Because I can.

And because it's my birthday, and you can do anything you want on your birthday, right? Right. That's why I still had to do dishes and laundry today. At least I got to do them in a cashmere sweater.

(Side note: As I write this, my husband and children are gleefully doing the bunny hop around our house as they dance their way through an entire roll of bubble wrap. No joke.)

So, I've been tagged. Okay, not really, but I want to do this tag, and it's my birthday, so, tag, I'm it!

Here goes -- seven random things about me:

1. My wiring is a little weird. I don't know how else to describe this, but I have strange places on my body that are directly, consistently connected to odd and seemingly unrelated places. For example, I have a spot on my right elbow that makes my back itch. I think this is different than pressure points because it's mostly surface -- no muscle involvement, only skin. My husband kind of thinks I'm crazy, but MommyJ and our mom and both brothers experience the same sort of thing, so maybe CPod is the one who's weird.

2. When I was a little kid, my favorite food was liverwurst. I would take ketchup and liverwurst sandwiches to school every day for lunch. Yeah, no one ever wanted to trade lunches with me. Go figure. I asked my mom the other day how I ever discovered I liked liverwurst -- I mean, who eats that stuff? The only thing we can figure is that she craved it when she was pregnant with MommyJ and I just picked up the habit. Now, I can conjure up a gag reflex just thinking about it, and I'm not even pregnant.

3. I am strangely compelled to stop on Dirty Dancing if it's ever on TV when I'm looking for something to watch. I cannot look away. When I was a kid, I took dance lessons at the studio they used to recruit all of the back-up dancers. Half the girls in that movie were my dance teachers, and I was dying to see it. Of course, my parents weren't about to let their little innocent 10-year-old be corrupted by exposure to such (ahem) filth. Instead, I suggested it every time I went to a sleepover at someone else's house. It was so forbidden, so illicit, that I just kept asking, and by the time I was in high school, I had seen it dozens of times and my girlfriends and I would watch it every time we got together. Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

4. I have some strange sleep idiosyncrasies. I make my bed nearly every day -- even if I get in it immediately. I cannot sleep if the sheets are not tucked in tightly. This is a problem for CPod who is 6'5" but I'm a crazy person if I don't get enough sleep so he just copes with his toes being folded backwards. I also cannot sleep if my feet are uncovered or if the palms of my hands are exposed. There is more, but I'm beginning to sound a bit crazy so I'd better stop.

5. I share this one with MommyJ as well: when I look into the mirror to check out my outfit, I tilt my head to the side. It's absolutely subconscious and it happens every time. Here's why: when we were younger, I had a full-length mirror in my room which MommyJ would also use when checking out her outfits. It was propped up against the wall, and unless you tilted your head to the side, you could not see your head in the mirror. Now, when I ask my husband if my clothes look okay, he tells me to tilt my head to the right and then, and only then, does it look right. (MommyJ, do you tilt right or left?)

6. True story: I got a full scholarship to BYU even though I wrote my essay about how I could belch the alphabet all the way through and then to Q again, and called it not an oxymoron but an oxyMormon. I know. They were one lucky university. (I can't do it anymore, but when I wrote the essay, it was absolutely a true statement. I'll have to start practicing so I can, A: totally impress my kids when they're hanging out with their friends in about 10 years, and B: totally embarass my kids when they're on dates in about 14 years. I also have to add that I wrote two essays. The other was one heck of a paper on Milton's Areopagitica. Oh, I get it -- maybe that's why I got the scholarship!)

7. Yesterday I plucked an eyebrow hair that was gray. GRAY! I had never thought about going gray in . . . places other than my full head of dark, luxuriously curly and mysteriously-free-of-any-signs-of-aging hair. Oh, this opens up all kinds of horrible possibilities that can certainly not be remedied by my talented and confidential hairdresser.

So, it's official. I should probably be medicated . . . maybe this post wasn't such a great idea after all!

Just call me Nebuchadnezzar . . .

Because I am in need of some dream interpretation.

This morning, the twins woke up at 6:40 AM. It was still dark, and after everyone peed (I am seriously proud of how potty-trained they are!), then had a drink of water, they went back to bed. My treadmill is broken (another post to come) so instead of going downstairs to run, I went back to sleep, and for the next 45 minutes, had the craziest dream I've had in a long while.

Here goes.

I am at the twins' preschool trying to volunteer. I am wearing my watch upside down, with the face towards my arm and the battery side up, and I keep checking the time, but, obviously, can't tell it. All of a sudden, Dr. Phil is there. We have a really strange conversation:

Dr. Phil: What's up?

Me: I think I'm going to volunteer to read to a class that doesn't have my children in it.

Dr. Phil: No mother who is serious about her job would dream of doing that.

Me: What? Not serious? It's because I'm serious that I want to go to a different class. My kids behave worse when I'm around and I don't want them to get distracted by my presence.

Dr. Phil: Are you gonna listen to me here? Because I don't have to talk to you and one day I'm gonna be that kid's father-in-law (points to G-Dog).

Me: I'm listening. (I totally seem to believe that somehow, in the future G-Dog will be related to Dr. Phil. Weird.)

Dr. Phil starts pulling out papers and giving me some serious parenting advice that is all kind of foggy now, especially when examined under the bright lights of lucidity. He gives me a prescription for some behavior-modifying wonderdrug and tells me to take it myself.

When I get home, I start the drug, which I have to drink through a straw. I take the first sip, and before I can take the second, my face has erupted in hives and the liquid dribbles down my face when I try to drink it.

And then I woke up. I was absolutely sure that my pillow would be saturated with a cup's worth of something, but it wasn't. And I actually felt my face for hives, and to be certain, examined myself carefully in the mirror. It was ABSOLUTELY vivid and real. And strange.

So, what's your take? Any great insights into my psyche? Because I got nothin'.