Stream of Consciousness - Talking Mules and Fried Chicken

I may be adapting the term to mean what I want it to mean right now, but generally, it's thought of as "free association" or a disjointed form of interior monologue.

So I'm gonna use it now.  Bringing the interior to the exterior and putting it out there for all the world to see. Well, not really - only the people who read this blog which is about 4 people. =) And they already know I'm nutty, so I'm not really giving anything away.

I'm sure James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf will turn over in their respective graves.

Not sure how well I'll be able to disregard punctuation and other general rules of grammar, though.  I had some pretty darned good English teachers in my day.  So it will probably end up some mutated hybrid of no punctuation/intermittent punctuation that looks way worse than if I were just able to disregard everything I've learned.  Much like my accents when travelling abroad. I find myself mixing a total hick accent from living in Texas for so long with a perfectly British word here and there - just enough to make them think I'm making fun of them. Same in Scotland. Just sad, really. Even on this blog, since I'm not smart enough to know where to go or which settings to change if I got there, it does this weird spacing thing because I was taught to space twice after a period instead of just once, which makes some of my paragraphs do weird things.

So as I'm going to sleep, I'm thinking all sorts of things that segue into other seemingly unrelated things and wondering if everyone does that. I do it in the bathtub, too...just soaking away the day, letting my mind go where it will. Some of the associations and connections I make, even in real life, awake, are so odd that only my best friend since Kindergarten can follow.  She lovingly, I hope, refers to is as Sheila Logic. For instance coffee.  Did you ever wonder who was the first person who thought of coffee?  I mean really, someone was just walking along one day and ran across these beans and said to his friend, "Hey, if I roast these beans and grind them up and pour hot water through them, will you test out what comes out the other end?"  And did the guy just agree to drink that brown stuff because he was slow? Or stupid? Or did the first guy offer him money?  Seriously, what kind of brain does it take to come up with that? Yuck!  But now I'd probably be homicidal without it. So whoever that dude was, THANKS!

My man will say something like "foxy" totally making fun of the 70s and I immediately think of a dog I knew once with that name, which takes me down an entirely new rabbit hole. Of course that leads to Alice in Wonderland and food poisoning. Because one time when I was really sick with food poisoning, I was hallucinating about the huge playing cards and the evil queen, even though I haven't ever really read the whole story or seen the movie. Which leads to Daniel Negreanu because DUH! playing cards and poker and Doyle Brunson and all this goes through my head in a few seconds so right after he says foxy I ask a question about whether Gabe Kaplan, who used to host High Stakes Poker, but doesn't anymore even though he was WAY better than that weird Norm guy, and John Travolta are still friends all these years after the Sweathogs and he looks at me funny even though I could totally just say the 70s make me think of Stayin' Alive and who was in that?  Yep. Isn't the mind a wonderful thing? So in order for people not to think I am crazy immediately, I keep most of that weird crap inside, but I do seriously wonder if I am the only one.

Like the other day, someone brought up olives because I didn't know what tapenade was and we were trying to think what the stones inside were called and someone said pits and I thought of Zazu Pitts, an old character actress who happened to be in one of the Francis the Talking Mule movies making baskets in a nut house (how appropriate) and it was all I could do not to blurt out "Donald O'Connor!" Thankfully, I didn't.  People find out eventually, no need to throw it in their faces early on.

I wonder how far other people carry the whole stream of consciousness thing. Do they walk around all the time with their brains running willy nilly all over the place too? Seriously, as irritating as it can be sometimes, I still think I'm better off than all those people running around with cricket sounds in their heads.  Or worse, words like "like" - I mean like how many times can like a person like say like "like" in one, you know, like sentence? And I firmly believe there are actually a huge number of people with the sound of chirping crickets. There can be no other possible explanation for how some people seem to walk around oblivious to anyone else in the world. It's like they don't think or have any self-awareness at all. For instance, the moron who drives up to the drive-through mail box and proceeds to address and stamp their envelope.  Um, hello! It should be ready so you can drop and drive. Or the time I went to the Church's drive-thru. That was one for the books from beginning to end. I FINALLY get to the speaker after waiting over 10 minutes because the person working drive-thru doesn't understand the whole concept of fast food or drive-thrus. He would take one order, prepare it, collect the money, give them their food and then he would take the next order. Defeats the whole purpose!  So I order my chicken and I swear this is verbatim, he said "Oh, you want chicken?  Well we'll have to COOK that." Much like throwing good money after bad, I decide I am hungry and tired enough to throw good time after bad and bite the bullet and agree to wait. I've been watching the car in front of me and they've already paid and gotten their food but they're still at the window. I assume that they're checking their order, which isn't a bad idea, especially at this particular establishment. Finally they pull up a half a car length and stop in front of the trash can.  I still can't get to the window, but they're having to cook my food, so I am not immediately alarmed.  Until I notice that they aren't checking their order, they're actually eating their dinner right there!! In the drive-thru lane. All three of them.  Not even one person out of three has enough sense to say "hey dude, we're in the drive-thru lane, pull out of the way?" Nope.  Not one. But it really was okay.  They finished their dinner, threw their boxes in the trash can and finally drove off and I still didn't have my food. These are the same people who stop at the bottom of the escalators to chat, oblivious that I have no place to step off except square in the middle of them. Or the people who leave their shopping baskets in the middle of the aisle or worse, directly behind your car after they've unloaded their groceries. The same people exit right from the freeway - from the far left lane without even looking. Or pull out right in front of you even though there isn't another car behind you for miles. Or park in two spaces. Or drive in two lanes. Or get right beside another car and go the exact same speed so no one can pass. Or start digging in the back seat for something right before the red light turns to green and make you miss the light. Or start walking in one direction while looking in the opposite direction,  talking to someone. Or stand right in front of the coffee dispenser and doctor up their coffee with crap for 5 minutes, holding up the whole line. Are these people just asses or do they actually NOT have 2 brain cells to rub together?

Either way, I guess I'll take the random stream of useless, insignificant crap skipping merrily through my brain 24/7 to being a moron any day.