sotto voce USA

Weekend Assignment: Very Hidden Talents

Over at By the Way, the Weekend Assignment is pretty straightforward...

Weekend Assignment #101: Name a talent that you don't have that you wish you did.
Extra Credit: Do you have any completely useless talents.

I wish I could play a musical instrument. It doesn't really matter which one, though I'm partial to the dobro or the mandolin. I just think they sound cool. But any musical instrument will do. Two problems have held me back: 1. I'm left-handed, which has frustrated the couple of people who have attempted to teach me to play a stringed instrument. I really, really, really want to hold them upside-down and play them with the "wrong" hand. 2. I'm fairly uncoordinated. I can type about 40 words per minute if I really concentrate, but that's about the limit of my hand-eye coordination. I just don't think my fingers would cooperate to hammer out a tune with any decent medley or rhythm, even with decades of practice...and I don't really have that kind of patience. I guess that's three things.

I do have some neat talents that are pretty useless. I can do a pretty fair rendition of the William Tell Overture by snapping my fingers and clapping. Wait a minute, you might be thinking, what about that hand-eye coordination thing? Well, that's the only song I can do that sounds anything like what it's supposed to sound like. I'm not really sure how I picked it up, but I've been able to do it since I was a kid.

Also, back in the day when I used to chew bubble gum, I could blow a bubble inside of a bubble. I'm not sure if I can do it anymore. It's been a while. I probably could if I really concentrated.

One more: My elbows hyperextend. Some people would say that I'm double-jointed. So I can do a pretty good job of convincing someone that I've broken my arm.

posted by fdtate @ 9:37 AM