poka bean

a is for alphabet

Okay, so this is one part rip off of Sue Grafton novel titles and one part complete highway robbery of the book I hate myself for not having written first but with my current allocation of free time for writing (read: none) and corresponding lack of inspiration due to stress and exhaustion, this is my new game plan.

(At least until I learn to cope with the state of my wacko schedule and/or I completely bore you all to tears with useless information about myself and you beg me to stop. The latter is likely to happen first. Trust me.)

So without further adieu, I would like to share the first of 26 alphabetized installments on the chronicles of my life. Annecdotes, stories, factoids. All the really dumb and unimportant things I can think of to share with you for why else do you come here but to read mindless mush about a total stranger?

So heck, let's just start with the subject at hand. The alphabet. When I learned the alphabet as a child, I got it a little mixed up. Oh, come on. You did too. Probably worse than I did in which case I would like to hear your version. I think most kids get tripped up somewhere in the middle. My version went a little something like this...

A B C D
E F G
H I J K
LEMON AND A PEA

Pretty cute, huh? Well, I got over that childhood mix up rather quickly but what I never grew out of is this weird thing I have about numbers and letters. Specifically what COLOR they are. It wasn't until college that I learned this is NOT normal. I thought everyone saw their numbers and letters as different colors but, um, apparently not?

Let me break it down for you. Numbers are really my strong suit I'll use them to try to explain. Every single digit number is a different color to me. Thus I either like or dislike COMPOUND numbers based upon their color combination. Similarly, I can remember virtually anything if it's in a numbered list because I associate each item listed with the "color" it is in its number order. Do you follow?

My numbers look like this...
1 = white with a black outline (zero's like this too)
2 = pink
3 = yellow
4 = red
5 = blue
6 = salmony orange
7 = green
8 = turquoise or green (8 is fickle, depends on the colors it's next to)
9 = maroon

So the number 654, for example, just isn't a very good color combination so it kind of bugs me. But something like 753 is quite excellent and therefore very memorable in my mind. Have I completely lost you because this is the dumbest thing you've ever heard?

Well turns out this is a bonafide psychological phenomenon. Here that, folks? I'm a PHENOMENON. Apparently about 1 in 2,000 people have this little oddball mental condition called synesthesia. My sister discovered this while reading a very popular medical journal called Rolling Stone magazine. Apparently John Mayer has it and legend has it that Mozart was "synesthetic" too. It has something to do your mind blending your senses. Something like when one sense is evoked, two respond. Whatever. All I know is that I felt so VALIDATED when I found out I'm not a total freak. I'm only a freak 1,999 times out of 2,000 but 1/2,000 of the time, I'm stone cold NORMAL.

That is a serious relief.

Posted by Poka Bean at 6:34 PM