget everything we were taught about immunity and contagion in one swoop. Does that make me the Odd?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. No, since WP(DE!) decided to give us that four times, you must be an Even.

        It seems there were External Factors influencing doctors as well as the general public.

        Liked by 5 people

    5. i still haven’t figured out how doctors managed to forget everything we were taught about immunity and contagion in one swoop. Does that make me the Odd?

      Like

    7. …and ebola, and Legionnaire’s Disease, and SARS, and…

      I viewed SARS-COVID-19 as more of the same. Looks like I was right.

      Liked by 1 person

  8. I’m one that never learned to hide it. That never could internalize the point of hiding it actually. Oh, I know the reasons, telling me isn’t going to help. But I couldn’t get it through my head to the point where I would make it a habit and sort-of pass. So I remain the one who’s so far from normal that the other Odds point and laugh at me and say, “Who’s that Freak in the corner over there?”

    The strange thing, though, is that I see the rest of the world seemingly becoming more and more unhappy, and I’ve figured out why: they’re starting to act like me. And I want to scream at them, “No! Don’t act like me! Don’t you know that there’s nothing but misery over here?”

    Liked by 5 people

    1. I’m Odd. But I’ve worked with people who are “Sheldon” Odd. It worked for everyone because the working environment worked for both of us. OTOH made me feel more normal.

      Liked by 1 person

  9. Ok, your tea paragraph, I couldn’t stop laughing for 5 minutes. That is so accurate of a description of me in public that I have to wonder, were you watching me? I have rules/guidelines/decision trees to follow the mostly keep that behavior quieter. Doesn’t always work, especially when I’m in line at a check out. Sooo many littles that I’ve entertained, or scarred for life, maybe both.

    The best answer to why did I do something is my default, “Seemed like a good idea at the time”.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Look, the antique teacup was shaped differently with the feet than modern teacups, which are made for mass production efficiency instead of for usefulness of the user, and I was wondering how stable its rim & foot design was on unstable and warped surfaces, and that was the nearest handy curved surface because we’re all standing here talking and there’s no handy mantle to drift over to and try….

      Liked by 5 people

      1. Right? And you are making me laugh more, so much how the thoughts go. And I know why people give me the stink eye when I start singing the song’s to remember stuff, (I’d give me stink eye also as my singing voice used to be pretty good until getting nuked ).

        Liked by 1 person

        1. “Consilium bonum mihi videbatur eo tempore”, or more colloquially, “Tunc bonum consilium videbatur” according to the Goog.

          Liked by 1 person

    3. No. I watch myself all the time. Though I’ve actually never tried to balance a teacup on my head. It was a little basket the bread came in…
      Seriously, if I stop watching my body for half an hour, it does something weird.

      Like

    4. I think I literally did the teacup thing at least twice. Not really on purpose, exactly. More or less “why not?” Also did the calculate the optimal pathing to every destination that would avoid the most people and get the fewest inconveniences, complete with time of day, day of week, season and all. Balance on tiny things and climb things that weren’t supposed to be used like that all the time, too. Primitive parkour.

      Scarred for life? Littles are wee rubber balls. They bounce back quick. So long as it isn’t long stretches of repeated awful or truly life altering shifts, the littles will little. Sometimes the stuff that makes them shriek and run are what they chase, too.

      Liked by 1 person

  10. I suppose having the vast majority of my books and audiobooks be about various bits of World War I and II history, instead of fiction, makes me Odd in a different way to most of the rest of the Odds around here. But still proudly a triangular peg in a world of round holes.

    Liked by 5 people

    1. The Reader asks if you are ‘all 15 volumes of Samuel Eliot Morison’s History of United States Naval Operations in World War II’ odd? It’s okay if you are. The Reader is.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Just looked at 1-14, yep, still on the shelf back of me. Read them first back in the dark ages. So you are not alone. Have hundreds of history books here in Mordor west.

        Coolest odd thing we have is a partly used message pad from 1942 on Guadalcanal. Wife’s father was Marine officer there. He would never talk about what happened there with anyone.

        Liked by 5 people

      2. Ditto, and at least 30 of the green books — I have all the operations and the strategy/logistics volumes don’t have the technical corps, medical, etc., I have most of the UK official History, and Australia’s Official History, which is excellent, probably the best of the lot, and the USMC. I’m accumulating Canada, New Zealand, and India. I have an excellent library on the Indian army, but have had trouble locating the wwii official history.

        OK, so I’m ODD.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. MomRed made DadRed and I go through the library and cull the military history books. The USMC JROTC got 300+ books. The Gunny was already saying, “This one’s mine, and this one, and oh, I’ve been looking for this one,” as the guys carried the boxes out to the pickup.

          Liked by 7 people

          1. Oman? I have that one, and Napier. My favorite set is Fortescue’s History of the British Army in 14 volumes. I collect sets, mostly ex library, there’s something satisfying about it. I have a fair few “broken sets” too. Here I am, going on like an awkward teenager playing top trumps. As I said, ODD. Second hand bookshops love me,

            Liked by 1 person

      4. Morison is in the box beside the chest of drawers, beside the stack of books about New Mexico, and Ancient Warfare magazine back issues. Paperback copies, because the Naval Institute had a special on the set.

