Squirrel!

I have a thread of a song in my head. How annoying! I hear, “stumble you might fall, stumble you might fall.” It has that late 80’s-early 90’s flavor. And I can’t find the dang song. I feel like a skipping record. My brain gets caught on things like this…..ooooo, shiny! Or that great scene in the animated movie, “Squirrel!” I may need to focus on one thing and then get instantly detoured. “Squirrel!” Over the years, I have learned techniques to drown out the distractions. I keep music playing in my work space so as to not hear (as much) of what goes on in the office. I am a CIA listening device, bionic hearing and hyperaware. I really don’t want to know what the staff is talking about. Truly. I intentionally multitask because idle, unfilled space in my brain means it “collects” other things from my surrounding environment to process. My mind is like lint on a navy gabardine suit. My mother had this great phrase about clothes that attract lint, “These pants attract everything except money and men.” [and there goes my mind, off on a tangent]

I have also learned when I am running in the red. I know when my CPU is trying to process too many applications. I get lag. I have to just wait for shit to shut down or I will get the blue screen of death. We’ve all crashed our personal computers; we share this experience. Well, my brain has no [task manager]. I can’t ctrl+alt+delete and selective shut down parts of what runs in my head. When it freezes, it requires a cold reboot. And that hurts. It is bad for the system. The better is to stop double clicking on new tasks and WAIT. I need to let some tasks run and complete before starting new things. Patience helps. Telling other people who step up asking me to run additional tasks need to hear me say NO or WAIT. And when I say, “I can’t.” I really mean it. I can’t. Can’t is different than won’t. Won’t means I am protecting and conserving myself. Can’t means either obstinacy or eminent system failure.  Anyone who knows me, knows I am not the person who is petulant and yells “No!” like a three year old refusing to behave. When I say I can’t it is because I am paralyzed and near incapacitated.

How many times have we contributed to the final demise of our computers? We refuse to accept they do not have infinite memory, superfast, NSA grade processors. We try to run them, as if they are Ferraris when they are Buicks. And we consider it seditious when they just won’t do what we tell them! When they crash it isn’t the computers fault. It is our impatience. Our trying to load Starcraft XX: not enough memory, no additional slots FOR memory, no graphics card. no sound card, monochrome monitor. Really? We get pissed when the game won’t run?

Everyone has their limitations, even the Ferrari. Even an off-road Ferrari. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is perpetual. The key is to limit the distractions, don’t try to load or run so much crap. Clean off the task bar and close down some of that crap. Focus on the necessary and stay on task. Stop getting distracted by outside things. Let the frustration go. And until you upgrade your system, don’t expect to be able to run Starcraft XX. Don’t load the expansion pack. Consider uninstalling some of the junk and doing a few viral and malware scans. Clean house.

Yesterday, I had a cold reboot. I hit the perfect storm of too much to do, too little time and then I got ill. Pain can stop everything. And I am rarely hindered by pain. I will work with a blinding headache; I just use one eyeball. Most pain passes. But yesterday was like a brown out…..a system warning. And when my body does stuff I can’t control or predict, I get freaked. Error message: SLOW DOWN or you will get SHUT DOWN. And I HATE HATE HATE  the emergency brake. But it is my own fault. I ignore the warnings signs. I expect too much from myself. I hate to disappoint (others). But eventually, just like everyone else, I have to wait while the little hour glass turns and flips. I have to let the applications either start up or shut down. It cannot be rushed. I WON’T be rushed.

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