i am neurotic.

I must put my left motorcycle glove on first. In many years of riding I’ve had no serious accidents and this is why.

I cannot “split poles.” If I’m walking with someone (at least someone I care about) if they go on one side of a pole, I have to go on the same side. I guess I feel like we’ll be disconnected by the pole passing between us. This happens in parking garages where there are cement poles and also lamp posts, anything, really.

When i was 16 i cracked a nerve under one of my teeth on the left of side of my mouth. 6 years later i still only chew with the right side of my mouth for fear that the pain i felt will come back and day now.

When I was younger and just learning how to tie my shoes, I used to put them on left to right. My older (terrible) neighbor told me that if you put your right shoe on first, it means you’re a serial killer. Ever since then I have to put them on left shoe first. Otherwise I’ll get all panicky.

When I was a kid I used to always chew the last piece of food in the left side of the mouth. I am left-handed so it was like this side of my body was better than the other.

I also have to type in a strange way. If i have typed a letter with my right hand that i felt i should’ve typed with my left, I have to go back and re-type it. Every time I have to go back because i made a mistake, I cannot use the backspace button; i always delete the letters or highlight and delete them in some combination. really annoying.

i always have to walk to the left of people to feel balanced.  i feel like my head can’t really turn to the left effectively to have a good conversation if i’m standing to the right.

I can’t stand it when shoes on the floor are “backwards” – meaning the left foot is on the right and vice versa. If they have been thrown on the floor this way I have to correct and set them so that the left shoe is on the left and the right shoe is on the right.

I take my right contact lens out first, and after putting it in its case, I hold my thumb over it and repeat “forget my secrets” three times. I repeat the process for the left lens. When it’s time for a new pair, I have to cut the old pair into tiny pieces, just in case they haven’t forgotten everything they helped me see.

When I was a kid, I imagined that there were two people in my mouth, Left and Right. Right was a good guy and Left was evil, so when I ate I had to shift the food I liked to the right and the yucky food to the left, or Left might one day get strong and then I would die. But I didn’t want Left to starve (the food I didn’t like was considered ‘not real’ food) so sometimes I would chew food I liked on my left. I still have the habit.