        Liked by 2 people

  11. I was just reading a story in a 1956 issue of Galaxy that involved several people who had wandered into an alternate dimension at different times over the last couple of centuries or so. One was a man walking around looking for horses he could never find, and I knew what was being referenced even before his name was given as Bathurst. The way the incident was framed without much explanation suggested that the readers were *expected* to pick up on it. If you read Galaxy, you’re Odd!
    As for spotting Our Kind, I was once in a restaurant near the hotel complex in Rosemont, Illinois, and I noticed a group of thirty-something men at a nearby table that gave off the SF fan vibe. My immediate thought was, “Is WindyCon this weekend?” It bothered me enough that I actually went over and inquired if they were science-fiction fans — they were, and they were in fact attending the local Chicago-area convention. It all made some weird kind of sense!

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Yesterday in the grocery store, I came across a lady who was wearing a red shirt with a logo, and black pants that bunched up a bit at the top of her black boots. Did a double take; no, the logo WASN’T Star Trek (Knights of Columbus, I believe) But since she caught my odd stare, she gave ME a ‘look’ back, so I stopped to explain. She gave me the ‘horns’ sign and told me ‘May the force be with you!’ I am not sure if it was the best ‘owning’ I’ve ever suffered, or if it was an honest misremembering of what she THOUGHT I was referring to. I just replied that I thought she was referring to (giving Spocks hand gesture) ‘Live Long and Prosper’, to which she just replied ‘Oh, OK, thanks!’ Since she kept such a totally straight face, I think she wasn’t a Fan, just accidently created as ‘almost’ Star Fleet outfit. But maybe inside she was chortling to herself at having pulled my leg so hard.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Moi aussi. Yes, I drop into French at times. No, I don’t speak it at all. Just phrases which pop out on occasion. Responding in French is what popped into my head at this moment.

      Liked by 1 person

      2. I understand. I drop into German, Plattdeutsch, at times. I do speak it. Mostly when I am tired, or stressed, or coming out of anesthesia. I don’t even know I am doing it. I learned it from my Dad’s Mom, who lived next door. Spent more time over there than at my home growing up. except summers. Summers I spent at my aunt’s farm.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I have bits and bobs of Latin running about in my head that I often intentionally mangle. We had taken to using Cape Felem! (would have sworn it should be Carpe but Google says otherwise) to indicate we needed to pick up the cats do something with them. Unfortunately, they seem to be bright enough to now know that that pair of sounds means something bad is about to happen, like having nails trimmed or being stuffed in carriers for a vet visit. They now go to ground at that statement.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. So Carpe Diem comes from a poem by Horace

              Carpe diem quam minimum crēdula posterō

              Rough translation

              Seize the present; trust tomorrow e’en as little as you may

              (per Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpe_diem )

              the verb in question is the second person singular present active imperative (You pluck/seize/harvest !) of carpō. That said carpō is more pluck or harvest than seize. It looks like cape is a similar conjugation of capturar (seize/grab). So technically Google Translate is probably right , “You Seize the cat ! ” is probably better capturar rather than carpō.

              The confusion seems to stem from a loose poetic translation of Horace’s poem that has taken hold rather than a more word for word exact one. Always a challenge with poetry as one tries to convey meaning and feel as well as just the words.

              I suspect we’ll still mostly carpe felem rather than cape felem.

              And the whole of this discussion proves we are Odds…

              Like

          2. I’d go with Carpe too, Goolag* notwithstanding. Though I’d even more gleefully say cave felem

            *Why, oh why did Cory Doctorow pick “enshittification” when “crapifaction” was right there?

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Yes Beware the cat works too, particularly if you are trying to stuff 13 lbs of furry civil disobedience into a carrier. I see all these folks on the internet with various larger (servals, some bobcats) undomesticated felines and I wonder about taking 35-40 pounds of angry cat to the vet when I struggle with 6-7 kilos of cat that is (relatively) domesticated.

              Like

      4. Und warum nicht? Latina magna est.

        Yesterday in class I observed to the students that some political thing, “Like Gaul, is divided into three parts.” One sat up and grinned. The others either slept through the comment, or are not in Latin III. (“Omnes Gallia in tres partes divisi est…”)

        Liked by 1 person

  13. I’m very average, in my own estimations, which correlate to assuming that I am the most common and best model available.

    The easiest path for me to estimate others from reliably has predictive issues.

    Hoyt blog readers may or may not communicate well with Hoyt, but it also seems that our commo can be orthogonal. IE, what being a regular here samples is subgroups that don’t communicate well with normal, but also do not automatically communicate well between subgroups.

    I make quite a lot of organization trouble for myself.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Aaaaa-yup.

