"Laptops," the computer tech said, "only have about a five-year lifespan. That may be why your keyboard is not functioning correctly.”
“Five years,” I screamed. “For as much as I paid for this, that’s all I get!”
And so my day began.
A lunch break relieved some frustration. Sitting at the kitchen table we saw a round of robins in the back yard. Watching with unusual interest we noticed that they flew into our nandina bushes and began eating the red berries, and jumping on them so that they dropped to the ground for the other robins. Our neighbor had shared stories about the robins eating her holly berries, and getting drunk on the juice.
My mind went down the rabbit hole searching for the right word for such a large number of robins. I discovered, in the rabbit hole, that we were watching a carol of robins, or a bobbin of robins. No, I think it was a riot of robins. On second thought it must be a rouge of robins. Actually, I think I like a ruby of robins, best.
While working on my golf history blog, my fingers travel all over the keyboard to words and commands that I do not know. My mind blurs. The blog requires hours of research and rewriting, and I become distracted.
A 1935 headline reads: 96-Year-Old Man Becomes a Father. The story continues that the man is a veteran of the Civil War and hopes to have at least two more children before he dies. Time to stop reading, I think, or join Alice in Wonderland.
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Sanjay Gupta's newest book is about building a better brain. I just want my brain to keep working. I even tell my brain: "I love you." One of his suggestions is to learn something completely new.
Dear Mom, I still don't want to learn how to play bridge.
I do, however, think it would behoove me to become left-handed. I began doing Sudoku about a year ago left-handed because it seemed like a smart idea. I've been successful. I noticed that my left-hand moves so slowly and deliberately and that I rarely make mistakes, whereas my right hand flies and crashes regularly either from moving too fast or pinching my shoulder nerves. I can put makeup on left-handed, brush my teeth, and drink a glass of wine without spilling it, but drawing feels futile.
And the moral of that is—‘Be what you would seem to be’—or, if you’d like it put more simply—‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.’
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: The Mock Turtle’s Story
