I've added a bunch of stuff to the "things about me" section of my site, including some new pages, and a new intro-ish thing:
Many years back, I was thinking a lot about the idea that people could have different experiences of the world without realizing it, just thinking their experiences are normal, so I decided to write down a bunch of things I had thought of as normal (or kind of normal) but later wondered if they actually were (and other things related to the topics I wrote about). For things here where I am normal, at least someone has now said it explicitly; for things where I'm unusual, I've documented that there is at least one person with that trait.
New pages:
I've also moved my general about me page and my dreams to this section, and made some additions to other pages, shown below.
Fourth of July (American Independence Day): From what I remember, the only Fourth of July thing I really did much was seeing fireworks (I don't remember picnics or parades or anything). We used to get fireworks to set off at home, but sometimes we've gone to a place where professionals do fireworks (this is one of the few holiday things we've done that involves being with strangers). The away-from-home fireworks I remember were always the kind that shot up into the air; the at-home were things that stayed on the ground and made sparks, sparklers, and things that you throw on the ground that make a loud noise.
Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving generally involved visiting family and eating. I was vaguely aware of the story of the Pilgrims, but I've always associated it even less with Thanksgiving than I associate, say, Jesus with Christmas; my initial reaction when I first heard people say that Thanksgiving is bad because it's about colonialism or something was confusion that anyone would think Thanksgiving was about anything (other than, like, fall and harvest).
See full holidays page · Comments (for the main page) · Version history
Am often has /ɛ/ (DRESS vowel, making it a homophone of the name of the letter m), but can also have /æ/ (TRAP).
All of the -i Greek letters end in /aɪ/ for me; i.e., xi, pi, phi, chi, psi all rhyme. I think I first encountered the names of Greek letters in writing, which might be relevant here.
Specific words:
See full idiolect page · Comments (for the main page) · Version history (has a bit more detail)
(This is about some feelings relating to not existing that I've experienced in the past; see that page for more context.)
There were times in my life when I would draw a W (for "worry", since that's what I initally called this issue) with my finger in the air when I was experiencing this, in order to check if the thing experiencing this feeling was actually the same thing that was controlling my body.
There was a time around middle school when I wanted to avoid walking straight west because of this. My thought was that maybe this thing that was experiencing my life was at some fixed location in the universe. Since the earth is spinning, most of the time, people aren't in the same place in the universe for very long; wherever you are now, in twelve hours, you're going to be on the opposite side of the earth compared to some fixed reference frame. However, if you go west at the right speed (which happens to be hundreds of miles per hour, but I didn't know that then), that might counteract this, meaning walking west might risk staying where this experience-thing is for too long.
See full derealization page · Comments (for the main page) · Version history