Obsessor the Glimmerbeetle

My (Animal) Obsessions

🐛Bugs | Childhood and lifelong current obsession
I'm guessing it sprouted from being outside often, in my mom's garden, and experiencing so many different kinds of bugs all the time.

🐧Penguin | Kindergarten, more and less
I once counted my penguin plush, toy, book, etc. collection and it was over 200 penguin things! Not sure what started this obsession since it was my first, but I'm assuming I just saw a penguin somewhere and fell in love. I was a penguin for Halloween many years. My mom designed and sewed my costumes and they were incredible. One was a typical penguin look and another was a rock hopper penguin, so she used big yellow feathers for the head, so cute!

🪲Hercules Beetle | First Grade
I was already extremely into bugs, my AOL username being BugLover91... I did a project on these beetles during a specific unit in school, became obsessed, and then depressed when I thought oh wait I'll never be able to see one cuz they don't live where I live lol. I remember making one out of blue play-doh. I specifically loved the males because of the way they looked.

🐙Octopus | Second Grade
During our marine biology unit, we did reports on animals, and I was towards the end of the student list to choose from the animal list. So only a few were still available... starfish, sea urchin, octopus... I'm so glad no one else wanted it cuz I fell in love lol. Though if you can't tell, whichever I'd end up on would probably end up being my next animal interest. XD I remember making this giant, double entendre, octopus out of paper in school, painting it, stuffing crumpled paper inside, stapling it together, and having it hung on the ceiling at school! Along with all the other kids' sea critters! Then later, hung in my parents' basement. One time when I was in an antique mall with my parents, I found something I had been wanting SO badly... the octopus Beanie Baby!!! Well, the squid. Though I thought this one looked more like an octopus, it was more realistic rather than cartoonish. It wasn't an antique lol but you know how some booths are. To my surprise and delight, my parents DID let me get it. :,) He had such a slinky kind of fabric and a big, beany head... just adorable.

🦤Dodo Bird | Third - Fourth Grade / Lifelong current
I feel such melancholy, such longing regarding this sweet animal. I can't recall what started this. I did already love birds, and got even more into birds in general later on. But I may have seen a picture of one in a book or online or learned about them briefly in school or something. I remember scouring the internet for a dodo stuffed animal. There was only ONE I could find... on some weird website (well, that's all websites were back then lol). It was a black plush with a red bill and feet and red around the eyes I think? Maybe some white too. But... it mostly looked like a dodo, kinda looked like a toucan, but it was advertised as a dodo. It was the only plush on this site, the site was like FOR this plush / character. Not that he had a name? And there were other items available too with him on it... maybe a cup, a sticker, a keychain? Idk, but all I wanted was this plush!!! Nowhere else am I gonna find a dodo bird stuffed animal!! I showed my mom and begged her for days and days, but she was like no, the website seems odd, idk what that is, I don't wanna buy something online, etc. This was maybe 2004. Now to present time, there are many dodo stuffed animals available! Though I do have just one -- a little blue cutie from Wild Republic that my partner got me for Valentine's Day a couple years ago. :-} I had first seen the larger version of the same plush in a candy and pop shop at the mall -- SHOCKED that there was a dodo plush, and in person... it was so surreal!

🐦‍🔥Archaeopteryx | Pseudo / Micro Obsession
I'd always be looking up stuff about dodo birds online, and in my searches, I learned about the archaeopteryx. I saw just one fossil photo of it. I was mesmerized. I searched it to hopefully see what it really looked like, and saw illustrations of course. But it was so elusive online, even more so than the dodo. (No way I was gonna find a plushie of this!) Since I couldn't find much info about it, this never developed into a full-blown obsession, and dodos continued and remained. Pun not intended. ;,(

