Towards the beginning of my freshman year at Nazareth Academy, a Catholic high school, I asked my mother why the nuns wore those dresses that they wore. To which she responded, "Habit". I kid you not, that was the actual conversation. It wasn't until later that I realized that I played my mom's straight man.
I, like most people, am a creature of habit. Habits are the comfort food of daily life. They are the meatloaf and mashed potatoes that help us to keep our sanity while the world around us tries to serve us haggis.
What brought this up was that I got my hair cut the other day. It wasn't until the woman asked me, "So! What are we doing today?" and I rattled off "#2 clippers on the back and sides, blend the top and no sideburns," that I realized how much habits can rule my life. I also realized I hadn't written a blog entry in a while and could use it as a topic.
On a completely unrelated note, I also decided that the test of a great stylist is whether or not they trim the hair on my outer ear. No, it's not as if I'm some geezer with a bush growing out of their ear canal, just the light fuzz that grows on the earlobe. And it's not that I can't do it, what with having a beard trimmer and all, but s/he is right there, so why not go the extra quarter-mile?
My morning bathroom routine very rarely varies from the following order: trimming my beard (if necessary), shaving, brushing my teeth, showering (there is also a specific order that is followed there, but I'm not sure that I want you visualizing me in the shower), drying off, brushing my hair and, finally, applying deodorant. Don't ask why or how this particular order came about, it is just how it is.
When I arrive home after work I always put my work ID, wallet (which lays on top of ID), keys, watch and my ring in the same place. If I've worn my sunglasses, they go there as well. On the rare occasions that I don't put one of those items there, I will almost definitely forget it when I leave the apartment next. If, for example, I were to take my wallet into my computer room because I was - oh, I don't know, say - ordering my dad his Father's Day gift and accidentally left it on the desk instead of putting it back, I would be driving to work without a license the next day.
Other habits of mine include:
o Putting down the toilet seat - It was after my mother threatened to slam my manhood (well at that point, my boyhood)in it the next time I left it up that this habit was formed
o Driving on the left most part of a lane - Again, this is my mother's fault. If when you were learning to drive and you had a woman with a terrified look in her eye, slamming on the "passenger brake" while shouting "Watch the RIGHT, WATCH THE RIGHT!" you'd quickly start driving towards the left as well
o Picking at my nails - I used to bite my nails, but when I chipped a tooth doing that one day, I decided that the time had come to stop doing that. Oh, and if I ever told you that I chipped my tooth eating something, well, I lied. Get over it.
o Watching television - See my previous post for an idea of just how much of a habit it is. Actually, I'm not sure if TV watching is a habit or just plain laziness. However since this entry is about habits, I'm making the executive decision that it is a habit.
o Bending off the tab on pop cans if I'm going to drink it from the can
There are a multitude more but you get the idea. Once established, habits are hard to get rid of. They are so much a part of what you do and how you do it, most times you don't even realize that for the past 30 years, you've done it exactly the same way.
I can't tell you how difficult it was to wean myself off of biting my nails. I had tried previously including wearing a rubber band around my wrist and snapping it whenever I bit my nails. About all I got out of that was welts on my wrist, an acute queasiness around anything having to do with wrists and nails bitten down to the quick. Even now, almost two years after chipping my tooth and giving it up for good, I still have to be conscious of it.
I have tried to write an ending for this entry several times and so far this is best that I could come up with....Ahh, habits. They're not just for nuns anymore. Sorry.
