I Make the Best of It, I'm An Extraordinary Machine

My brain is a mystifying object. It's like it has the microscopic/telescopic quality of a van Eyck. I just typed that am already deeply ashamed that I've become that art history person. I wish I could make it up to you. But instead I'm going to continue with the simile, because it's a fairly apt analogy. Judge away. In van Eyck's paintings every piece of the painting, whether far away or right at the front of the scene, is executed in excruciatingly minute detail, without any haziness or blurred lines to indicate distance.

I can remember with equal clarity the piece I read in the news yesterday about the Mossad pulling crazy Bond/Bourne stunts to assassinate Iranian nuclear physicists and my lines from our fourth grade production "Of Mice and Mozart." The minutiae of daily life don't really get sifted out of my brain. Ever. I can typically recall first conversations with new acquaintances, kids from my second grade class, and what outfits other people wore six months ago with such a stunning level of recall that the inevitable consequence is that I frequently come off as the creepiest mass stalker on the planet. This grieves me at times. More people just need to believe that in my brain it isn't a signal of obsession that I remember the clogging performance my friend's little sibling's friend is having if I'm in the room to hear about it. I'm not saying that you shouldn't typically find such behavior to be red flags: there are real creepers out there, and they act just like me. I'm just the exception that proves the rule.

But my creeperesque mannerisms are actually a demonstration of how singularly inept my brain is at releasing it's deathgrip on pretty much any shred of "knowledge" that floats within its vicinity. It gets so bad that sometimes I play dumb, pretend I don't remember huge tracts of information just to avoid the wary gleam in the other person's eye, like an alert gazelle that is beginning to suspect that that waterhole might not be so refreshing after all.

Fret not; this is not an aimless ode to my brain, or even an extremely circular route to complimenting myself. I was merely providing the background information that is necessary to understand my complaint about my brain's fatal flaw. So, to summarize so far: Mary's brain is tenacious to detail, but not creepy. This does not mean one shouldn't be vigilant against mouth-breathing uncomfortable-level-of-eye-contact skulking types as a rule; in fact please do, just cross Mary off your list as an anomaly. And now for the fatal flaw:

I can't prove anything, mostly because I don't care enough for science to try, but I'm pretty sure there's something sinister about the barometric pressure in winter which inhibits certain synapses to fire at all, leading me to lose all memory of what it is to step outside and be warm. It happens quickly, this mental block, usually within moments of the first truly cold walk to the bus stop. But even now in my almost temperate basement office, I couldn't tell you what it feels like to step outside and not ready myself for breath-stealing braced-back cold.

I don't mind the cold in of itself, I'm even considering getting my masters in Milwaukee, a city to which no one I have shared my plan with has anything of interest to say except "Milwaukee--it's a cold place." Thanks, guys, for the razor-sharp insight with its limits-pushing subtext.

No, I really don't mind cold. But I do object to brain damage. And this complete loss of a basic sensation I have a solid six months of every year feels like deliberate and malicious damage on my brain. I guess I could try and re-read my blog post about when the AC broke, but I resent that necessity to read my own pale, amateurish attempts to describe something as basic as being meltingly hot. I live in the desert, for the love of DDP.

I think Utah Valley girls watched way too much Anne of Green Gables growing up. Only individuals with that particular kind of handicap would think the sloppy ponytail/bun-ish thing on the very top of the head was remotely attractive/aesthetically appealing. You, my dears, have been exposed to one too many pompadours in your day. Next thing you know you'll all be sporting puffed sleeves so large you can't walk through the door. I have luckily escaped these fads. In exchange, though, I have huge hangups because my inner psyche is waiting for a Canadian farmboy with brains, ambitions, and infinite patience for crazy girls. Yes, Mom and Dad, this is the most recent theory for why you're going to have a cat lady for a daughter.

This blog is happening because I would rather insert tiny razor-sharp pieces of glass into my fingernails than re-read, edit, and finalize my art history paper that I spit out in rough form Sunday. I'm truly terrified to read what it says--I dosed myself with chocolate at around 11:30 Sunday night so that my hypoglycemic self would crash into a sugar coma and I could actually sleep. The flaw in this sly, ever so crafty plan? I still had a page and a half to write. Which I did write. But I have no memory of it.

You see my conundrum. Ah, well, might as well face my psychosis head on.