B-E-T-T-E-R.* 1, 2, 3 hand positions on the keyboard for 2 syllables--I lose. I'm usually not conscious of my life-overtaking quirk, but a quick read of the BYU 100 Hour Board made it more salient in my mind. Here goes the description--wish me luck! It's pretty wild.
Often when I see or hear a word or phrase, usually if I'm bored or don't have anything else to capture my attention, my fingers type it out on an invisible keyboard. Someone mentioned on the Board that they do this same "air typing" (hurray, I'm not alone in my idiosyncrasy!). But I've taken it a step further and made it into a game. Say the phrase is, "and it breaks my heart.*" I keep track of how many times I have to move my fingers to type all the letters, and I try to move them as infrequently as possible, fewer times than the number of syllables in the phrase. In this case, I lose again because I have to move my fingers 6 times to type all those letters (both my index fingers had to punch a bunch of keys). I'm always proud of myself when I get a good switching-fingers to syllables ratio. For example, "Daddy went to the store": 6 syllables, yet only 3 different finger placements on the keyboard (note: sometimes I allow typing letters out of order, as long as it works out with my number of fingers. If that doesn't make sense, don't worry about it). And even "idiosyncrasy," the buzzword of this blog post: 6 syllables, only 2 placements! That was a good one.
Wow, it's really hard to describe something that I do automatically. My mom thinks I'm neurotic. And maybe I am, but hey, I bet if you came clean with an explicit illustration of one of your idiosyncrasies, it'd probably seem just as crazy... maybe. Anywho, it was fun to realize it (in the literal sense of the word--make it real--because as of yet it had been rather unconscious).
*Guess what song I was listening to while writing this? :)
This post dedicated to Paul, my "you should blog" cheerleader...er, yell leader. :)
Monday, March 23, 2009
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4 comments:
Thanks for the dedication. I approve of your post.
The song you were listening to is clearly Regina Spektor's Fidelity.
Isn't it fun to find out how weird you are?
When I buy meat, any kind of meat, I put it in it's own bag (like those produce bags). It's always the last thing I put on the conveyor belt, with a lot of space between the rest of the groceries. I don't let it touch anything else. Then it gets its own grocery bag. I still don't like it touching any other bag.
I do that too! Well, type without a keyboard. It has bugged some of my bf's when holding hands and my fingers start tapping randomly. :)
If you mis-air-type, does auto-air-spell-check correct your spelling?
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