      “The Spectrum” connotes one dimension. A 2D “dartboard” makes it more intuitively clear — an N-dimensional super-duper-hypersphere is closer to Accurate, but further from Intuitive.

      The Bell-Shaped Mound of pockmarks near the bullseye–what? pockmarks don’t form mounds?–implies scattered hits all around the edge of the board, and some on the surrounding wall. Our only common trait is that our nearest neighbors are fewer, and farther between.

      Liked by 1 person

  14. People accuse you of looking at them funny…. you turn read and mumble something about “didn’t even see you” which can backfire super badly.

    I’ve successfully used “Oh, no, I was staring at the wall behind you and you were just in the way. Sorry” in the past.

    …Saying sorry with a placating smile and moving your eyes to stare through something else is probably an important part of getting away with that.

    Liked by 4 people

    2. “Sorry, I was trying to remember something my husband told me before coffee this morning…”

      “Sorry, I keep thinking I was supposed to be somewhere else right now, but I forgot to put it on the calendar…”

      Liked by 3 people

    3. I grin, flutter, and grumble “I know I was supposed to pick something up, and of course I left the list at home. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?”

      Liked by 2 people

  15. You haven’t told me why I shouldn’t start a cult. My reason is I don’t like being in a place with more than one other person, and very few of them. But other than that, having cult followers might be fun.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. yeah, but then you have to look out for ambitious lieutenants who think they know better than you how to apply the founding principles of your cult, and are looking for ways to push you into “exalted martyr” status.

      Liked by 3 people

    2. I was wondering the same thing. I get not killing anyone (I’ll probably be caught and sent to jail), but why not start a cult?

      The big question, to my mind, is: What sort? A “give me all your stuff” cult is just a pyramid scheme with a different name; those run into boundaries pretty quickly. On the other hand, I am getting old; it doesn’t need to last that long. A “worship me” cult seems tedious. I like The Forum and Toastmaster “run the organization for me, without being paid” model, but that presupposes I have an organization to be run.

      Liked by 1 person

            2. Would the Lego Tuxedo Cat my son bought and put together and gave me as a birthday present count? Because we can’t have real cats at the moment.

              And yes, often at bedtime I will run my finger down its nose. Because dusting, you know.

              Liked by 1 person

  16. What the founding fathers declaration of radical self ownership did was allow Everyone to be Odd if they wished, just as long as it didn’t interfere with anyone else’s equal rights. The short of it is: We’re Odd and we own it!

    The collectivists who are trying to force us squares into triangles, rounds, hexagonal etc. niches are the truly odd as in evil odd.

    Liked by 4 people

  20. “It seems that when sophisticated psy-ops are applied they shed off our brains like rain. “

    Yes, this! And at any scale; from the (attempted) worldwide gaslighting of the Global(-ist?) Covidiocy, all the way down to one-on-one (attempted) manipulation. Even, or especially, by those who think (possibly even rightly) that they’re really good at that, and so tend to use it a lot, and therefore cannot understand why their preferred way of dealing with the world (so often or usually) is rendered suddenly impotent, or irrelevant, or even visibly counter-acting.

    My best description of this ever (and I rather suspect I’m not alone in this), as a first-person direct experience, is “It’s as if there’s a neon sign flashing on and off over their head from the moment they start this stuff, going ‘DUMBASS! DUMBASS! DUMBASS!'” — on and on and on as long as the sales-job / attempted-manipulation / gaslighting continues.

    It’s also annoying. Not only as an insult to (a particular kind of) intelligence. Just plain fingernails on a chalkboard, screeching-near-ultrasonic, whining-mosquitoes annoying.

    Liked by 3 people

  21. Oddly enough for this gang, I would say I am definitely not Odd. Sure, I’m out there in my own way, but I once had a coworker say to me I was the purest extrovert she had ever met. I can indeed “read” crowds just fine (whether I give a damn about their concerns is a different question).

    Of course, I do fit in with our august company here, because I. Am. A. Storyteller. In a different anecdote, I was sharing a morning break with coworkers, and started to relate an incident. One of the coworkers visibly settled back in her seat with her cup of coffee. Another asked “Kathy, what are you doing?” She replied “When Scripko strats telling a story, you never know where it’s going to end up. But it will be a very entertaining trip.” So yeah, I like to hear those entertaining trips too, and you guys are great for them!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Odd is a different direction from extrovert, and even sometimes from knowing how to fit in. I think all storytellers have to be at least a little bit Odd in order to be good at it, because sometimes it’s just being able to spot the absurdity of the world.

      Liked by 2 people

  22. *light bulb goes off

    Suddenly I understand why the exact same conversation starter with my family engenders a very different outcome with my husband’s family.

    I tell my family members at a gathering, my neighbor Jim fell in his garage and broke his leg badly.

    “OH, we’ll pray for quick healing for Jim. Does he need anything?” Then the conversation veers into a discussion of leg casting procedures down through the ages, the advancement of crutch technology and whether wheel technology or sidewalk advancement was not far enough along for wheel chairs in the middle ages. (Family of mechanics and engineers not medical people btw.)

