and everything seems normal except that "Control-W" no longer works.
- control works (e.g. Control-T still opens up new browser tabs)
- w works (note all the 'w's in this post)
- control w does not close tabs in Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Visual Studio Code, or Obsidian
so it's not the physical keys, and it's not the specific program I'm using. what the hell?? do I gotta debug my keyboard now??