🐌Snail | Fourth Grade
For Christmas this year I picked out these four wind-up glow in the dark snails from a catalog... I loved flipping through the pages of catalogs we'd get in the mail and circling things I wanted, though I almost never got what I circled cuz it was a pain to order through the catalog I guess. But, I did actually get these snails!!! I remember asking my mom about them and she was hinting that she got them for me... I was lik, what are they like?! And she put her finger on the table and did a weird lurching motion to show how they move... I was like uhhh, what. No. It's a wind-up, it should just move forward in a smooth motion. Then when I opened my presents and tested the snails, well, my mom imitated them perfectly.. they kinda slowly move upwards, then plop down, then up, then down, slowly moving forward. I didn't mind the slow part at all, I wanted that for realism. It was the up and down that was weird. But I think they did that so it WOULD move slowly, and only slowly. Cuz a regular wind-up usually goes fast no matter what. Another catalog I'd always circle things in was Oriental Trading, which was filled with like bulk party prize toys and favors and trinkets like that... like yeah ma I need 100 tiny little plastic animals duh??? Another time when we went to Toys 'R' Us to pick out presents (and my parents would write them down and then go back later to buy some things), found this toy meant for a baby that was a big rocking snail with a clear shell with blocks inside, and it played music when you rocked it. I didn't care that it was for a baby, it was a snail!! I also got a Precious Moments Tender Tails snail stuffed animal! A teal shell, light pink body, and the sweetest face. And of course I had Swirly the Beanie Baby. And many other snail things~

🫎Moose | Fifth - Sixth Grade
I received a moose calendar for Christmas one year... all systems go for moose obsession, the photos were just too cute. I was extra excited to go to my aunt's house for thanksgiving the following year cuz I already knew that she had a moose collection in her moose-themed guest bathroom!! I remembered she had some small stuffed animals and I was dying to see them (since stuffed animals have always been my absolute desire with things I love). I think she had a small collection just cuz her house was kind log cabin-ish, well manly the bathroom. I wanted to be a moose so badly. I would run around outside barefoot, chewing on literal twigs, and make moose noises... I mentioned this a while ago on my moose creature Oatly.

🦌Saiga | Pseudo / Micro Obsession
When I'd be reading about moose online, I'd come across similar animals. The saiga antelope was one of them and I just adored how they looked. They looked so unique and interesting. Moose were easy to find info and photos and merchandise, saiga, not so much.

🐦‍⬛Birds | Middle School
This was more in general and more so ornithology. I wanted to be an ornithologist in 8th grade. I remember my friend asking me what I wanted to be, I said that, and she's like what is that, and then she said ohhh my mom LOVES birds. And then since that I was so ecstatic to get to go to her house because I wanted to talk to her mom about birds and see if she had any bird things! My favorites birds at this time were mostly who visited our bird feeder the most... chickadees (called them chickas) and two male red breasted grosbeaks that I named Tornado (cuz the red patch looked like a tornado shape) and Hurricane, and their girlfriends I named Nutmeg (cuz the coloring reminded me of when you're grating nutmeg and the inside has these beautiful swirly, marbled shades of brown) and Ginger. There were other species I loved too but I named the ones that I could really tell apart. One time Hurricane was just sitting at the birder feeder, breathing. He was there for a while so I thought... hey, I could probably pet him. I asked my mom can I go pet him... she's like huh? yeah, sure, go ahead, go pet the bird... she's all sarcastic about it and not caring cuz umm it's a BIRD it's gonna fly away the moment I get near it lmao so yeah so ahead and pet it! Well. I did! He was so tired or something must have happened, that he didn't move and I got to give him some gentle pets! My mom was shocked and ended up taking a few photos through the window of me petting him!! XD

Micro mini obsessions throughout the years: Bison, tapir, opossum, raccoon, skunk, bat, fish, lobster, cow, elephant, peacock, owl, pygmy goat, armadillo, crow, raven, magpie, kakapo, marabou stork... there's more but I need to think or talk in order to get those lines of memories coming back to me.

Current favorites? Cats have my soul. I love squirrels and rodents in general. I love cicadas. I love dodo birds.

Will update this page when I remember more stuff!
And these are just animal obsessions, I've had a lot of other ones too that aren't animals, such as objects and bands.