Someone has stolen my brain.

Or the really important bits of it, anyway.

I can still write, even managed to complete an article I was assigned yesterday*, but it takes an ungodly amount of effort. I've been feeling as if I'm just throwing out words...like little dung-balls, some stick and some just fall to the ground.

As some others have done, I should stop paying attention to the damn news. I could spend the next week writing rants if I thought I could organize my thoughts well enough to separate the topics.

I will simply say that, among other things, I'm wondering how long I would last speaking to a black audience if, like Hillary, I put on a hideous, patronizing parody of a down-South accent....**

And I'm wondering why we can't build two walls: one between the USA and Mexico, and one between us and the corrupt, traitorous bastards of both parties in Washington who are selling us out to whoever offers them enough graft.

Actually, I'm simply raging about these subjects because I don't want to write about all the things that are bugging me on a personal level.

The only remotely enjoyable part of the week has been a call today from a musician friend who lives in the Midwest and, like most musicians, does his work at night. After we yammered at each other for a good long while, he apologized for taking up so much of my work day. I told him no apology was necessary; our conversations are the only occasions when I can relax and talk about two of the three things*** I dig the most, both of which are currently denied me: music and (I'm paraphrasing here, out of simple decency) attractive female-types****.

I haven't had conversations of this kind on any regular basis since my music teacher died. Next to actually enjoying those pleasures directly, I need this.

So I can think and talk, but in those matters where I should be able to add the ability to come up with coherent paragraphs that, when combined, make up the kind of articles for which I'm "known"***** I seem to have run dry.

If you'll excuse me, I'm now going to unscrew the top of my skull and see what's in there. Maybe I can find something in the refrigerator that I can install as a replacement for the missing gray matter. Probably some exotic item I bought at Trader Joe's. Or at Tito's Tacos; who knows?

In the immortal words of Bart Simpson: "Later, grizzly dudes."


* Those few clients who pay promptly always move to the head of my schedule, deadlines be damned....

** Believe it or not, I can do a much more realistic version of same than Hillary's. I simply wouldn't have the guts to lay it down in front of a bunch of people for whom such accents are natural.

*** The third, money, I only want to have. Talking about it bores me.

**** His preference is for musical females, thus theoretically doubling the pleasure. But then he hasn't been bitten by one.

***** Yes, there are people in this country to actually know who I am and are avid readers of my work. I've met both of them!