Undue strain…

Focus is a funny thing. I say that because for most of the day today seven minutes seemed like just about the maximum amount of time I was able to focus on any one thing before my eyes started going twitchy. By ten minutes, I’d be working on a dull ache in the back of my head. Past fifteen and the ache would be running down my back and I’d find my shoulders somewhere up around my ears. Good times.

Honestly it reminds me of nothing so much as the one time, many years ago, when I had inflicted a mild concussion on myself by falling over and bouncing my head off the driveway. I’m just assuming it’s all some kind of reptilian brain trauma response running in the deep layers of the human operating system. I’m sure the brain is a remarkable organ, but sometimes it’s a real pain in the ass.

It’s well that no one came along asking me to do something that required any level of academic rigor, because I’m not at all sure I could have managed it even under duress. Getting out a few unremarkable emails and sitting through a thoroughly a probably necessary, but thoroughly uninteresting meeting seemed to be just about the limit of my mental prowess today. I’m sure I won’t win any prizes for the off the cuff word salad I spit out during that last meeting of the day, but I’m putting it squarely in the pile of things I’m choosing not to care about. 

Even under those conditions, today felt like putting a lot of undue strain on the engines.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

There’s a fair chance I could write a book on what annoys me this week. I won’t bother doing that, of course. Even knocking together my usual “top three” this week feels like screaming into the void. What, after all, deserves the most focus when nearly everything beyond the peaceful and bucolic grounds of Fortress Jeff seems determined to grate on your last nerve?

What really annoys me this week? Mostly that this feels like it’s the new normal – or at least it will be what we treat as normal until we find a way to get back to everyone focused on sportsball, movies, and television. I have a sneaking feeling that once celebrities start making spectacles of themselves again, some significant portion of the population will happily shut the fuck up and enjoy the bread and circuses.

Until then, I’ll probably have to accept my life will continue to drift towards an increasingly permanent state of eye rolling and general disbelief about how feckless people as a group are determined to lead by feel and not by thought.

Stew…

It’s so much more than a warm, filling meal. In fact since I was a kid stewing has been my preferred approach to whatever is bothering me at any given time. It’s as if letting the issue simmer there on a low flame will give me some insight, or at least not make it taste not quite cauldron-clipartso bad going down. Mostly, I think it’s the mechanism my brain uses to buy time to try looking at things objectively before flying off on a wild tangent. That’s a theory. Possibly a bad one, but it is a theory.

So yeah, I’m stewing this afternoon. Unfortunately for the blog, there are (believe it or not) some parts of the day that even I consider off limits for publication, so instead of telling a fun story on Saturday afternoon, all you get to know is I’m stewing. I’m thinking. I’m pondering. And I’m trying to find my way into an objective head space. As usual, that’s easier said than done