An Attempt To Stop Thinking

As a pseudo-scientist, I'm constantly coming up with what I deem are logical explanations for why things happen to me. About a year ago, I noticed that my memory was starting to wane. It drove me crazy because my memory had always been near perfect. In school I'd manage to at least get a C on a test I didn't study for because I could remember the material we covered in class. With friends, I could bring up little tidbits they'd mentioned to me years before and they would look at me in astonishment wondering how on Earth I could still remember something so menial to them.

To quote one such friend: "People like you scare me. You remember everything and use it to your advantage to control the world one day." I doubt my ability to remember things had such a sinister future but I was indeed proud of my peculiarity when it was embedded in my head by that it truly was a remarkable thing.

Lately, however, I'll be lucky to remember what I wore yesterday.

I've panicked numerous times thinking I was coming down with Alzheimer's and I laugh now considering I'm far too young for such a terrible destiny but I believed there to be something seriously the matter with me.

As a mildly superstitious person I thought perhaps my newfound forgetfulness was the product of the Evil Eye. Someone surely was jealous of my wondrous brain and hit me with the EE to take away this precious gift. A good friend told me to recite a prayer every time I forgot what I was going to say and oddly enough it worked and I believed myself to be cured. That came to an abrupt halt when I tried it one last time and couldn't reproduce the thought I'd just had. And I went hysterical once again.

I did extensive research (read: Yahoo Answers) and concluded that I needed to do puzzles and mind games every night before sleep to rub two sticks in my brain together and start a fire once again. This may have helped but doing a puzzle before bed gave me nightmares. As I've warned you, I'm a pseudo-scientist and I concluded that I must have triggered a part of my brain that controls dreams when I did these puzzles before bed and that spider solitaire was the working of the devil.

For the past several months, I've put aside any qualms I had about my memory or lack thereof and decided that everyone's memory gets a little shaky as they get older and have more real issues to worry about.

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with my mother when my youngest sister told me my problem was that I think too much. Really? Me? I found it a ridiculous statement because I figured that we all must think a lot. How can we not? I thought I would further inquire and I asked her what she thought about in a day. Her response: "I seriously hate thinking. It drives you nuts. Just live your day keeping busy. Our minds are prisons."

Suddenly, I agreed. Our minds are indeed prisons. How many times has something embarrassing happened to me and I replayed it over and over in my head feeling the shame course through my body each and every time the image popped up. Thinking is a fucking piece of shit and I'm over it.

Obviously, thoughts sprout up in your brain for no reason sometimes but why should we prolong them? Allow the thought to pass through the highway of your brain and never return. What good is it to wonder what your day will be like or what people will say to you when you show up to work wearing two different coloured socks? Just fucking live and stop fussing. I think my memory would still be perfectly intact if I had less to think about. It makes enough sense: the less thoughts that cloud your mind the less you have to remember anyway. I'm content in my new philosophy. It's only been a day but I feel relieved.

Pont des Arts

A video can capture exactly what you are feeling and make you long for something you once had or never had at all.

This video does just that and not to mention beautifully demonstrates the ambiance of the Pont des Arts. It was somewhere I went often and would stay for hours talking or be happily silent

taking in the view of the Eiffel Tower and the Institut de France.

There are few places where I can say that I'm perfectly content and this is definitely one of them.

Ode To "Next Blog"

The "Next Blog" link at the top of every blogspot blog is a beautiful thing. Just thought I'd make my appreciation known to the powers that be.

Autumn

It was so brisk yesterday and suddenly I realized autumn has finally caught up with us in Canada. At least in my town. The first thing I think of is how I literally have no fall clothes. I've been hanging on to my black and white striped H&M tee like it's the god of my idolatry and I can't quite get out of my black ballerina flats. Maybe it's because it was a staple in my wardrobe in Paris and maybe it's because I'm so effing broke from my Euro trip this summer that I can't even afford a scarf from Value Village. I desperately hope that I'll be getting paid soon butin the meantime I've got to figure out just what the hell I'll need to buy to survive the awkward time after Halloween and before the holiday season parties start.

I wish it was summer in Paris again and I wish I was on the Pont des arts with friends, laughing and praying that the night would never end. I sound like a sappy m.f. but damn I love Paris. It was nothing like I thought it would be and everything I could have hoped for. It was stunningly beautiful and yet it could be ugly (nothing ruins your mood like realizing that the reason the metro stinks so bad is because someone probably peed in the seat your sitting in) but even that brief moment in time is plucked from your mind as soon as you walk in front of Saint-Sulpice and realize your eyes have never been delighted with such overwhelming beauty since ... ever.

I could talk about it forever but to put it into mere mortal words is to murder it in a way...your eyes can't speak and your mouth can't see for a reason. So I tell you all to go and see for yourself and love it for yourself.

I'm happy to be home, honestly. I need to prepare for the next phase in life which is unknown to me now but I know I'm on the verge of something wonderful or disastrous. That is to say I'm more comfortable in accepting that what tomorrow brings is something I'll never be privy to. I can only live it as it comes.

In case you were wondering, I'm currently working on a children's book about fairies and desperately searching for a word besides "fairy" to use. Maybe I should invent a word. If JKR can use "muggle" and make it synonymous with human being I'm sure I can do the same thing for fairies with "grimroder"....it'll catch on one day, right? And yes, I did just make that up right now but mark my words it will become apart of the lexicon before I'm dead! (I'm also open to suggestions).

All this talk of I, I, I...I'm getting sick of me. That's all I can say for now and it's time I delve into some blogs I've been missing out on for far too long. Au revoir.

Let Me Update You

Life has been grand, folks. Honestly. I have nothing to complain about and it's not often I get to say that in life.

Both my jobs are going just fine and it turns out I won't have to quit my job at a certain shoe company that I'm not sure I'm allowed to name even though I'm going to Paris for a month.

I have been desperately looking for a place to stay in Paris and being thousands of miles away certainly isn't making the situation any easier, I'm sure. I'm only going to be there a month so I might have to pay ridiculously offensive prices. I'm still searching though.

Just wanted to make this quick update and I hope everyone is well.

Why I Hate Planes

I usually don't watch Gwyneth Paltrow joints because I know that it'll probably be a depression marathon but I finally watched Bounce (2000) and, yes, it was one sappy motherfuck of a movie but I liked it.

The film is about a marketing executive named Buddy (Affleck) who gives his plane seat up to another man so he can come home on time for Christmas but the plane crashes and Buddy starts a relationship with the widow Abby (Paltrow) out of guilt.

In relation to my own life, I have to say I honestly do not know how I will make it through a flight across the Atlantic next month. It's times like these I wish I had a drug dealer.

Delirious

I will be embarking on a trip to Paris this summer and I seriously can't believe it's actually happening. I've always been meaning to go but I always find reasons to not do things (I'm too fat, I'm too young, I'm too poor) or when I finally did make the plans with friends to go, they always fell through.

I decided that I'd go alone and take a course for the month of July at the Sorbonne. It's only a month so I won't be needing a visa and it's long enough that I'm sure I'll get to see a lot of the city (and hopefully some weekends to other European cities) and most of all it'll be a much needed break from the hectic thing known as my life.

Now I've just got to figure out what I'll be wearing.