    Hubby’s family….

    “OH, poor Jim! Does he need anything? We’ll pray for him.”

    Then conversation turns to, what was he thinking up on a ladder at his age? Where was his wife, out shopping again? Why didn’t one of his kids help him? Etc… Reinforcing public norms. If you act right no harm will come to you.

    My hubby, when he was merely a boyfriend, once said, ” Being around your family is like being around a pod of alien beings. I have no idea what you people are going to talk about next.”

    I get why he said that now.

    Liked by 10 people

    1. This is how integrated from all sides, maternal, and paternal. Mom forwarded the information that Uncle J, who is 90, not only broke his thigh bone (doing I don’t know what), but he walked on it for a week before Aunt got him to go to a doctor. Not that they couldn’t get him an appointment, to get him to go. To a person, the response was “Yep, that would be Uncle J. Let us know what is going on.” Last I heard their children were trying to get them to sell their current place, and get something smaller. Not Condo smaller, just less property. Which Uncle J supposedly agreed to … a year ago. I’ll be shocked if it happens. There are ER memes about farmers coming in voluntarily, how that is an ER emergency. Uncle J isn’t a farmer, but might as well be.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Story has it that Grandpa dropped a tree on his foot on a remote part of the farm.

        So, he carried my aunt back to the house, walked in to town, visited the doctor, went for an x-ray, was told ‘It’s broken, don’t walk on it’, and then walked home.

        Neighbor drove himself home after heart surgery. They asked when discharging him who was coming to pick him up. “Oh, Jake’s with me.” Jake was his dog.

        Yes, I live amongst farmers.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. My kids both married the ONE girl who didn’t run away when they brought her home to mom and dad. They each brought home a couple of them before that and the girls broke up with them that day.
      So, kudos to your husband for not running. :D

      Liked by 2 people

    1. It was a mugging. They even found some of the guy’s property when they searched the area.

      The eyewitness report that makes it sound like it was incredibly rapid is to blame for all the fun and games.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Yeah, I’m of the opinion that “eyewitness reports” of the event are highly biased towards the “didn’t see nuffin” option. Much like the shooting that happened in broad daylight that Sgt. Mom used for one of her books, where she had it that everybody *knew* who had done it, but universally agreed it was deserved, and so “hadn’t seen who could have done it.”

        Liked by 1 person

        1. In April 29 of 1945, 1LT Jack Bushyhead of the 45th Infantry machine-gunned some SS camp guards at Dachau. He was promptly arrested and brought before a military tribunal. The tribunal made the mistake of calling witnesses.

          Most of them ‘din see nothin’. Several soldiers claimed they had been the one operating the machine gun. Hundreds of the newly-liberated prisoners testified that they didn’t see who did it, or claimed they’d been the ones to do it. The tribunal couldn’t even establish how many SS had been killed, other than somewhere between 50 and 300, much less who killed them.

          In the end the tribunal gave him a stern “don’t do that again” and turned him loose.

          Back home on the Cherokee Reservation in Oklahoma, they called him the Liberator of Dachau. On the modern internet, he’s called a war criminal.

          As the saying goes, “what you see depends on where you’re standing.”

          Liked by 2 people

    2. I got Piper’s point that Vall was an enforcer from a more-advanced civilization, but the totalitarianism of the Paratime civilization was a bit raw.

      The Paratimers acted like they were the good guys, but they were just the other group of bad guys.

      Like

    1. Oddly enough, my first introduction to that phrase was in “The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses”, a kid’s book… and she walked around the horses and disappeared, was implied she’d turned into a spirit and then a horse herself.

      Liked by 1 person

  25. We are indeed odd, but I prefer the word “eccentric”. As a long standing (well more likely seated) member of the Society of Present Day Anachronisms, (I am one), what would the world be without us? Dull and dreary, that’s what. Cheers from a maybe warming Michigan.

    Liked by 2 people

      2. Well, the money bit has some weight, seeing as one of my ancestors gambled away the family castle, fortune and property to the duke of Berry around the year 1530, hence we have all been working stiffs since that date. Even so, we can behave in manners vexing to all and enjoyable to self, eh?

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Growing up people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. My answer was “I want to be eccentric. Which is just small crazy with money”. Most folks would just look at me for a couple of seconds, and shake their head. As one co-worker asked me last month, “how old did you say you were?”. 60, going on 14!

        Liked by 1 person

  26. what would the world be without us? Dull and dreary, that’s what.

    One of the stupider teacher in-services I had to endure was where we all had to take these personality inventories that gave us a color based on our answers. Then we had to sit at a table with our color mates. Mine was, as I recall, green.

    My fellow greens sat around our table, each almost exactly equidistant from each other with as much space as it was possible to achieve and nodded politely. The “blues” at the other tables (at least 6 times as many blues) all crowed together, laughing and joking.

    We were told that “the greens” as a group were very high on intelligence, however, were rarely invited to parties and didn’t socialize well and were introverts.

    We nodded. All true.

