I’m a smart person, but part of me is stupid.
Or maybe it’s not part of me – maybe it’s just living inside me, like a tapeworm. Except it’s a brainworm. And instead of eating my brain, it feeds my brain, with stupid ideas I know are wrong but somehow still think are true.
Does that make sense?
Here are some examples:
Later, I will feel more like doing that thing I don’t feel like doing now.
There’s no way that’s ever going to happen, but I still shelve work, laundry, thank-you notes, and, again, work, with the notion that I’ll have a “second wind” and get everything done at 11pm. And then when I’m too tired at 11pm, I watch TV instead, thinking I’ll wake up the next day reborn as a “morning person” who greets the day with a surge of boundless, do-it-all energy.
I don’t need to write it down. My memory is as good as ever!
“Thank you for calling Carmel. To modify or cancel your reservation, please enter your confirmation number and press pound.” Durr…4-something? There was a 6 in it. Dammit.
There are ghosts in the basement.
The doorman told me so. He said that since 1950, 6 different people have committed suicide in our building, and now they haunt the garbage, storage, and laundry rooms. But why down there and not in the comfort of their old apartments? Maybe they’re having group therapy. Those things often go on in basements.
Whenever I wash clothes or take trash down at night, I run like hell back to the elevator. But then the elevator freaks me out more than anything, because it has a window, and when I’m waiting for it I think my own reflection is a ghost inside the shaft.
Also, I saw a water bug scurrying across the concrete floor and thought it was a shape shifter.
I wish the doorman had never said anything. Please, stick to telling me which celebrity just walked by.
I’m not going to catch a disease from getting a pedicure at the place on the corner.
I don’t see them sterilizing the pedicure equipment, but I’m sure they do. It’s the law. Just because the leather massage chairs are really dirty doesn’t mean they aren’t careful about spreading fungus!
True, I have a friend who got a heart infection from a pedicure and almost died. But she must have had a weak immune system. I don’t get sick a lot, so I should be good.
One day, I will be enormously rich.
I’ll be one of those people who never has to fly in coach again. And I’ll buy Lamborghinis and vacation homes – nay, estates – for my friends and family. That’s right, I’ll be MC Hammer rich, except without ever running out of money and having to go on a VH1 “celebreality” show.
I sometimes imagine this windfall happening by lottery, despite two key facts:1) I’ve never bought a lottery ticket. 2)You have to be in it to win it.
Other times, I think the mind-boggling wealth will come from something that I create: a brilliant idea that gets turned into a movie, that gets turned into a TV series, that gets turned into a line of action figures, T-shirts, lunchboxes, bedding, charm bracelets, and tea cozies sold on HSN as well as at Target and other big box stores.
I’m not talking about something I develop and perfect over years of struggle. I’m talking about something that comes about in an easy, accidental way. On the news, they’ll say: “It started as a casual status update on Facebook. And now, it’s a multi-billion-dollar empire…”
During my lifetime, science will invent a miracle cure for hideous feet.
When that happens, I won’t need life-risking pedicures to disguise my feet as human. Maybe when I’m rich, I’ll fund the research.
If I complain enough, they will pass legislation to end winter forever.
Who am I kidding? Our nation’s lawmakers can’t agree on anything.
If I worry about crashing when the plane is taking off, we won’t crash.
Because that would be too much of a coincidence. I do always worry, and so far, it’s worked. Poo poo poo.
Digging into my face with tweezers is a good idea.
Yes. Going after a hair that’s not visible to anyone and that I’ll never be able to grab is always worth breaking the skin. Oh well, I’ll probably have a scar there, but at least I tried!
ps – nothing is more dangerous than a hotel bathroom with a magnifying mirror.
Your turn.
What does your brainworm tell you? Tell me the things you’re dumb enough to half-believe in the comments.
Thank you for taking the time to address my concerns in your reply on the blog. I truly appreciate it.
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1. I believe my business will magically grow without me putting in any more than cursory, half-assed efforts to market it.
2. I believe the ghost that lives in my house will someday start contributing to the household by doing laundry and dishes while I’m at work, and when she’s done with that, replace my roof as well.
😉
I was literally plucking my chin hairs while reading this.
I love you.
ahhhh…I fight my sleep. My brain tells my burning eyes it’s time to rest, but I’ve been brainwashed to believe my brain is a liar!
I’ve had less than 5 “professional” pedis, and I must say that some people I know that get them every other week get stuff like that fungus under their nails. They live in different cities, so toe fungus must be spreading across the nation!
I think I need to learn how to paint my nails.
1) If I just click on this one link I can quickly look/read/watch the photo/article/video and then come right back to what I was working on.
2) It’s ok to feed your kid a little ice cream. He will still go right to sleep, no problem.
3) I should attend more free workshops.
Haha! Number 3 is killer. A corollary: I should attend yet another paid workshop, because this one will be so helpful, it pays for itself.
I’ve gone to workshops (and bought things on sale) that I literally couldn’t afford not to attend/buy.
