I’ve always been a bit scatterbrained.  My brain does not generally work like a flow chart.  Somehow I go from point A to point F and it usually ends up making sense in the end, but where I got the idea to skip all the points in between I don’t know.   I make some really strange connections that are logical to me but to no one else.  I wouldn’t call it ADHD, because I can truly focus and be detailed- perhaps too much so- when necessity calls for a high level of detail.   I get lost in details very easily if I’m not careful.  But in the normal course of life I have my own personal scribbled mental shorthand that serves as a sort of guide to daily activity. 

This tendency to skip ahead in the logical progression of things sometimes leads to forgetting and/or misplacing things.  I know I should probably slow down or write things down or something like that, but I am not a very good planner by nature.  I always have way too much to do and I wonder how I get any of it done.  I know how easily plans get screwed up and then you end up having to improvise anyway.  For good or for ill, most days I’m winging it.  I think Steve-o has inherited the same characteristic- forgetting those little details, like socks.  Few things are funnier than an adult male (with birdy narrow feet) in purple Hello Kitty socks:

At least someone had a spare pair of socks that didn’t smell like fermented cow shit like the ones he had worn the previous two days.

I’m sort of pissed off that I lost my Skullcandy headphones that I’ve had for about 3 years (a record for me and headphones, as I lose them often) and I had to buy a new set.  The new ones are nice- but I have no freaking clue where in the hell my other set ended up. 

Then there’s the Fanny incident.  I know Fanny tries to get out, and I usually have no problem keeping her in because she’s both big and slow.   Yes, I was sleep-deprived in a bad way and just plain crispy Thursday night, but it’s no excuse.  My ineptitude and oversight  is not worth a dead cat. I know the next time I go to the pet food joint (probably tomorrow) that I am going to have to get her a collar and tag- with a bell- and she will wear it even though I know she hates collars and I will get several weeks’ worth of stink-eye over it.  Cats are vindictive creatures, and Fanny is no exception.  If she were like the other two cats who have absolutely no interest in the World Beyond the Door, then I wouldn’t need to do it.  Perhaps with a bell on I will be able to hear as well as see her.

Sometimes I go digging either in my room or in my purse and I find stuff I didn’t realize I had.  That’s just plain wrong.  I don’t know if I am becoming forgetful simply because I have been  chronically sleep-deprived and constantly running at full bore for such a long time, or because senility is setting in.  I don’t sleep well and haven’t for years because my sinuses drain 24/7.  I have to sleep on a 45° angle (picture a large wedge pillow, because this is what I have to use) to keep from choking to death on my own snot.  It’s better to live with the constant drainage, because if they don’t drain, they get infected and inflamed and I can’t breathe at all. 

NNo one should ever have to worry about choking to death on snot, but I have to.

I guess choking on snot would be a better way to go than ODing and croaking on the crapper like Elvis, or ODing on dog anesthetic like Michael Jackson (Propofol is actually one of the better dog anesthetics because it is metabolized quickly, and can be used on dogs that are sensitive to other anesthetic agents, BUT, even in dogs respiration has to be strictly monitored because one of Propofol’s side effects is that it can stop breathing) or ODing and drowning in the bathwater like Whitney Houston, but I really don’t want to go that way.   I don’t think I’ll be ODing on anything voluntarily, but one of my deepest and most primal fears is being suffocated to death.  I blame my sadistic oldest sister for that one, as well as for my inability to eat or drink after other people- especially blood relatives.  No I will not take a bite off the fork that you stuck in your filthy mouth and slobbered all over.  Not until it has been duly sanitized.   To this day if you take a swig off of my pop bottle, you own it.  I don’t  want it back.  Ever.  Even if you swear you don’t backwash.  I refuse to consciously swap saliva (and whatever else is in the backwash you leave behind) with anyone.  Not the old man, not my son, and probably not even Steve Perry, should he ever have the opportunity to hijack my Diet Dr. Pepper. 

At least I am not as OCD as Mom.  She is one of those people who refuses to touch the inside door handle in a public bathroom, and she still believes you can get VD from a toilet seat.

Maybe not so much VD, but let’s hope that is some sturdy plastic going on there.

I had to take a picture of this sign the other day. It was sort of depressing though, because as I thought about it, no I can’t remember when the last time was, and I am not talking about flowers.  I’m not sure if Clinton or Bush II was President.   I am a pathetic specimen for sure.