I spend time thinking about things I shouldn’t. I’m not talking about forbidden, terrible things. I’m not even talking about big dramatic things. I’m talking about things that shouldn’t get to use up my thought cycles. I think ‘hey, if I change lanes now, then I can get around this other car and I might get where I’m going a few seconds earlier.’  And it doesn’t end there. If for some reason I don’t change lanes and pass, then I might get stuck at a red light, and spend the whole 30 seconds thinking about how if I’d gotten around them I wouldn’t be stuck at a red light right now and then it’s not just a few seconds-it’s a whole minute (See? I told you).

Or I think about how I should separate out the kale from everything else in my fridge so I can make soup later. But everything’s so mixed together, and what am I going to do with all the other greens that a friend gave me (I don’t even like them, but they were given to me and now I have a responsibility to not waste them, right?)? And there’s broccoli mixed in there too, and radishes, and oooh I detest radishes, but maybe I could pickle them. Yes, pickle them. Pickle them? Is that a thing? I’ve never heard of that, but it seems like mixing them with sugar and vinegar might help a little, and they do have a really nice crunch. Maybe I’m being unfair to the radishes. Oh, it’s time for dinner. Humm…how about some scrambled eggs?

These thoughts are like telemarketers. They call me when I could be doing something else, should be doing something else, and I get sucked into thinking. I have always been told that I think a lot. But as Sabrina says (well, actually it was Julia Ormond. Well, actually it was whoever wrote the script for that movie…oh nevermind.), “More isn’t always better, Linus. Sometimes it’s just more.”

Rather than ‘hanging up’ on these thoughts I have been too tired to stop the brain cycling in that direction and steer myself to more productive thoughts. But I think it’s making me more tired. I spend a lot of time trying to conserve things. I try hard to drive less, walk more, buy less, waste less food…the list goes on. One of things I am adding to it is that I need to conserve my brainwaves more intentionally so that I don’t feel like I’ve run out by about 2 p.m. and spend the rest of the day in a fog.