“Who wrote “All the King’s Men?”

It’s one of my favorite books. I know who wrote it, Robert Penn Warren. But my mind was blank; I had no answer. I know a lot of things that refuse to come forth, to identify me as a person of “wide knowledge.” Almost as if my brain has gone self-effacing. Or maybe my brain is mad at my mouth for some reason and refuses to communicate with it.

People chalk up the problem of not remembering a name or other words to growing older. We get so much stuff in our heads, good and bad, that rapid thought turns slower    and    slow er. In fact I’m pretty sure I read something about that recently. An article in … Uh. Yeah!

This idea of too much stuff to sift through quickly might be right, but it’s more fun to think of the brain being mad at the mouth. How many times do we utter stuff we wished we hadn’t. I did it recently, thus insulting a woman. As she walked away my brain thought, “WTF! How could you do that?” My mouth babbled before my brain engaged. I can imagine my brain getting so disgusted it would withhold information for quite some time.

My brain and my mouth do have a peculiar relationship. A guy I was dating asked me, “What was the name of the lead singer in Jefferson Airplane?” My brain was thinking, “Oh my god, I don’t remember. What was her name? Good god, he’ll think I’m a dunce.” Whilst my brain blathered on, my mouth said, “Grace Slick.” This came as a great surprise to me. I thought I’d lost that permanently. I wrote something a few days ago that probably would have been better non-communicated. Too bad. I hit Send. Can’t be called back. I better watch my mouth and my fingers to avoid being horrified. But sometimes the gaps can produce good surprises and even be amusing, such as wanting to say zucchini frittata but coming out with bikini frittata. There’s obviously a lack of consistent connection between my brain, mouth, fingers.

I choose to think that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” —Oscar Wilde

One does what one can to hang onto thinking one doesn’t have a little mind that’s unimaginative. Even when the mind, little or not, isn’t letting you in on what you know.

Oh, wait. I almost forgot. H. P. Lovecraft wrote, “Creative minds are uneven and the best of fabrics have their dull spots.”

Hold that thought.