Inside My Brain
(A Minute in the Life of
Someone with ADD)
by Kate Jacobsen
Have you ever realized that there are certain words that are just more fun to say than others? Like mallard. Or Watermelon. That’s a damn fine word right there, Watermelon. It sounds almost majestic. Have you ever wondered if words have feelings or not? I mean, technically its impossible for words to have feelings, but what if they do? Do you think the more ugly sounding words know that they’re ugly? The word bucket probably goes home at night and kicks his dog because he is never going to be as pretty or loved as much as Watermelon. I bet Watermelon knows that he’s gorgeous though, I bet you a dollar that he’s conceited. That’s why I like the more normal words like “Parenthesis” or “Billionaire”. You see them everywhere, but they have a sort of understated majesty to them. I would much rather marry a Parenthesis than a Watermelon, even if the Watermelon is more attractive.
You know what else I really like? Pipe cleaners. Every day I am amazed that pipe cleaners are not the 8th wonder of the world. You can do anything with them; you can make glasses, baskets and even just touching them is exciting. I bet they just aren’t politically correct enough to be voted the 8th wonder. Those elections are rigged anyway. Pipe cleaners are one of those million dollar ideas that I really wish I had thought of first. It’s just so simple, I’m amazed that they weren’t invented back in the time of the dinosaurs. A hairy little stick that you can bend into anything you want. I bet the dinosaurs would have loved pipe cleaners. They could have made special indestructible houses out of them, and then they wouldn’t have died out when that big meteor came.
I thought I’d eaten a dinosaur in my sleep for a while last year. One day I was eating and I hiccup-burped, but it wasn’t a normal hiccup-burp; it sounded like a pterodactyl. And now that I’ve started making the noise whenever I hiccup-burp, I can’t stop. It’s quite embarrassing really. With normal hiccup-burps you can kind of hide them, but not with this one. This new one will just sneak up on you and pop out in the middle of class. I was walking down the stairs one day, and I let out a pterodactyl call. I thought that I was safe because I was out in the hall, but from further down the stairs I hear “What the fuck? Was that a bird? There be some crazy ass animals that live in this school man”.
It’s always embarrassing when people you don’t know liken you to an animal.
Recently, I have grown to love crackers. Most people find a Ritz cracker to be boring; I find it to be a life altering experience. Each bite is deliciously salty yet savory, like a miniature lamb sandwich. Crackers are also like edible plates: dip after dip they hold up against the toughest odds. Like ants, a good Ritz can hold up to 40 times its body weight in gooey cheese dip. The shape of a Ritz is also incredibly distinctive. Like all other crackers of our day, its shape changes depending on your mood. If you’re happy, the cracker could be the shape of a flower, or the morning sun. If you’re mad, the cracker could take on the shape of the face of that dirty slut you once called a wife that ran off with the postman two weeks ago on your 1st wedding anniversary.
Speaking of the postman, I have recently decided what I want to be when I grow up. I have realized that there is no need for me to go to college, because what I want to be does not require a college degree. When I grow up I want to be a SAN (a small appliance name-er). Think about it: it’s the easiest job there is, and you instantly gain world-renowned fame and recognition. All you have to do is add “-er” to the end of whatever the small appliance produces. Do you have something that keeps things cold? I’d name it a “cool-er”. Have you invented an appliance that quickly and easily makes sliced bread into toasted sliced bread? I would name it a “toast-er”. My ingenuity just goes on and on. Oh you laugh at me now, but one day you’ll invent something that could make you horribly rich and you’ll need me to name it. Well if you’re lucky I won’t name it something like “the Ass-er” or “the look-who’s-laughing-now-er”. If you’re lucky, I might even throw in a few parting gifts at the naming.
I always liked parting gifts. I mean, technically I’ve never won one, or even really received one, but it’s the principle of the thing that matters. Whenever I would watch bad game shows when I was little-they were my favorite- the only things I ever cared about were the parting gifts. Screw the new yachts and trucks and millions of dollars, what someone really needs to survive is a microwave. Which would be more helpful on a desert island: a microwave or one million dollars? Duh, a microwave. No matter how hard you rub that piece of fruit with a dollar, a microwave will always get it warmer (and in less time!). If I were on a desert island, I’d pull a McIver and make my microwave into a motorboat and power away. Now, I have the utmost faith in McIver’s abilities to make something out of nothing, but it would be much easier to make a water proof powerboat with full bar out of a microwave than out of a million dollars. It’s just a fact; plastic is more waterproof than money. Sorry if I had to ruin anyone’s dreams with that little fact, it just had to be done. On a similar note, the Easter bunny doesn’t exist, but Santa and the Lucky Charm’s leprechaun do (they’re pair-bonded and live in Ukiah, CA). Now that we’ve cleared that up, can I ask you a question? Who decided the names of colors? I always thought that the names of the colors were decided by some drug addict staring at the color and then saying the first word that came to his mind. They are kind of onomatopoetic if you think about it. If you look at or think of a color, the sound it seems to make sounds a lot like its name. Red is abrupt and straight to the point, while yellow is more drawn out and flirtatious. Blue sounds fat and slow, Purple sounds vapid and stupid and Green sounds slightly mentally “special”. Do you know that there is a disease where you hear in colors and see in sounds? That would be really strange, but I guess if you knew no better you’d think that we as normal, non-strange humans see and hear wrong. That’s ok; I forgive you for having the wrong opinion.
I’ve been studying psychology/philosophy for the past few months, and I’ve come to a realization: to be a famous philosopher/psychoanalyst you need to have a really funny name. There are a few with almost normal names: Jameson, Taylor and Weber are a few. These are the lesser-known philosophers; to be one of the greats you need to have a really funny name. Gadamer (pronounced “god damner”), Laclau (pronounced “Law Claw”), and Lyotard (pronounced “Leo Tard”) are my favorites. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will never be a famous philosopher unless I change my name to Chabujah (pronounced “Shah Boo Yah”), that’s ok with me. It’s not like I’d want to pass up the SAN job just to acquire a funny name.
Speaking of funny names, my car is possibly the most ghetto/hick/insert descriptive word here car you’ve ever seen. It’s huge-the size of a small aircraft carrier- and white-ish (it’s actually many different colors, but we’re pretty sure that it started out white at some point). There’s a front seat, but no back seat. Well technically there is a back seat, but it’s in my garage. Where the backseat should be is a large, muddy puddle. My baby is a convertible, but the top doesn’t go down due to some wiring problems. That’s O.K. though, because due to the large holes in the roof and the fact that the drivers side window doesn’t close all the way, it’s quite airy on a hot summers day. The seats were originally blue leather, and you can see some of this around the loads of duct tape holding them together (the mouse family displaced by the new tape got very angry and ripped one of the seats to shreds, so there’s a lot of tape).
My car tried to commit suicide once. I drove to Marin with my friends, and when I left her in the parking lot that night she was fine (covered in her gorgeous blue tarp because she’s not waterproof). When I came out in the morning, her windshield had exploded. I thought that someone had hit her with a baseball bat at first, but then I realized that she had finally given up on her miserable existence. She was so ashamed of herself that she wanted to die. So, of course, I bought her a new windshield, some new tape and a tiger-striped, shag-carpeted steering wheel cover.
In conclusion, I love American cheese. I know there are those of you out there that despise this delicious, singly plastic wrapped gift from the gods, but I do. It’s delicious, nutritious, and easy to use (just unwrap and go! No slicing! No dicing!). It’s gotten a bad rap over the years (ever since the great Orange #6 scare of 1867), but it’s slowly coming back into vogue, and when it does, I’ll be right there waiting with open arms.