    The Blues, however, always got invited to parties, were fun people to be around and extroverted and wonderful. They laughed uproariously and looked pityingly at us. Blues were the people who made the world go around and humanity would die out if it was left to the poor unsociable greens. Green inclined students needed to be helped to get along in the classroom.

    The high school chemistry teacher at our table looked at the calculus teacher and said. “Back in the day, as they had their parties, beating on logs with sticks by the campfire drinking scummy dysentery water, we’re over here inventing alcohol, BBQ grills, and electric guitars and not dying in batch lots.”

    Liked by 9 people

  27. What were you thinking? After 35 years of marriage my wife still asks that. When I answer she gets angrier….why would anyone think that way? If I dont or use I dont know she gets angrier. I got her to explain in detail why she said something one time. About halfway through she stopped and said….I sound like you. She still get angry.

    I am amused.

    Liked by 2 people

  28. I didn’t know I was Odd until I married an Odd. and noticed how odd she was, and realized that I was also odd. I mean, Odd.

    Yes, I was the kid who answered questions with song lyrics, wandered away from the biology lesson to search for edible plants, and was picked on incessantly. Not being massive, it was painful at times. I was the kid in the marching band with glasses AND braces, and in an average week in high school, the nicest thing I was called was “Band F*g”.

    After high school, I fortunately discovered how to mask the oddity. Unfortunately, this led to some mild sociopathic behavior. I could use people for my own purposes because I had discovered that most people will believe whatever you want them to, if you say it convincingly enough. That was a very bad part of my life, if outwardly “successful”, and it lasted a couple of decades, until I met and fell in love with my (now) wife, who was immune to my manipulations (but fell completely for my very real charm and good looks).

    Short religious talk – we’ve discovered that the Catholic Church is full of Odds. I mean, think about the dogma. Anyway, we’ve found a home of like minded people.

    I don’t have to be a sociopath to fit in anymore. And I recognize sociopaths and conmen like THAT (snaps right middle finger from thumb to pad of thumb).It all worked out, it only took 5+ decades.

    Liked by 6 people

  29. Technically adept Odds are what started and built Silicon Valley from orchards to its lofty heights, and since then the corporate MBA types and the Ladies in HR have been pursuing their great quest to eradicate all of them.

    Liked by 2 people

  31. Sarah describing herself as Odd made immediate sense to me the first time I saw her use it. I didn’t really figure out I was Odd until then (I was 50-something). Looking back, it all makes sense now. I became, and still am, very good at passing. Doesn’t mean I like it or am comfortable doing it, but I’m good at it. I can sit in my house for a week, only going outside in my own back yard, and be perfectly happy.

    Liked by 3 people

  32. First rule, don’t freak the normies.

    Second rule, learn to play with things so that you can share those nifty weird things that could freak the normies, but if you set it up right they enjoy it, too.

    Liked by 7 people

    1. “…learn to play with things so that you can share those nifty weird things that could freak the normies…”

      Normies get freaked out by anything. Even Normal stuff like hi-fi amplifiers or motorcycles. If you know more about it than the sales brochure, it freaks them out.

      That’s why I like my bike better than most Normies. Better company. ~:D

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Some times sales brochures are not even enough information to whet my appetite.

        I certainly do not find or memorize the service manuals for everything.

        Everything is a lot.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Odd, I generally only have them get bored.

        Usually there’s a chunk of wry indulgence because I convey ‘harmless’ with the enthusiasm.

        Until, of course, someone decides that means good target…that usually doesn’t go so well.

        Liked by 1 person

  33. Dave says that kind of person is essential. Societies without them — there’s no society really without them, but there’s groups that manage to get rid of them — can go down terribly dangerous paths, and there’s no one to scream the cliff ends, or the king is naked, or whatever.

    And in a very contemporary, up-to-the-minute way, I’m guessing that many or most of the people going “No, ‘AI’ is not infallibly all-knowing, it hallucinates and makes silly crap up, and in this very particular case here is wrong because” [insert list of 20-30 well researched actual not AI-fictional sources] — are Odds, or at the very least Odd-adjacent.

    And no, I do not include the Fearful Yudkovskians in that — I actually stood there in the bookstore a few months ago and read 1/2+ of “If Anybody Builds it Everyone Dies” because I was not going to reward that bunch with even a soon-to-be-discontinued penny of money. “Not even wrong” would be a pretty good summation; and note the all-AI-must-be-regulated crowd is still agitpropping on…

    Liked by 3 people

    1. From what I can tell, my objections are utterly typical.

      But, I have basically self selected about as weird a set of people to pay attention to on that as I can, for some reason.

      If I want to pay attention to someone pontificating endlessly about some subject, I may want them to at least be correct. Or, failing that, testable and not wrong.

      Ninety percent of the ranting I expose myself to on AI on a daily basis is a guy who calls himself after an anime magical girl, but inexplicably is not using an anime avatar where I can see it.

      Which is to say that I live under a rock, and am maybe needing to detox more from the bad parts of the internet. (The anime guy is mostly great, but some of the other ten percent is people I maybe do not need harshing my mellow.)

