Fanatic

I was a bit of a weird kid.  Not overly strange in any obvious ways, but looking back, I realize how odd some of my obsessions were.  The thing is, a lot of the weirdness went on in my head, so no one really knew it. 

A few examples:  I had a little cough/sniff/clear-my-throat routine for awhile.  That one was noticed by my family and they still give me grief about it!  I felt like I physically couldn't do one of those actions without following it up with the other two.  I obsessively twisted my hair around my fingers...and I had to do it an equal amount of times around each finger.  Every time.  I counted my steps everywhere I went, and always had to start climbing stairs with my left foot.  (Okay, this one I still do...some of the tendencies didn't leave me!)

Anyway...like I said, I was a little strange at times.  You may pick up that those examples involve similar themes of pattern and order.  Despite sometimes living amid chaos, I do have a thing for order. 

There is a certain video game that has been around for a LONG time that played right into my obsession with patterns... I know you played it too... just admit it...

I LOVED me some Tetris!  I played it on the original Nintendo, then on the computer, for hours and hours.  I just love the way those pieces fit so neatly together when you found the right combination.  It fed right into my love of patterns.

I might have played Tetris a little too much at times.  I can remember closing my eyes to go to sleep and seeing the blocks falling against the darkness.  I even dreamed about Tetris pieces a few times...can't believe I just admitted that on the Internet!  (Oh, wow... In looking for pictures of the game, I found out there is an actual term for this kind of thing.  It's called the Tetris Effect.  Who knew??  Maybe I'm not as abnormal as I thought!)

It's been a long time since I have played a good, old-fashioned game of Tetris.  They came out with a new version for Super Nintendo and other gaming systems, but I like the classic version, without all the fancy new graphics and changing rules.

Well, friends, it was a happy day last week when I was browsing the Wii games and came across this:

I couldn't resist...the obsession begins anew!  Although when I played for the first time last night, I realized my eyesight is not quite what it used to be... I guess that's a good way of limiting my playing time.  I can't wait to wow Jeremy with my Tetris skills this weekend.  : )  Wonder how long it will take before those geometical shapes start showing up in my dreams?