I could relate to so much…but I didn’t write down which ones, so I can’t remember. And I got scared by the ghost behind me in the reflection of my computer screen. I think it was the ghost of a bird flying by outside. Or a real bird. It was scary. I believe that I don’t have to check my calendar, I don’t have any important appointments today. Moments later…ring, ring…”Did you forget you had an appointment?”
Birds are almost as scary as ghosts, because they poop on you. I’ve been terrified of them ever since I saw the movie High Anxiety.
I create alerts in my calendar for just about everything, but then I ignore them.
Laura you are chaning my business1 All from reading non-sucky copy. Feel free to grab some telepathic biz coaching from my brain when you need it. I normally charge for that, but for you FREE! – Erika
Erika, I love hearing that! Assuming, that is, that “chaning” is a typo for “changing” and not your special code word for “ruining.”
I will be tapping into your brain in the near future. You may or may not know that it’s happening.
The speakers in the living room of the house I grew up in always made this weird buzzing sound when music wasn’t playing. I’m pretty sure it was the Blair Witch.
Did you ever see a ghost in the corner of the room, facing the wall? That would be proof.
My brainworm is always at work whispering good advice and wisdom: You can get the worst sun burns on a cloudy day (be extra careful if its raining! My body is 98% water (I can lose weight by not drinking liquids!) and all the heat is lost through my head (all you need is a hat). I’m scared because I recently learned that cotton kills. I believe it because I know someone who that happened to. To whom it happened.
My father’s mother told him that hems kill. I think she meant pants with hems that are too long (really, unhemmed) but he grew up terrified of hems. Now that I’m typing it, hems doesn’t look like a real word.
Cotton is deadly. Especially when it’s made into a rope and someone strangles you with it.
Yeah, cotton is what it is. But Hems are mean spirited — that’s what gets me.
Wait — I have the same brainworm talk, too. So… does this mean that all of our brainworms are connected? Communicating the same messages, possibly from a Queen BrainWorm, located on another planet? Or from down in someone’s scary cellar, at a computer? — I do my own pedicures (if you can call them that) so I don’t worry about the sterilization thing.
And about hideous feet: Be good — be very, very good — to your feet and appreciate them. Until you have 4 years of painful feet that cause you to have casts and surgery and inserts and crutches — you can never know just how under-appreciated, abused and necessary your feet are. They actually control your thinking, because they can send messages like — this hurts so bad I can’t think; No, I don’t want to go shopping, it will kill my feet; Just give me shoes that let my feet spread and live and not feel constricted; Ow. Ow, Ow, Ow! I need to cry now.
Thanks for this post. It’s given a laugh to my day.
Hackers are creepy enough, but now I’m picturing worm hackers! You’re right, I should cherish my feet just for being functional. Especially since that’s all they’ve got going for them.
I’m afraid I can relate to each one of these. The details change, yes, but the overall self-deception is quite the same.
One of my favorite aphorisms right now is this: Don’t believe everything you think.
That is an excellent saying. It’s true, my thoughts are about as reliable as Weekly World News (was).
I’m thrilled that you included family in your plan to share your magnificent estate. Of course I have the same brainworm, but I’ve given up on the feet. 1) I’m always waiting until later for the muse to hit. 2) the get-rich-quick scams are convincing, and I’ve been tempted, but never have fallen for them, so at least that part of my brain is working. 3) The effects of half a gallon of ice cream, three muffins, and blueberry pie will be negated by twenty minutes on the treadmill. OK, I’m exaggerating. ONly one pint of ice cream, one muffin, and a skinny piece of pie. Oh, and how about a pbj? (I’m going to regret this comment)
Mom, it’s going to happen. The vacation estate will be yours. I’m so glad you haven’t fallen for the $4k-extra-per-week-working-from-home scams. Next step would be Nigerian prince.
On number three, I hate to be the voice of reason – but it takes at least 30 minutes on the treadmill to burn off a day of binging. 20 won’t cut it. As for your confessor’s regret, I promise you that this is a safe space. As long as Dad doesn’t read it.
The nigerian prince just emailed me today posing as a friend of mine =out of the country and needs money wired now.
And I think it is 35 minutes per pie slice. Make it a smaller slice next time.
THAT was hilarious. Thank you! You have officially convinced me I need to call you…especially with this one: “Later, I will feel more like doing that thing I don’t feel like doing now.”
Do I spy a fellow procrastinator?
I think my brainworm must talk to your brainworm. It tells me the same stuff! In fact, I once ended up at the dr.’s with a staph infection because I couldn’t get that damn stray hair below my eyebrow. The swollen eye and weird lump by my ear scared me to death – and the dr. said if I’d waited a few days I probably would have lost my freaking eye.
Don’t listen to the brainworm.
Staph! That always occurs to me when I reach for the tweezers, because they aren’t exactly in Barbasol when not in use. I remember Rosie O’Donnel having a staph infection in her finger and almost dying. I think you’ve scared me straight.
Laura, so you used to be gay?