      (Also, I am /not/ *researching* AI. I have maybe gotten quietly too sinusy for research, or tired, and the methods currently labeled AI are not my serious poison for study, nor anything like a soothing or hobby focus of study. The problems I currently navigate, all of the AI related ones are still solvable with information I came across in previous years. Actually, that may be an error, I think I may have acquired on purpose some new/useful info in the first two weeks of 2026.)

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  34. I gave up trying to be a normie a long time ago. Now I hide in my room and only go out to play darts and pretend I should be in public. I think they’re on to me though, I keep making good suggestions and they’re a little to logical for most to understand, So, you have to explain them twice then they just stare at you.

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    1. “…you have to explain them twice then they just stare at you.”

      It’s like talking to cows sometimes, isn’t it? They even moo in the right places so it seems like a conversation, but what they’re really doing is sizing you up for a hearty trampling.

      I never talk to them anymore. Wave, smile, give them a nice ear scratching if they demand it, then go back home and make sure the gate is shut. Because being trampled sucks. >:(

      I do admit I could be a bit salty about it.

      Liked by 2 people

  35. For months now I have been hoping someone would bring up William Tell in conversation, in any context as I am DYING to tell everyone the full story that no one ever seems to know.

    But, I am 100% normal. No one would ever question that.

    Liked by 4 people

    1. My wife recently discovered that the theme music to ‘The Lone Ranger’ was the William Tell Overture. She wanted to know who William Tell was (she thought it was the name of the composer….) and, well, quickly became alternatingly bored or confused (Shot an apple off his son’s head ? Why would anyone do THAT? Oh, come now, THAT can’t be true!)

      SO, yeah, it WAS a shame you weren’t there!

      Liked by 2 people

  36. “I’ve come to suspect I’m more disquieting because I ALMOST pass, then something creeps in that makes the whole act uncanny valley.”

    They really hate it when you almost pass. Like you were defrauding them. I’ve gotten that reaction so many times. It’s amazing to watch them go off. I’m so glad I don’t have to speak to such people anymore. Long may it continue.

    “It seems that when sophisticated psy-ops are applied they shed off our brains like rain. We don’t fall for it.”

    Going to tell on myself now, right at the beginning I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker. I lost 15 lbs worrying about it. But then I saw HCQ work in like 5 hours on a family member, and I caught it myself and it was -nothing-. At that point I began to strongly question everything I was being told, and doing the math myself. (That’s why I know the dentist mask can’t work. Math don’t lie.) With the Mad Science vaxx experiment I knew they were just lying, because I went and looked it all up.

    But nobody else I know in my little social circle here in Canaduh bothered do the extremely simple calculation about particle sizes and fitted N-95 respirator vs. stupid dentist mask. Absolutely nobody.

    And that, I do believe, is what makes an Odd. Everybody else is busy Fitting In, and I’m busy wondering why everyone is doing this demented sh1t all the time. Six foot Social Distancing to ‘flatten the curve’? Everywhere is a contagion risk except Walmart?

    Five years later we’re doing it with AI this time, and all the frickin’ Normies are buying it again! What am I doing? Researching AI. What’s everybody else doing? FITTING IN.

    Thank God I’m old. Seriously. Now I can tell middle aged white women to step off and they can’t call the cops because I’m a geezer. Hell yeah.

    Liked by 3 people

  37. *It’s like everyone else got a manual for how to do this existence thing, and you’re missing it.*

    Man, does that ring true!

    And BTW, WPDE.

    Liked by 5 people

  38. Normal? I’m normal! I’m standing upright, see? Ergo, perpendicular to the plane tangent to the sphere of the earth. Ergo, normal. QED.

    :-D

    Liked by 4 people

    1. And yes, I’m fully aware that standing on one’s head or on one’s hands would also be normal. I just can’t do it. Can’t stand on my hands, could stand on my head but would get very tired of it very quickly.

      Like

    2. “I’m standing upright, see?”

      Sorry Robin, even knowing that ‘normal’ has a geometric definition gets you voted off Normie Island. Being able to recite the definition? So much worse.

      Good thing there are us other weirdos around. Come to Weirdo Island. We have cake. ~:D

      Liked by 2 people

  39. I learned to hide it. Badly, but I didn’t get my own “I Love Me” jacket, so that’s something.

    Problem was…I wasn’t sure exactly what my kind of Odd was, so between paranoia and fear and driving myself insane because I had to keep up to standards…

    It wasn’t fun to be me. It wasn’t fun to be around me. And quite frankly, I’d rather be bowling than juggling the various issues that I had.

    (Not a big fan of bowling. Not so much the noise of balls as the people-the sheep-bleeting when all I want to do is throw this ball properly.)

