Word Freak

My mother got me into Scrabble. She'd play this old game for hours against the computer rival, Maven. I'd never really been into the game until college when I'd make trips home. On my third or fourth trip down, I noticed I'd picked up on many of the 2 letter words and got at least one bingo per game. She burned me a copy of her game, and I took to playing it in the evenings as I watched television and relaxed. Now, I admit, I play the game in the mornings while I eat breakfast before work and watch the news. I play the game in the evenings before I go to bed. I've even discovered the Yahoo game which has new words that have been added to the dictionary in the last couple years (my game's from 1996) like "qi" and "ae." I'll download the game for the free 60 minutes and when that runs out delete the program from my computer and download it again (I should probably just pay the $19.99 and save myself some time, but I'm a bit cheap.)

So, there you have it. I'm pretty much a closeted Scrabble dork.

But, it gets worse.

I also have another word freak quirk.

I do anagrams in my head all the time. Like, on the metro, I'll take a word or phrase I see on a poster and turn it into as many words or phrases as I can. Constantly. If I'm bored while talking to someone or in a meeting, I'll think of the person's name and try to come up with as many other names as I can within that name. It's a little sick. I've really only ever admitted this to my mother. She does it sometimes too.

Last night, I met someone in Silver Spring for drinks. We got on the topic of Scrabble and then I just mentioned my anagram quirk. (I was so embarrassed after it came out of my mouth!) "I do that too!" he laughed. "No you don't?" "Yeah, really. How strange! I've never met anyone who did that!" "I know how strange! We're both closeted word freaks!"

It was so bizarre and fantastic I just about took his name and turned it into seven other names in my head!