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03 June 2011
Your mundane superpowers I genuinely believe I have a better sense of direction then most people. I never get lost,
I share The Whelk's gift of super orientation. no matter how off the beaten track I get, I always find may way .
Should we perhaps form the Not Lost league of America or something ? if we do, can we forgo wearing capes for fear that it may make us look to hipsterish ?
I think I've mentioned this before, but apparently my color vision is really good. Working in television, I have a lot of times where I need to match the color of someone's skin when shot by two different cameras during an interview, for example, and I've always been able to pretty much nail it on sight. I wonder how many of my ancestors had this ability and never knew it because they didn't work in a field that required them to match colors.
I rarely get lost going to the same place twice. I have good visual memory. For example, I might remember a favorite poem as being on the bottom half of a right-hand page in a moderately yellowed paperback with a broken spine and a light blue cover. I can read body language. An optometrist told me I have good depth perception. That's with my glasses off. With them on, my depth perception is pretty bad. Also, I apparently am very good at spatial reasoning.
Mundane superhero weaknesses: No sense of balance. Easily carsick. Totally unable to walk on even tiny amounts of ice.
I have a ridiculously acute sense of smell. I can smell things in closed drawers, and pick up the first wafts of important scents that signal that, say, there is an agricultural fair a couple miles up the road, or there might be something dead in the wall.
I have an uncanny sense about narrative, especially in movies and TV: I can predict plot twists, even some of the whackiest, WHAM-iest, most out-of-left-field developments. I don't do it outside of home, and only if The Fella and I have determined together that this is a spoiler-y viewing, not a quietly engrossed viewing.
It's by no means consistent, but surprisingly often, I'll suddenly get The Feeling and I'll pipe up with "Oh, [character] is obviously [going to die in the third act/going to marry that complete stranger three episodes from now/a ghost]. He'll scoff. Then three episodes later, it will happen.
After Season 4 of "Mad Men," The Fella announced to a group of friends that I was obviously a witch.
I'm a good at estimating quantity - I unerringly choose the most efficient container in which to store leftovers.
I can also carry an astonishing number of (empty) coffee mugs or wine glasses in one hand -- years of foodservice experience.
And I inherited the Parking Gene from my father, who could confidently drive right up to the front of the parking lot and find a space even when the lot is crowded. I suspect this is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that my confidence spurs me to drive right past the available distant spot most people would automatically choose, thus creating more opportunities for me to see available prime parking spots others would have never thought to look for.
I am also a championship-calibre sleeper, capable of stunning displays of snoozing prowess.
This is from long ago, but I have solved dozens of Wheel of Fortune puzzles with no letters turned whatsoever. I learned this is not always the best experience to share with others. I'll bet some of you have done the same.
You got me to thinking now. I feel a tiny bit like Roy Batty at the end of Blade Runner. Someday all these things will be gone, and no one will know.
-I can scoop up a bee in my hand, for example off my plate if I'm eating outside, relocate it, and tell it to have a nice day -- I've never been stung and never will be. That's no big deal. Now those Buddhist monks who can lie down curled up with a wild tiger, now THAT takes a certain vibe. Don't think I could pull that one off.
-I can drive 70 mph past a long row of orange construction barrels with the passenger door of the car a consistent 1/16 inch from the barrels and never scrape them; When I was 16 years old I could only get 1/8 inch away.
-I can pick locks.
-I have a high pain tolerance, I've been taking some medical classes, and while I'm not a "cutter", I sometimes have this urge to "borrow" some Provodone, Ethilon, and a disposable scalpel, incise a neat 4" long gash through to the subcutaneous tissue of my arm, and suture it closed without anesthetic, just for practice. I'd never do it, but if I had to, it'd be, like, Okay, no biggy.
-I've been told by several people that I can calm a person down by speaking to them. It doesn't matter what I say. I guess it's something about my voice.
-I used to be able to sneeze or yawn without reflexively shutting my eyes. Sometimes I still can. I also used to notice myself slowing down or speeding up my heartbeat semi-consciously to match the 1/4-note beats of whatever music I'd listen to while going to sleep. I can't seem to do that anymore, although I don't try very hard -- the ticker's pretty much autonomic the way it should be these days, and I think that's good.
-If I play a certain martial arts sparring game, or if someone is trying to demonstrate a move on me, I can usually sense when the person is about to move just before s/he moves, and so I can pull back my shoulder or whatever body part in the same direction they're attempting to push me, leaving them with no leverage and feeling a little like a person who went to sit down and missed the chair. I'm not nearly as good as a serious martial artist (I don't practice or anything), and a really fast person can push me even though I've started to move away before they began to move, but it's a nifty trick, the same one tai chi masters used to use to keep a bird sitting on a hand: the bird would need to hop to take flight, but each time the master would sense it and drop his hand just a hair a split second before the bird hopped.
-I can name the 206 bones of the human body. But the 700+ muscles are going to take a little more time and effort.
