2005-03-11 - 4:11 p.m.

I still have him but he is put away. His name is teddy and now he looks more like a one eyed turtle hunchback. He used to be a bear. A very special one. He is now 32 years old which is like 200 in teddy bear years. I'm bringing this up because I noticed the weirdest thing the other day when my dad started yanking out one of his coarse ear hairs, yes ear hairs. (this will all come together) After he ripped it out and winced he started scratching the center of his upper lip with the prickly end of the hair. I couldn't believe it! I had done that with my bear for as long as I can remember. He had a "scratchy" coming out of his nose which was really just the short end of the fishing line type of thread that he is sewen together with. I would rub his sratchy on my upper lip.. back and forth back and forth until I was somewhat comatose. The funny thing is that at 32 I still use scratchies but I now use other tools in order to.. um.. scratch my itch so to say. Ok, this is going to sound sick, but I'll clip a fingernail and use that or I will pull a feather out of a pillow and use the prickly end of it. So.. When I saw my dad scratching his lip with his ear hair I was just blown away that I had inherited this scratchy fetish. Our old couch had feather cushions on it and as my husband and I would watch tv I would quietly unzip the pillow and start poking around for a sharp feather coming out. My husband would then say "dude! would you stop fishing around for those nasty feathers, it's disgusting". This always made me laugh. In a weird way it was endearing to me that I still felt inclined to the same obsessive complusive behavior that I had in my childhood. In a way I treasured it.

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