Literary Dyslexia

Sobriety.

Sobriety.

Sobriety.

I've noticed that I've had a peculiar habit of switching or substituting letters lately. Sometimes I'll advance one or more letters in a word, and sometimes I'll replace certain random letters with whatever's next to them on the keyboard.

Sobriety.

Sobritey.

Spbroety.

Sometimes, for no reason at all, I'll even fail to punch in certain letters at all. Capitals are favorite.

Sobriety.

Sobeirty.

obriety.

I wonder if it's stress. I've been through the wringer at work lately, and the wall of upcoming projects for the year doesn't bode well for my circumstances. At worst, my mind could be in some gradual process of degradation, and maybe the basic pattern-and-sequence rules would be the first to go in that case.

Or maybe I just type too fast. Odd, for a man who almost flunked his grade-school Typing class.

I've noticed that it's already affected my writing speed, although in a purely psychological way. Nowadays, I tend to look back every few words or so, just to make sure that I haven't made any 'careless' spelling errors. I most definitely don't remember having that kind of habit from last year.

I've considered shifting to a Dvorak keyboard, but then I'd need some time to learn the new layout first. I can't set it up at home because I've got siblings who use the traditional keysets, and it might not be feasible to set it up at work because wrenching the keys off and putting them back on again will eat up a couple of hours. There's also the question of juggling familiarity between the two keysets - what if I have to use someone else's computer, for example? What if I take up a post in an Internet cafe?

All that, and the notion of switching to Dvorak may be a little presumptuous at this time. I'm not even sure what's causing me to switch all these letters at the moment.

I glad for my proofreading skills. Otherwise my writings would be a mere jumbled mess.

In the back of my mind, I think that maybe I should just chuck the whole technological bit out the window and go back to writing with pencil and paper. I haven't seen a good sample of my handwriting in years. That would certainly be a lot easier.