Thursday, April 22, 2010

A confession

Not the toes! I'll talk! Anything but the ice cold toes! Please!!!! I tell you whatever you want to know!
(There's a story there too.)

Some of you do pay attention after all, at least some of the time. In fact, I DO mouse left handed. Trackball and trackpad to. I'm versatile that way. I learned how because I once was doing some work comparing paper to electronic documents, and it got very convenient to mouse with one hand and check things off on paper with the other. I suppose I could have done the check marks with my left hand and moused with my right, but then it would be difficult to read the paper upside down.

Sigh. I guess I'm going to have to explain that too. When I was writing with my left hand it was easier to do it upside down and from right to left. Less ink smearing. Not that writing left handed was much neater than right handed, so it turned out some of my relatives were wrong when they said that nothing could be messier than my writing. Since it was my writing they were complaining about it shouldn't matter which hand was used. The fortuitous invention of computers has meant that when I do any substantial amount of writing it's going to happen with a keyboard. My marginal at best handwriting has diminished into a scrawl that even I can barely decipher. The last serious amount of handwriting was done onto a slate, which bizarrely enough could recognize my handwriting better than my printing.

ANYWAYS. Just to confuse IT people everywhere that see the mouse on the left side of the keyboard, I leave the buttons oriented for the dexter among you. I get a giggle out of watching people briefly try mousing with the left, and then moving it to the right. Then I boggle their brains by using it right handed as well. Which I do with other things. When I took up golf I had to try both sides to figure out which way worked better. I golf the opposite way to most people most of the time, (not quite as strong by a few yards but much straighter) but I'm not above borrowing a 5 iron if there is a tree in the way. Not that I golf well, or much. I used to be able to play tennis with either hand, and tried once with two racquets but the serve was kind of tough. I haven't played tennis in more than 30 years so I have no idea if I still can. Lets see. On the bike I drink with my right hand because I'm better driving a bike with my left hand. I just make sure I'm not likely to need the brakes in a hurry. Same with driving a car. Most tool use is right handed because most tools are designed that way, some less subtly than others. Lets see how long you keep your fingers running a circular saw left handed. For a while when I was doing a lot of numeric entry I taught myself to use the keypad left handed and that was handy using a USB keypad on a laptop. When my right elbow was broken I didn't mind brushing my teeth or shaving left handed but mostly do it right handed. I pretty much run on auto-pilot in the morning, as Linda could tell you.

I've always found it hard to answer if I'm right or left handed. It depends on the task. Some I'm better with left, others with right. Sometimes it depends on the circumstances, where it might be easier to reach in to a tight space with one hand rather than the other. I suppose most people would consider me somewhat right hand dominant.

So am I weird? Most people that know me say yes. I'm being honest here. Even the ones that don't are either weird the same way themselves so it doesn't count, or they're lying to me for some reason. Enough of this. I'm procrastinating about doing core. Onwards.

The run this morning was super! Started at the east side of the pedestrian bridge, ran all the way down to the north support for Memorial Drive and back in 45:30. Mostly easy, but some going harder. The sun was just coming up and the temperature was perfect for running.

During the day I banged my right knee against my desk. It's in a cube farm designed for midgets. I don't have enough leg room and one of the squares of rug is loose and attacks my feet. Oh the humanity!

That banged knee came back to haunt me during the bike. The half hour of core was not-so-subtly altered to try to loosen up my back. Wall sit was right out; a few seconds of that had my knee screaming. Plank and pushups were a shambles. The rest was ok.

The warmup on the bike took forever, and my knee gradually complained more and more. I tried standing to stretch it out and nearly fell over. After that it hurt more, so I gave up and iced it.

7 comments:

  1. Well, I'm right handed and wear a watch (when I actually WEAR a watch) ON MY RIGHT. It trips people up a bit. Fun!

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  2. I have to admit that I'm somewhat envious because I am soooo right handed that my left hand is really rather useless (except for wearing fabulous jewelry...it does that really well).

    I'm actually rather curious about the cold toes. Thoughout the winter my toes are like icecubes...yep, even in SoCal. Can you imagine what they'd be like in Calgary?

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  3. I don't wear a watch - haven't done for years - that freaks people out - how do I know the time to the absolute minute - panic!

    Anyhow, I'm right handed, Jase is left handed, my brother is left handed but was made to write right handed at school - crazy! Oh, I could go on and on and on about left handed, but I'd bore you all.

    Anyhow, back to the confession - nothing wrong with looking after and listening to your body - you know what's right and you've only got one body for the rest of you life, so best we look after it really :)

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  4. My Mom is like you Keith -- she uses whichever hand feels *right* for the task at hand. :)

    Owie on the knee! I hate when I bang into something over and over again.

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  5. I write left and consider myself left handed but I do a wide range of sports right. And I cut scissors with my right. Golf - left, batting - left but catching right, swim - right, tennis - right. It gets confusing for me too. Fun to know there's another one out there too.

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  6. Keith, that is just weird.

    Friends off.

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  7. I'm kidding of course...I noticed your computer setup the last time I was over.

    I sometimes have to switch over when my right wrist becomes tired...not as fluid as my dominant hand but enough to get the job done.

    Gosh, just reading over that last paragraph really opens a can o worms if taken out of context ;)

    Friends on buddy!

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Looking forward to reading your comment!