Iamneurotic

Recently, I stumbled across I Am Neurotic, which not surprisingly, is a compilation of user-submitted neuroses. Like many confessional websites, I Am Neurotic is at times funny, touching, and occasionally, frightening. I was particularly amused by the poster who said he kept checking the site to see if his submission had been posted, thereby creating yet another neurosis. Chris jokingly suggested he would open up a competing site, called IamHappyandWellAdjusted.com. Yeah okay, he's the last person I'd consider for membership in that club.

To be fair though, I think we all have our own neuroses, and I started giving some thought to the quirky things I do that no one else is aware of. I'd like to think that these aren't that crazy (see the guy who always has to shake salad dressings), but who knows, maybe I'm less happy and well-adjusted than I think I am. Without further ado, here are a few of the neurotic things that I do (and maybe you do them too):

• I hate typing in URLs because it means my browser will save them for 10 days. The exception is if this is a site I will visit regularly in the future, then it's allowed to be in the drop-down history menu. I'm also careful to type in http://www.domain.com, so that all the addresses line up evenly. The worst is when other people use my computer and type in something like espn.com, which means I will see that eyesore every time I click on the drop down history, for the next 10 days.
• I refuse to run with an iPod, but I'm always mentally singing something in my head while I run. I always run and breathe in time, which rules out a lot of really fast or slow songs. Since my preferred breathing cadence is one breath for every 3 steps, this means I'm almost always running to songs in 3/4 or 6/8 time. There aren't too many of those, but my current favorites are the Alma Mater Waltz and the 6/8 section in Copland's "In the Beginning" about whales.
• There is a default assortment of dishes in the drying rack, meaning if the dishes have dried, I put everything away except for 3 bowls, a small cutting board, a small plate, a large plate, a pair of wooden chopsticks, a wooden spoon, a paring knife, peeler, 2 tablespoons, 1 teaspoon, and 1 fork.
• Along the same lines, I stack plastic tupperware containers in the same order, every time.
• My alarm clock is usually set to an "odd" number, like 7:26 am. Why should half and quarter hours always be the chosen wake-up times?
  
• If at least 50% of a song has been played in iTunes, and I need to leave or move on to something new, I scroll to play the end of the song plus 5 seconds of the next song, so that the play count updates correctly.