Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-04-29 - 4:15 p.m.

Express Check-Out

I had a thing over the weekend, a social thing, and it while it was fun and social and warm and all, it also brought up some issues - hey, we were all here for the nineties, right, we know about issues - issues which are NOT the issue here, particularly, but it certainly was amazing how very out-of-practice I am simply THINKING. Used up my brain, all in one evening, could not find the Reserve switch anywhere.

So yesterday I had, say, half a brain. No, less than that; half of the part of the brain I can normally USE, that being ten percent or so, leaving me with... with....oh hell, see?

I had driven home; probably shouldn't have been driving. Still have a transmission, though. Lucky. But it took me three hours to finish a seventy-minute drive. From an e-mail:

"(I was...) repeatedly visiting Daly City at one a.m. (I should have asked you how to get OUT; should have remembered you can't simply retrace steps in the city.) I was happily cruising down Alemany, poking through the embers of the evening, and they kept SCREWING with Alemany, and then it wasn't Alemany at all and I was in Daly City, so I went the other way for a while and BAM, Daly City again, so I started listening for Rod Serling to explain it to me, finally found 280 which is SUPPOSED to turn into 19th - no? - no, I guess - thinking, "Damn, I am NOT going to make that mistake I always make and end up on the fucking Embarcadero" and ended up - you guessed it. On the Embarcadero. Got home at 3 a.m."

And I got home restless, adrenaline-filled but scattered, too scattered to read a cheap novel, or to remember I was reading it and that was why I was holding it open in front of me; I kept checking out, and then forgetting who the damn characters were, and they started to get on my NERVES, being inscrutable like that. When you haven't enough concentration to read the sort of book with a gun on the cover, it MUST be time to turn off the lights.

I slopped around the next day, and finally looked at the clock and discovered it was after three p.m., and I was still in pajamas, and I hadn't remembered to eat anything; I don't think I had really acknowledged it was another day, with things to do in it. So I showered and got dressed and drove to the store and got a cart and started shopping, with no list - yes, listlessly - and halfway through the store, I look down and see that I have somewhere along the line exchanged my cart for a sale-item one. Totally confused - "Why do I have twenty-four cans of ravioli? And where are my bananas? I have lost my bananas!"

I haven't enough candlepower to spare a big chunk for background processing any more, I don't think. I felt like my car, which is admirable and reliable on its four cylinders - until someone uninformed goes and turns on the air conditioner, and suddenly, we're going nowhere at all. It's just almost a dead halt. You can park, and enjoy the cool air (until the engine overheats), or you can drive, and use the windows to cool yourself off. But you're not getting both. Well, I probably should have parked.

I think if you have things to think over, you ought to be excused. "Okay, just sit down in this chair here, we'll bring you a sandwich, we won't put any tricky garnishes on it that you aren't supposed to eat, either." You know? No brain, no gain. Just take me out of the game for a bit. I'll be back when I find my shoes.

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