BIG SECRET...

... it's slightly OCD.

so i have this weird counting obsession. sometimes i feel like it controls me a little bit...which makes me think that it is OCDish. anyone i have ever told about this thinks it's kinda weird...cause it is. and now i am gonna let my readers see a little glimpse of my messed up mind.

i have a favourite number. that number is 12. i have always loved 12. my birthday is on the 12th, and it's in june which is the 6th month of the year which is half of 12. the first letter of my name is L and that is the 12th letter in the alphabet. i remember learning my 12 times table and i can recite them very quickly and i love knowing it. i also like knowing what numbers equal 12. those numbers that mainly stick out in my mind are 3, 4 and 6. those numbers play a BIG part in my counting obsession (but i won't get into that).

i often counted things. i wanted things to equal 12 or be a multiple of 12, but it was manageable until i got a cell phone plan that included texting. i liked to text using ABC (which means that for C you would press the #2 key 3 times, once for A, another time for B and a third time for C). i have that system memorized. you can say a letter and i can tell you immediately how many times i would need to press a certain key in order to get that letter. when i am watching TV, reading or talking with people certain words stick out to me. those words i count according to texting... (weird, i know) let me give you an example:

steve...s=4 t=1 e=2 v=3 e=2

when you add those numbers up they equal 12. yay! this makes for a peaceful lael.

here is where things get complicated...

weird...w =1 e=2 i=3 r=3 d=1

when those numbers are added up they equal 10...this is when weird math comes into place. i want it to equal 12. so what i have to do (this is all in my head) is make it equal 12...i am 2 short. if you divide 10 in half (giving me 2 extras (10+2=12)) you get 5. so what i need to do is add together the ones that equal 5 twice. so i would do this:

w+i+d (1+3+1)= 1 extra point (i now have 11)
e+r (3+3)= 1 extra point (and now i have 12!!!)

i know that this makes NO sense...but it's what i do. here is another example:

CONGRATULATIONS
3+3+2+1+3+1+1+3+1+1+3+3+2+4= 33

so this is when i use multiples of 12. i would now want it to equal 36. i need 3 more points to make it equal 36. there are 15 letters in CONGRATULATIONS so i know i can divide it by 3 and get 5. so i would put CONGR together as one point, ATULA as another and TIONS as the final point. now i have 36.

as i am writing this i am seeing even more how little sense this makes. :S....but regardless this is how my mind works. i REALLY wish i could stop. sometimes when i get really stuck on a word i have to work hard to convince myself to 'let it go'. i often am counting and don't even realize it. it's very much a habit now. one night my brother was over and he would say a word and ask me for the count and i would quickly tell him how much it equalled....he thought i was crazy....and fast. what is also weird about this is what i have had a blackberry for 2 years and i don't even use ABC texting anymore because my keyboard is different than that.