Monday, April 13, 2009

i love me some lefties!

One of my myriad inexplicable fascinations/obsessions is left handed people. I am so helplessly in awe of seeing people whose dominance comes from the left, that even now I will stare while the person in front of me in Fred Meyer writes a check with his or her left hand.

I am ambidextrous in almost every way. I write perfectly well with my left hand, but can do so faster with my right, so my need for speed dictates there. However, should I ever find myself accused of stealing (who me?) in a foreign country wherein the punishment is to sever the offending hand, I'd be fine. I can bat left, dribble left, kick with either, and am a switch-hitter in tennis. If I'm going to arm wrestle you, it will be with my left arm because it's stronger. I do struggle to apply nail polish with my left hand, as it seems to lack precision and steadiness, though it's great for painting and cleaning. And, now that the cat is out of the bag and running down the street, I hold cloves with my left hand. Of the 10,000 relatives about whom I recently wrote, not one had the decency to be left handed. While my own dexterity is of no interest to me, several people to whom I am drawn, make that extremely drawn, are left handed.

High profile lefties who matter to me:

Caroline Kennedy:


Slightly embarrassing crush, David Letterman:


Paul Simon, whose lyrics have been the soundtrack of my life:


Surprises from left field:

Angelina Jolie (Please don't have an orgasm while reading my blog okay? She ain't all that, except, now that I know she's left-handed, she kind of is...):



Controversial lefty, Tom Cruise:



Possible righty Tom Cruise (hence the controversy):


I struggle between crushing on Tom and despising him. He's short, the alignment of his teeth gives him the appearance of having one in the middle, which is extremely disconcerting, he's hella short, and um, just a little bit fucking crazier than a shit house rat. But damn, he's beautiful, and he really was dangling from that canyon in Moab in Mission Impossible 2. I've read dozens of articles claiming he is a lefty, but all the pictures of Tom holding a pen suggest otherwise. Perhaps he leads with his left and loves with his right?

I am so pleased to announce that I have exactly five favourite lefties:

#5. Bill Clinton, who signed an autograph with his left hand for me in 1992:


#4. Prince William of Wales, entering Eton. Thankfully he's finally old enough to crush on legally:


It is excrutiating to assemble the final three, and while I love this woman to no end, I have never met her, and thus, am awarding her the bronze medal in the Objects of my Lefty Obsession countdown. Behold Emma Thompson (Academy Award winning screenplay writer for Sense & Sensibility, the undisputed best film of all time.):


#2. Karen, my twin in so many ways (can't you see it?):


Drum roll.........My number one Lefty Love? As if you had to scroll down:

#1.
Admittedly, it helped seal the deal when he hugged me and squeezed me with his left hand last year, right before whispering into my left ear. (It is taking all my might not to lift the ban on orgasms while reading my blog...)

12 comments:

Heart Salve said...

i'm a lefty too :). i'm ambidextrous when palpating pregnant bellies and creating certain types of art, but mostly i am very lefty.

Cheyenne said...

OMG I'm not surprised! That explains my admittedly sort of creepy need to know you better!

xoxo

BK said...

Don't forget Arnie. His handedness being the only left thing left about him.

adam said...

And from the title, I was expecting a political blog. You did manage to sneak Clinton & Obama in, though, so I wasn't all wrong.

chanceofbooks said...

Is it bad that I'm trying to train my baby to be a lefty :P

Cheyenne said...

No it's wonderful!

I probably wouldn't go so far as to bind her right hand, as they did in the 40's, but you know, withholding food, possibly love, it's worth a try!

xoxo

Heart Salve said...

here's a fun tidbit - when i was around 7 and my family was in the midst of moving my mom put us in vacation bible school as daycare. i fell and broke my left arm and they told me that it was a message from god that i shouldn't be a lefty. my mom swears that she was forced to change to a righty in school when she was little. anyone know why this is?

Cheyenne said...

A) I hope you were able to light matches with your right hand and burn that despicable vbs to the ground. (Shudder. Bites tongue to refrain from seething rant about so-called christianity.) But I'm sure there's an innocuous passage in the Bible that uses the word "right," that has been subsequently abused (as most of them are) to oppress left-handedness because rabid evil-doers are running out of things and people to hate in the name of god. Just a guess.

B) Because desks and scissors and stuff like that were made for righties. Todd's dad was forced to be right-handed.

gabrielle said...

my mom had her left knuckles whacked all the time by the nuns at school for writing left-handedly (grammar issue? meh). she persevered though.

i ADORE ADORE ADORE the lefties!

mamakendra said...

I was a lefty, but my Kindergarten teacher wanted me to "train" the right way and made me use the righty scissors & print w/ my right hand. :o( So now I can beat anyone at darts or pool with BOTH hands, hehe.

BTW, Angelina is HOT and all that. So is that Karen lady. ;o)

Cheyenne said...

Lefties totally rule, in fact, I've never given Angelina a second thought until I discovered she was a south paw. You can have her.

That said, I have prior claims on Karen, so don't even think about it! I'm totally serious.

mental chatter said...

I think that even if I were not a lefty, I would still love lefties! And, I am so flattered that I made your lefty list. Yay me!

Ladies, there is PLENTY of me to go around! ;)

(BTW, Christ sits on the right hand of God. The opposite of right is left, and the opposite of Christ is Anti-Christ. I'm just sayin'.)