I'm up to writing #141, which seems fitting since I've been tagged by my Detroiter poet mom friend to reveal six quirks or strange things about myself, and one weird thing (this one's your bonus) about myself is that I often like to add up the digits of numbers, to see whether they're divisible by small prime numbers. I am taking up the tag, but I feel funny about tagging others, so I'm not going to do it. I didn't like selling Girl Scout cookies either (that's your other bonus).

Without further ado:

One. I speak to deer and small animals and birds that I see when I'm out walking around. I don't speak to them with any sense that they understand me or that they'll start talking--nothing mystical like that. I just greet them. Tonight, on my way home from school, I saw three fully grown deer eating in a neighbor's yard. Actually, they were probably eating my neighbor's yard. I said hello to them and reassured them that I wouldn't bother them. They didn't run away, though they did get a little skittish and move farther from the road.

Two. For a long time when I was little, I would go through funny phases where I'd hear people's words (ongoing conversations, for instance) being repeated inside my head by a high, thready voice, like an incantation of things yet to be made memorable. I used to wonder whose voice it was, or where it came from. I haven't heard it for a long time, and that's all right with me.

Three. I am fascinated by personality tests, especially when they confirm for me things I already know. I was once caught out by a test that is meant to keep you from faking: it measures not just what you're saying, but also the contexts within which you're saying it. That test really had me pegged.

Four. I have one hell of a sweet tooth. If it has sugar in it, I'll want to eat it. Sometimes I'm embarrassed by the amount of sugar I put in my coffee. Maple sugar candies, black liquorice, dark chocolate (especially with orange or orange flavoring), fruit slices (kosher ones are delicious, and available this time of year), chocolate covered cherries, and bridge mix are all favorites of mine, depending on how my tastes are running any given day. I also love the heels of bread. And if you can give me the heel of a good loaf of white or multigrain bread, spread with butter and then layered with honey (preferably from a honey bear), I will be one of the happiest people around.

Five. I love subways and commuter trains. I love the T, the Tube, the NYC subway, the Metro, SEPTA, BART, the Metra (double-decker cars? my world is rocked), the LIRR. I also love Grand Central Station more than almost any other public building I can think of, anywhere. I'm the girl who knows right where to take you so that you can see the spot they left behind after the restoration, so that everyone could see just how grimed things had gotten by the 1990s, and I'm the girl who will go back there whenever I'm in town and can swing a trip, just to look at the stars in the ceiling.

Six. I have at least one desk (or desk substitute) in every room of my house, except the bathrooms. Total number of desks in my house (counting my dining room table and my kitchen table but not my lap desk): eight. I am also obsessed with blank notebooks. I gather them together whenever I am in a city and can find a stationer's shop. Claire Fontaine, Miquelrius (leather-look, especially), and large-format Moleskine are my favorites, and I cannot abide wide-ruled or even college-ruled paper. Graph paper, five squares to the inch minimum, thick enough to take good ink. Or blank. Those are my requirements. I collect these desks and notebooks because, deep down, I think they'll help me become a writer when I grow up. My newest desk is bright red. I'm sitting at it right now.

If you want to reveal six quirky or weird things about yourself, consider yourself tagged. I'll even loan you my comments section, if you want it (if, for instance, six nascent revelations are threatening combustion but you don't have your own writing space).