    Made it hard to be around family. Mom wasn’t my kind of Odd, but she was close enough to handle things. Sadly, Dad and younger sister aren’t my kind of Odd. In fact, they are rather muggle and don’t get why I’m critical of things (latest thing that drives me mad-“Why can’t we just separate ICE funding from the budget and get the rest past?” “Would you let the City of Oakland separate out your uniform donning time from your contract to get the rest past? It’s the same thing-the Democrats will just keep putting off funding ICE until Trump decides to not enforce immigration law anymore.” “But…but that’s different!“

    (Love my Dad dearly, think he’s a smart cookie, but sometimes he just doesn’t seem to get it.)

    As I read this at work (and the Odd hitting me again because I can’t drive myself insane to be Mary Poppins with my work like I used to), I thought about it and I really wish that I had a setting where…two hours, four tops…I could just turn a dial and let a version of me that was better with dealing with the Normals handle things while I tried to make one of the novels I’m working on get past this blockage…

    And I’m in the middle of office politics, because I want to do my job. I’m the guy that wants to get things right, even if I make mistakes. (I’ll want to fix them, but that’s part of the work.) There seems to be an issue with that, for some reason.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. There’s always the “I want it fixed MY way” guy, the “I make money perpetuating the problem” firm, the “We need everybody involved in the fixin'” meeting minded idiot, the “I want THIS fixed first” dude…

      Lots of “reasons” for the issues with just fixing the damned problem, all of which take longer than, again, fixing said problem. Believe you me, I have seen the ones. When I spend 20% of the day in meetings, another 20% on logistics, a further 35% on supporting other staff when they fall behind, the remaining 25% I guard zealously as it’s the only time left to complete the responsibilities assigned to me.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. The whole damn government is structured around perpetuating all the problems. Along with all those parasitic ‘NGOs’.
        ———————————
        Contrary to what Leftroids believe, the primary purpose of government is not to take money from people who earned it and give it to those that did not.

        Liked by 2 people

  41. I was always the odd kid out as a child. In nursery school and the early grades, it didn’t matte much—my classmates had known me all our lives, and just accepted my reading skill as “one of those things.” But in later years, when my male age mates became utterly obsessed with ball games, I was more and more forced into loner status because I couldn’t play those games well. I was clumsy, a slow runner, and had a vision defect that meant I couldn’t catch a ball thrown to/at me.

    Like

  42. Back in AZ in the years before the pandemic idiocy shut it down, I was a regular attendee at the monthly Bead Night get-togethers at my favorite bead store. A couple dozen women would meet for three hours to work on our jewelry projects, admire each other’s efforts, and generally socialize.

    I was the quiet polite one, who always put my chair at the END of the table where I had elbow room. Many of the women worked with seed beads or regular bead stringing on cord etc. I mostly did wire-wrapping and wire-weaving, or braiding leather, stuff like that. I was always friendly but didn’t gossip or comment on current events or anything like that. Still, I was an accepted part of the group.

    Then one evening a few women were taking a break and discussing I don’t remember what, but something about how they knew how the others would respond to things. I walked over and just said clearly “What the f**k?” with a big smile. The whole group stared at me open-mouthed. I sat down again and went back to work on my project.

    But they never quite took me for granted after that.

    I still miss Bead Nights, even after six years.

    Liked by 2 people

  43. It is interesting that a common theme of Odds is that we are observers of information including behavior. Somewhere in our makeup is a monomaniacal focus on details and a real ability to derive patterns (real or otherwise). I think it is why you find so many of us in the sciences and engineering/computer trades. That kind of observation and attention to detail is valuable there. But that observation can wander into other fields. In working in Boston for 7 years I spent a LOT of time riding on the commuter rail to Boston as well as roaming the North End and the section around North Station/The Garden. I was a keen observer of fashion as we passed through Winchester a wealthy Boston Surburb as well as the area around the Garden having many events drawing fancy folk. I did astound my daughters by recognizing developing trends in fashion. It’s not really my thing but when in like 2014 every other well dressed young lady from Winchester getting on the train had a down jacket (or coat) with the Canada Goose patch on it. Shortly thereafter, my daughters started to see the trend in the wealthier of their peers. But I’m just as likely to have noticed that odd colors for cars were becoming common in the parking lot for the train station.

    This pattern recognition is both a boon and a curse. We Odds can use this to our advantage, but it also seems to make us far more susceptible to conspiracy theories, as we tend to see patterns where none exist. And the Normies tend to scoff at us just in general so when we DO actually spot a pattern, they just write it off to the tin foil hat brigade.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. It is interesting that a common theme of Odds is that we are observers of information including behavior.

      It might be selection bias- same reason a lot of authors are Odd.

      We have to learn it as a second language, basically; since it doesn’t come naturally, we catch stuff folks don’t because it’s too basic.

      And the Normies tend to scoff at us just in general so when we DO actually spot a pattern, they just write it off to the tin foil hat brigade.

      Eh, even inside of the Odd, folks will identify patterns that aren’t there– for a family story, I still get crud about the time that I told them I saw raccoons playing in the field.
      “Oh, Fox! You are such an imaginative girl!”

      Two weeks later we … lost a bunch of chickens to racoons.

