Bubble Gum Brain

Got it! “One Monster After Another”! It took several variations of googling “Bubbly Goo”, which produced recipes,“Sue writes a letter”, which produced a passel of legal info,”Mercer Mayer”,”Maurice Sendak”...where was that plot? What was that book? I needed to make a witty Facebook response.

Lunch hour...includes an episode of “Blue Bloods”.

It is an ADD Friday. It isn’t that I am not getting things done. I get lots done. It’s just that looking up Jessica London boots to see which ones could have a 2mm lift added to the left shoe is not what one might call, necessary or germane to getting work done on a manuscript that has to be to an editor in a week, or dealing with business items that are really quite pressing.

After an intensely productive and courageous, mentally stimulating and accomplished two weeks, I’m done. Nothing of substance will fit into my wee self, existence or vision.

ADD Friday means I am working a rough draft using the book I need to finish by Sunday as a writing prop. The web page with the boots I’m theoretically considering is open as well as a YouTube version of “Spaced Invaders” which I just recommended to someone for Halloween. The rookie cop has just clocked the aliens who have landed in Big Bean, Illinois because they thought “The War of the Worlds” replay was real, at 3,000 miles an hour and it has left the patrol car fried. Never ceases to make me laugh out loud.

Homework for Tuesday night’s study group on the book “Money and the Meaning of Life” stares at me from the stack of books also to be read by the end of November. Tonal blips tell me people are posting on Facebook. Four important emails await my response. Two logistical challenges for next week vex me somewhere in my unacknowledged consciousness.

The situation with my kitties still makes me sad and I’m wearing the ugliest sweater I own only because it matches my corduroy trousers Caity refers to as my clown pants. What can I say? They keep me warm.

No doubt about it, I’ve got Bubble Gum Brain...and could care less. What I know is this: if I don’t take the next twelve hours and follow my impulse for cheer and diversion, I’ll get nothing done at all this weekend.

And...in retrospect I can tell you what I didn’t know at the time. I’m fighting a cold and developing a fever.

This past week, in various settings, I’ve written about keeping one’s head bowed to one’s heart, walking four years olds through meltdowns and teary whine-fests via active ignoring, the spiritual aspects of The Grand Adventure –which I still haven’t told you about, new web text, everything I’ve eaten four days in a row, and of course tons of emails and FB posts.

Ahead of me are words on the upper middle class white culture finding authenticity, amusing children’s picture books, and more practical parenting tips. Beyond this weekend, there is plenty of opportunity and time for serious, focused, productive moments. Right now my brain is chewing up a big wad and blowing some beautiful bubbles.

Without alcohol and sweets, I’m just going to let my focus go and wander through whatever shiny interest catches my fancy. It’s a luxury. With no kids or husband at home, I can watch the sunset or rain clouds as long as I want. I’ll search ‘find pen pals’, or read a book that’s not an assignment, maybe redo my make up.

I live with indoor plumbing and am not carrying buckets in from the well or miles away from the river or stream. I turn on a spigot and it comes out. The promise of a frozen Snickers bar lies in a freezer in the kitchen. This is a first world moment. I will feel guilty about it for a bit, but basically such random focus days are what enable me to power through the rest of life in the first world.

Nothing can get you down for long if you learn how to relax. Quite frankly, it’s been a helluva push lately and I’m just going to relax, without purpose or focus. I have learned to let go when I must, use screen-saver mode in my brain and heart to hold my place, and return to the intensity of first world living with renewed commitment and energy.

Soon enough I will type this up and regain energy for the challenge of being called and passionate, so it doesn’t look like driven and intense.

Til then, I am excellent at mentally chewing bubble gum; icky sweet, rot your teeth out bubble gum that makes gargantuan opaque bubbles....that will soon pop. I must enjoy the moment while it lasts.

Love,
Deborah