OK, I took the bait from Sarah . I need to talk about 5 weird habits I have. See, I spend a good part of my life hiding my weird habits from the rest of the world, and now I�m just supposed to admit them outright?! Oh, all right.

1. Everything in my room will be a complete mess everywhere, no rhyme or reason, but all of my CDs are alphabetized in their little cabinet and my books on my bookshelf are all sorted by topic and size. Actually a few are out of place right now and so I have to just NOT LOOK at the bookshelf in the dining room until I have time to go through and fix it.

2. I cannot tolerate burned out light bulbs. I must change them. Right now. There is one in our hallway I can�t change because the glass cover is stuck. It is driving me crazy. I go into every lamp store I see trying to find a new cover so I can just smash the current one with a hammer so I can change the bulb. I have fantasies about smashing that cover. That will be a sweet, sweet day. The only exceptions are the ones at work. They still drive me bonkers when they go out, but my hatred of the lamps is trumped by my hatred for the ladder I have to use to change them.

3. I am ridiculously anal about printing out lists, flyers, etc. They must be perfect. If I print them out and something is wrong I can�t just correct it in pen, I must make a new one that is correct. Even if it�s just for me. If I write a letter or something in long hand and I think it looks bad, too many cross outs, I change from script to printing halfway through, etc. I will rewrite it. Even if it�s just a post-it saying I�m at the store and will be back in 10 minutes.

4. When I get really stressed out or if I�m sick or tired, or any of those other bizarre mind spaces, I count change to relax myself. I have an enormous change jar and it is the most relaxing thing in the world for me to pour out all the coins and sort and count them. If I have coin wrappers I�ll go that step too. Getting together a roll of quarters is so satisfying.

5. I am constantly looking for patterns. In things like tile work, especially. I try to find lines, diamonds, squares, any kind of geometric shape, basically. If something has a mottled texture or a heavy wood grain I look for pictures in those, too, like Rorschach blots. I can�t NOT do it.

Well, that�s five. I�m not sure really how much a few of them are habits, rather than compulsions, but that�s ok.

Form here, anyone who wants to take the tag, go with it.