On the need to type with my fingers

The need to tap with my fingers (yes, like there was an imaginary keyboard) while I talk or I think is extremely asinine. I’ve been trying to stop, but it creates too much anxiety (and remember, I’m all about instant gratification).

I picked up this “endearing” habit during one of my very “educational” internships at a magazine (two years ago, when some were still around, well, like… five.) For three months I spent 10 hours a day transcribing interviews of TV executives saying sentences like “content is king” or “you need to connect with the viewer” like it was something new and astonishing. After a few days I reached enough speed to type the BS as it was been delivered, not one word missing.

The little money I made during the internship was in fact the product of winning bets. “$20 says you can’t type that fast.” I would put on my “maybe you are right because after all I’m a moron” face, take out the recorder and press play—believe it or not, I was using an analogue recorder… with tapes, I’m telling you, quite retro and quite cool in fact. I still miss the sound or rewinding. In any case, digital or analogue, a freakingly distorted voice would come out and recite word by word what was written on the doc. The $20 holder would lose his smile by the first paragraph. Become slightly upset by the second graph. Kiss his $20 goodbye by the third one.

I told you before, don’t let accents fool you. Or moronic faces. 

By the end of the internship I had made enough to renew my wardrobe at the local thrift shop and had found the art of typing so soothing, it became my anxiety remedy du jour.  It still is.