      Everybody in this situation is absolutely an Odd.

      But they “knew” that I had “such a big imagination” and “made things up.” So even after I point out the pattern, they forget it, because they “know” otherwise.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. ….no, the entire point is that they’re the folks who are able to blend in, to “pass” as part of the group.

          Of course it’s harder to tell where they’re different, unless you get lucky enough– and they trust you enough– to run into something they’re passionate about, and they’ll start talking.

          Liked by 1 person

      2. We had raccoons fighting on our back porch one night. I’d turned on the light to figure out what the heck that noise was, and they scattered. Big suckers.

        *Something like a cross between a cat fight and Chihuahuas. It’s been a while.

        Like

        1. When you had the troop at Baker did you notice the size off those Baker raccoons? Mama bear & cubs relocated before camp weeks. Not the “safe” critters. Thieves, all.

          Like

          1. Didn’t see any raccoons, but the deer were everywhere, including the waterfront. (“Where’s your BUDDY TAG?”) We had a bear jug for snacks, but someone left out trail mix and the deer cleaned it up for them.

            There was a young adult leader who looked tired on the last morning, so I asked what the problem had been. He said it was the screaming at 2AM. A scout in his group had decided to stash some snacks in his pillowcase and woke up to mice near his face.

            Liked by 2 people

            1. We had a scout have a melt down because his candy stash from the scout store disappeared. Culprits? Don’t know. Looked like the Peanut Butter Cups ran off on their own. Bouncing down through the brush. Had a cell phone. Just didn’t have one with a camera. We figure one of the squirrels or chipmunks.

              Not summer camp, but one of the troops campouts, had husband’s day pack disappear out of the platform tent overnight (with us in it). Found it. Not damaged, unzipped. Only thing missing was his lunch for the hike that day. Was not supposed to have food in the pack in the tent. Lesson for everyone. “True stories. It happens.”

              Every time troop went to Baker, scouts and parents were warned about food in the sleeping areas. That the local wildlife would ruin equipment given the chance because food was present. The only ones responsible for their stuff, was the scouts themselves.

              We didn’t see raccoons either, just footmarks. Rumor is they are huge raccoons. Because they are very well fed.

              Liked by 1 person

      3. We’re noticing pstterns. Whether it’s pattern (A) as we think it is, that’s a different matter.

        If you shake a haystack and three needles pop out in an equilateral triangle, it’s still a pattern.

        When I was a kid I noticed that the vacuum didn’t eat its own chord. After some consideration I determined that it couldn’t eat its chord because then it wouldn’t have any power.

        The pattern was definitely there. The conclusion was flawed.

        Liked by 1 person

    1. NGL, I missed the first line with the musical directions and the first tune that came to mind to fit the meter was “Waltzing Matilda”

      Like

  45. they hate it too, which explains some very weird and sudden antipathy or outright hostility that seems to come out of nowhere at us.

    Definitely yes. All my life. Many times I’ve walked into a room full of complete strangers, who all turned, looked, and bristled.

    It was probably thirty years ago when I told someone, “I feel like Mr. T walking into a Klan meeting.”

    In the mirror I’m an ordinary-looking schmuck, but somehow I broadcast “Doesn’t Belong Here” on some wavelength I can’t sense.

    Liked by 1 person

  46. >If you’re in a room with a hundred people and mention The Man Who Walked Around The Horses

    A friend was learning Latin. I told him, “Good! You’ll be able to use the ATM machine in the Vatican. It’s the only one in the world with the menus in Latin.”

    He said, “Why do you know that? No, don’t answer…”

    Liked by 2 people

  47. I write plays. They get performed (sometimes directed by me) but most people who read them don’t like them but then when they see them on stage think they are great. I don’t tens to answer questions but leave the puzzle standing for the audience to find their own answer. Maybe I’m odd maybe I’m not.

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  48. There’s a joke that ICE speeds TSA lines because they arrest the imported slaves who are incompetent and slowing the processes.

    There’s a joke that ICE speeds TSA lines because they are quietly removing and shooting the foreign funded Democrat terrorists sabotaging the system.

    none of these jokes are true, as far as I know. maybe they are also unfunny.

    Between me and a Democratic politician in the federal legislature, who is normal?

    This question has an assumption, that has a very good chance of being totally and profoundly wrong.

    It may be hilarious that I can’t tell. (Or sad, if it is just a matter of me having a stupid or wired or confused day. With each of these, stupidity, wired, and confused being maybe an independent random variable, with the threshold for each variable being about the 20% of days level. The stupid level of a 1/5 of my days, 4/5 of my days are smarter than that. But, if three variables hypothesis describes me, and I have the thresholds correct, then the days where none of those are true should be fewer than one would expect. I’m not familiar enough with stats to do that stuff off the top of my head. )

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      1. TSA agents can’t be efficient while they’re unable to buy groceries and pay rent!

        Until this horrible Republican Shutdown ends, caring Democrat passengers should pack extra food, cash, and valuables in their luggage.

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