me gone stoopid? Leftist Propaganda

So those of you who know me know that I've got some screwed up problems with my body. Those of you who've lived with me have probably been coerced into jamming your elbow into my left shoulder blade at various points in your life. One of you in particular has ground me with a mortar (...or pestle...I never remember which part is which), which was AWESOME but you got tired fast.

I notice that my tendency to hugely favor my right side like a non-illegitimate eldest son is especially prominent when I sit at the sewing machine, or when I'm on my computer. These two positions have dominated my daily range of motion as of late, and while there's nothing really to be done about the sewing machine problem (clearly, there was a bias when Elias Howe invented the thing. Prejudiced right-handed bastard), I have switched my mouse over to left-handed buttons.

It's already begun to make a difference in the way that I sit at the computer, up straight instead of leaning on my left elbow with my slack-jawed face cradled on my left hand while my right hand does the mousing. However, there may be consequences I failed to consider before taking this on.

I first began to notice a problem when playing my new favorite computer game, Bookworm Adventures. Basically, it's RPG Scrabble with quirky design and writing and also it is the best game ever in the history of the world. But I switched the mouse from right- to left- handed buttons when I was in the middle of the epic saga that is Adventure Mode of this game, and all of a sudden noticed a marked change in my wordmastering ability. Check out a side by side comparison of some of the words from the score records:

Right-handed:
Ridiculous
Motivation
Titanium (there is a hammer you can acquire which deals extra damage for spelling words to do with metal. As I said, awesome.)
Acrophobia
Sanguines

Left-Handed:
tricks
slug
tan (there is a tome that does bonus damage for color words. This still didn't do as much as I might have hoped.)
pear
pears
teal

It occurs to me that the left- and right- sides of the brain control operations on the opposite side of the body, and that they say that different sides of the brain control different types of thought or skill as well. Artistic and/or creative people, for instance, are said to be "right-brained." And, as it is the right side of my brain that is now being exercised by putting my left hand to work, I fully expect my magical painting ability to increase tenfold. Any day now. Or I'll start to write real good. You'll see. It's start. Any minute. Bug.

I am going to continue this little experiment, hoping that my posture continues to prosper and that my handwriting with my non-dominant hand will improve above that of a childish scrawl. But if you don't hear from me for a while, uh...call me and check up on me, would you? I might have tried to retrieve my toast or a toy car from the toaster slots using a wire clothes hanger or something.