Ambidextrous (not really)

[mmcirvin]

Using a mouse ruins your hands and arms more effectively than typing does. While I am not a specialist in ergonomics, it seems to me that part of the problem is that most people mouse with their right hands, but modern keyboards have a long extension off to the right with the cursor and numeric keypads on them; so if you're centered over the QWERTY keys, the mouse pad is likely to be waaaaay off to the right.

I've largely been able to stave off RSI by switch-hitting: I mouse with my left hand at work and with my right hand at home. But lately I've been spending too much time at the computer at home, and also managed to make my right shoulder sore by overreaching for something that was in the back seat of my car (I can't even remember what it was now-- possibly my hat). In order to keep it from aching more, I've switched to left-handed mousing at home too.

I use a Wacom tablet that comes with a wireless three-button mouse that works on the pad. I find that I'm pretty much useless using the tablet pen with my left hand, but with the mouse I'm OK. However, most right-handers tell me that they could not possibly do this.

My mother always had a bizarre theory that I was really left-handed, and had adopted right-handedness only by imitative custom. She thought this because my sister is left-handed, and because I always held a pencil in a bizarre hooked position like a left-hander (though in my right hand), and had terrible handwriting. But I never could write worth a damn with my left hand, so I don't entirely credit this theory.

Also, when opening jars, I always hold the lid with my left hand and the jar with my right, which is supposedly not the way right-handers normally do it. But it seems to me that jar-opening is an activity with an inherent handedness to it, because of the direction of the screw thread, and which way gives you better leverage shouldn't have anything to do with whether you are left- or right-handed. And everyone gets me to open jars, even though I am an extraordinary weakling, so I think I know something they don't.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I open them the way Matt does. You want your dominant hand to be doing the complicated motion, not to mention the heavy wrenching if it's a tight lid.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Also, that way you can put the lid down with your right and pick up a knife or spoon. Then again, if you're going to pour from the jar, you probably wanted it in your right to start with. Hmm... this is getting complicated.

Probably depends on the jar

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

If you're opening a narrow jar like olives for your second lunch martini, or maybe mom's special asparagus-n-botulism, you can fit your hand over most of the jar, and it's almost too big for the lid, which fits in your palm. You can use your whole wrist to turn the lid, so it's best to use your dominant hand on the lid, but then again, if you twist the jar with it instead, you won't spill the liquid.

But a larger jar, like pickles or a human head, most people tuck the jar under their arm and try to twist, but twisting that lid that way is like trying to scratch a record. Best to put your whole dominant hand on the whole side of the jar and use its traction to pull against the lid. If the fluid sloshes on you, wash it off, because formaldehyde burns and brine is too powerful to be understood by men.

Pickled heads are a special case, requiring a hook, claw, or other nefarious prosthetic.

[schwa242.livejournal.com]

I open jars the way you do, as my left hand is stronger than my right, what with me using a mouse with my right hand way too much.

-- Schwa ---