-I can pick up an orphaned baby raccoon without gloves on. They snarl like wildcats but they're sweethearts, so actually anyone can. But I have.
-Evidently I can carry a bleeding, injured, 90 lb fawn for over a mile before it dies in my car on the way to the wildlife rehabber.
Sorry, usually I have something smartass to say to a fun post like this, but right now I just keep thinking it has been an interesting life so far.
I have a minimal sense of direction (am extraordinarily dependent on GPS gizmos, which I totally have mastered) and my spatial skills are pitiful.
What I can do: witch level intuition about what people are thinking/feeling, whiz at NYT puzzle, killer Jeopardy player, super fast reader, fairly perfect photographic short term memory, and can make a beautiful handmade tiny gift wrap bow.
So, pretty sure bet to die early due to useless skill set if civilization as we know it is wiped out.
I think I've mentioned my freakish peripheral vision before. My kids hate it when they're trying to sneak past me when I'm reading.
I'm a sprinkler goddess. If I want to get soaked by one, it'll start up right next to me. If I want to stay dry, I can walk through a field of them and they'll all turn away. The only drops I'll get are caused by wind.
I also make computers sick, but I don't consider that a talent so much as a burden and guaranteed future employment.
Like BitterOldPunk I possess Parking Karma. A great spot is always waiting for me. Often I'll see my spot, thank the Parking Karma gods, drive past it and leave it for the next guy. I don't mind the walk.
Also I can fold tiny hats and boats out of scraps of paper.
BoringPostcards, I had an art teacher who used to work in big business branding and she was having trouble with a particular shade of blue that refused to match up, coincidently she had an eye test done and the doctor went "huh, you're very slightly blue colorblind" ...which would have never come up if she didn't work matching subtle changes in color all day.
Flapjacks:
West Village? Ha! Like what, five main roads, few alleys and landmarks galore? I was dumped without a map in Venice and found my way around with no problem. I blame a decade of video games, I totally have the little over world map in my head.
I read fast. I can make a baby stop crying. I can put together a tasty meal from whatever is in the pantry/fridge. I'm a whiz @ Wheel of Fortune, too, Ardiril. I only watch it on mute.
I'm hopeless at so many other things. It's a good thing I have a GPS or I'd be lost all the time. I never, ever have a stamp so don't give me something to mail for you. I will go past a place four times in a week & forget that stopping there is on my to-do list. I can't tell one type of car from another, except for the obvious things like one is a pickup & one is a 2 door. Type of pickup? Umm...red?
I attract cats. I don't know if it's my scent or tone of voice, but I'll be walking along and a cat will just appear next to me, trotting along beside me, meowing. I'll stop and the cat will stop and usually approach and let me pet them or they'll rub my legs. I'll walk on, and the cat will follow for awhile. There was one just yesterday morning, popped out of the bushes, a grey calico. It's nice, really. I just have to be careful they don't jump in my car with me.
Oh, I forgot dogs! Dogs love me, as do cats and small children, but dogs are something else. I was sitting on the floor at a friend of a friend's house watching the kids play video games. There were four dogs in the house - one belonged to the owner, three belonged to two different people also visiting. So, I'm sitting there, surrounding by dogs and one of them is in my lap. The one sitting in my lap? I had been told earlier that the only person she allows to approach her is her owner; she growls and snaps at everyone else including the owner's husband and kids. Everyone was pretty stunned when they noticed it.
I can keep my head in an emergency situation and make the right decisions without panicking. I can also deal with blood and gore, unless it's an eyeball. Eyeballs are right out. (I collapse after the emergency is managed.)
I intuitively know where people are ticklish. I can tickle people without touching them (Force-tickling). So don't cross me.
I can also recognize people I've never met or seen based on a limited physical description, or, sometimes, just a sketch of their personality. "Oh, my friend Chris, he's A, B, and C." "Is that him over there?" "Yes, how'd you do that?"
I have amazing reflexes, too. I dropped the soap in the shower this morning, and caught it mid-fall, thereby defeating gravity. This will come in handy if I'm ever in prison. Suffice to say, I don't have catlike reflexes. Cats have N@like reflexes.
Halonine, it sounds like you may also be an eideteker. =D
Which is to say, I have some of the same qualities you describe. My second time visiting my dad outside Pittsburgh, I had to drive him to his cancer treatment. He started to direct me, and then he said, "Oh, nevermind. I see you know where you're going."
Both my parents had amazing memories. My dad's was spacial/mathematical, and my mom's was for faces and facts. I inherited a combo of both. As for my brother, well. He's like Cypher from the X-Men with languages. He picks them up like a sponge.
I'm crazy good at standardized tests and have a big vocabulary (got 790 on the verbal section of the GRE-which I am insanely proud of but rarely tell anyone [except I think I told that to klang or limeonaire when I volunteered to be a MeFi Mag copyeditor]).
I'm good at finding misplaced things for other people. I credit this to my mom routinely misplacing her glasses when I was a child, and it has expanded to include other things.