Updated 1.24.06 to include one I'd forgotten the first time around - g
I've had a torch passed to myself and Brian by Jess: follow suit on his doing the same and blog your 5 weird habits. Let me preface this by saying that when I saw 'As Good As It Gets' and the character Nicholson played, I felt like somebody finally understood me. Mi Compadre! I don't necessarily have to open door handles with a tissue or turn the locks the same number of times each day, but I am compulsive about a good many things. I'm sure when as you read this, you'll be thinking to yourself, 'it's all making sense now, Geoff. Do you also organize your batteries, you whack job?'. Hold that thought until you make it through the list.
Trash Compacting
This is the new addition to the list that just came to mind this weekend. When I dine anywhere that I end up having a paper cup, styrofoam container, plastic closing bin.... anything into which I can cram stuff into, well... I do just that. I labor to take every disposable plate, napkin, empty sugar packet, french-fry holder, plastic stir-stick, hell I even break plastic utensils when necessary, and I cram them into the cup/container that'll hold them all. Ideally, upon completion, I'll be able to close the lid and have all the trash self-contained for easy disposal.
Teeth Ticking
Probably the weirdest, and most likely to be found within the DSM-IV reference book: I 'click' my teeth. Not grind. Click, as in with a fingernail. It's a nervous habit that makes Crispen Glover appear reasonably balanced. I started it in mid/late 2000 when I discovered a few abnormally sharp crevices and peaks in my teeth. The dentist says the tongue is extremely sensitive and what feels like a spike is barely visible. But whatever the cause, once I stumbled across this anomaly I started having impulses to touch and click it. Try exploring about your own teeth, between the tops where they meet, inside.... feel 'em? Makes you wanna tick 'em. Do it. Tick. Tick that tooth. TICK IT! JOIN US! Bwahhahaha
Song Surfin
'I'd not expect most people to consider this a weird habit, but if you'd spend 15 min riding in my car while I jump about from one song to another, you'd think I have the attention span of, of, uh... where was I? Oh yeah, song surfing. You see, it's almost impossible for me to play a song all the way through. Simply because I hear it, recognize it, pretty much replay it in my head immediately, and want to move along to the next one. Listening to music with me drives my wife crazy. I put the 'tense' in 'Attention' Deficit Disorder. It's right in line with taking a bite out of each piece of the See's candy box, or at least pressing on the bottom of each piece enough to sift out the chews and find the nuts and toffee.
Routine Placement of Daily Objects
I always put things like my keys, cell phone, wallet and such in the exact same spot at home and work, every day, every time. And when I don't, I'm livid with myself. And if they're moved on me, it's derailing. I can't function. I can't walk straight. and until I do find them it feels like I'm walking about with my shoes on the wrong feet and my pee-pee on the wrong side of my pants. And if that throws me off kilter now, I can't wait to see what life with adolescent twins is gonna be like.
Java Jacket Alignment
The extent of my anal retentive behavior extends well beyond anything reasonable and all the way out to trivial and inconsequential idiosyncrasies including but not limited to having to align the seam of the 'java jacket' on my paper coffee cup with the seam of the paper coffee cup... and then having to have the mouthpiece of the lid at the exact 180 degree opposite position to the cup seam. Reader, meet the tip of the iceberg that is the dysfunction I call my daily existence.
Currency Events
I not only sequence bills in my wallet by denomination, but I have the 1's on the outside and ascend from there, all turned face up and facing the same direction, and I tend to straighten out the corners if they're bent or folded. I unconsciously do the same with coins, and when there's really an idle moment, the devil's playground kicks in and I rotate the faces to be in uniform position. And while we're on the topic of current, what better segue into loose batteries. Not only will my loose batteries all be stored to have + and - ends in the same direction, but I'll also go so far as to group the AA's by brand, and rotate each battery so the labels are all in uniform alignment. Doesn't everybody? Hey, it could be worse; I only do that on opened packages.
Oh, and my ultimate obsession has to be that the time I don't spend whining and lamenting about how I have absolutely no time to get anything done ends up being spend taking what could have been a five-minute bullet-pointed list and weaving a drawn-out narrative in its place.
Ritalin... take me away...
