i am neurotic.

Whenever I send text messages, there has to be an even number of characters left before it starts a new text message. If not, I add a space or another character so that the number is even.

When I brush my teeth I count each stroke; if I do not do this my family will die.

When I do sudoku, I start with the upper left box, filling in as many numbers as I can in ascending order 1 through 9. If I can fill in a number, I start over at 1 until I have to move on, and then I move down to center left, bottom left, upper center, middle center, bottom center, upper right, middle right, and then if the last square does not have a 9, I go back and solve the rest of the puzzle and then fill in bottom right, saving 9 for last. If bottom right does have a 9, I continue with that square in order and then fill in the rest of the puzzle. I worry that if I don’t do it in this order, I will not complete the puzzle properly.

When I’m on the elliptical trainer at the gym, the rate of incline and the resistance have to match. They also have to be on even numbers.

When I baby sit my niece I watch TV with the volume at 5 and captions on so not to wake her. I’ve been told this is ridiculous.

I count letters everywhere: a=1, b=2, c=3, etc, up until the letter f. I stop at f because that’s the highest that I can count quickly. I’ve been doing this as long as I can remember. I wish I could stop. I miss out on conversations sometimes because I’m too busy counting letters.

When I shake something, like salt or pepper, I randomly come up with a number of times I’m going to shake it and rhythmically count up to that. Like if the number that pops into my head is 7, I’ll shake it “1-2-3-4-5-6-7″ times. But if I decide that particular number of shakes isn’t enough, I won’t just change my mind on the fly and continue up to a higher number, like “…8-9-10.” I’ll start over again at 1 and count up to 7 again. I’ll repeat the pattern until it’s enough.

I cannot stand anything that has odd numbers in it. For example, if one of my classroom numbers ends in an odd number that’s all I think about all class. My alarm clock must be set on an even number at all times, as well. I can’t stand the fact my birthday is 7/11.

I have three doors on the first floor of my house. Each door has three locks. I have to go to each door (the one farthest away from my room first) and lock each of the three locks three times as well as flip the switch for the outside door light three times. I repeat this with the other two doors exactly in the same order every night. However, after the second door I check inside the two closets that are before the last door, that way I’m constantly moving towards my room. And of course if i convince myself that i did it too fast, i will have to go back and do it all over again. Just in case.

I like to do crossword puzzles and they are usually numbered. Well, I go through the book and pick the numbers that correspond to a certain age and then say…”I will be married by this age” or “I will have kids by this age” and then if I complete the puzzle and do not look up any answers, I know that it will happen. After I get all the good numbers, I will randomly pick numbers I like for whatever reason and then think similar more random scenarios.