Friday, March 25, 2011

My Brain is Dying...

At least that's my feeling anyway. First I guess I should provide context so that anyone who cares actually knows what the hell I am talking about.

Remember the short story that you had to read in junior high school "Flowers for Algernon"? Well for those who attended schools that didn't enjoy making students feel like they came home and found out their old man ran over their dog, I will explain. "Flowers for Algernon is incredibly sad. We are talking watching a little kid with progeria cracking all his ribs catching a Nerf ball kind of sad (thank you Venture Brothers). The story is about Charlie who works I think as a janitor and is mentally disabled and has an IQ of 68. He is selected for an experimental procedure that increases brain capacity after it was first successfully used on a lab mouse named Algernon. Charlie's intelligence increases rapidly and eventually his IQ triples. Eventually Charlie uses his new found intelligence to study the experiment and realizes that the procedure will eventually reverse and go back to how he was. This is proven when Algernon begins to decline and eventually dies. Charlie soon follows and returns to his original mentally impaired state. He tries to return to his old job but can't stand everyone looking at him with so much pity so he quits. However, before he leaves he asks that someone put flowers on Algernon's grave.

That is some heavy shit. Especially for a 6th grader to read. Anyway short story short I have a fear of losing any moderate intelligence that I currently have. I started out like Charlie. Ask my sister she will tell you that I was a little dumb dumb in my early years of school. She likes to remind everyone that they thought I had Aspergers as well. She will also spend an early part of my life convincing me that I was originally a girl and that's why they named me Rudy, Rudy from the Cosby Show. However when I was born more boy than girl they raised me boy. Yes my sister told me for the first 10 years of my life that I was a hermaphrodite, and in a very convincing fashion I might add.

So I was almost held back in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades, until one day I apparently decided, "Ok Ok this was just a 4 year long running joke I can actually read I swear." Or at least I like to think that's how it went down. To be honest with you I can't remember much from my elementary years. Yes I know I went to a Catholic school, yes I remember friends in school, but no I can't remember anything in class. So who knows what happened. Maybe I did just decide to wake up one day and say "I want to be a real boy".

Anyway, mom decided that most schools in Oxnard sucked and I should probably go somewhere outside of the city, hence my exodus along with many of my fellow classmates to a school in Somis. It was here that I actually started doing well in school and my parents went "Holy shit you? Honor roll? Nooo way." So yes I finally could handle school and in addition to this new found intelligence, I also found my athletic coordination that went missing most of my youth and started doing very well in sports. I also used the new found intelligence to aide my wannabe superhero persona and desire to rid the school of shitty teachers and tenured hacks. It is was the final skill-set that got me in lots of trouble in junior high and presumably led some of my teachers to excessive drinking or crying or both. So yes I have been a smart ass and a button pusher most of my life for those of you who were going to insert joke here.

So without trying to completely toot my own horn for three more paragraphs one can assume that this carried on into high school and college. But as of a lately I feel this all changing. For instance, it takes me a lot longer to get words on paper than it use to. Before I could also write something and be done in a draft or two. These days I stress and agonize over every single word and sentence. I can't recite facts that I use to know at the same speed as before, or look at data and instantly know what it is saying. Long story short I am becoming Charlie, mentally incapable youth, to academic rock star, to practically early onset Alzheimer's.

So is my brain really diminishing? Probably not, but am I completely being obsessive compulsive and hypochondriac about this? Very possibly. But it is also why I am starting this. Well for several reasons: this is the first time in awhile that I can write and not scrutinize every word(a.k.a be ready for grammatical and spelling mistakes). Also I think free flow writing will help me overcome my fear of diminished brain capacity. And finally, because I am no longer on facebook and my level of narcissism can't handle not telling the world about my own feelings of self satisfaction. So I hope you can read this blog and laugh at my level of stupidity, trouble my sister and ask if she was really that mean to me, and more or not just be entertained at my shortcomings and my inability to cope with them. At the very least this will serve as a record me being actually able to read and write when I reach my catatonic state. If that happens, just remember to leave flowers for Algernon...

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