I once kissed a boy who had a forked tongue.  I don’t remember his name, or why I came to be kissing him. I only remember his tongue ( tongues? ) I kissed him exactly twice. The first time my eyes were closed, and I felt something in my mouth I had never felt before, It scared the crap out of me so I bolted backwards like I had been mouth electrocuted….which in a way I had been, oral shock is no joke. I wasn’t sure what had happened, so of course, I went back for more.  A second exploration confirmed he was indeed serpentine.  I never saw him again, I think I was too young and inexperienced to think how valuable a curiosity his tongue could have been (if you know what I mean..wink wink).  I just remember thinking…huh that is really something he should have mentioned, just a little heads up, a little “oh by the way”…cause I never learned the reason for it, birth or injury or gothic enhancement? That could have been an interesting story…( probably not as interesting as the one I invented to explain it away which involved ancestry to mythical beasts )  It was a defining moment in my belief system however, and one of the reasons I so diligently divulge my disorders and deformities. People need a minute to get used to something different, to creatively fit another’s idiosyncrasy into their own lives.
 
 I mention this only because I mention this story whenever I hear someone talk about kisses, or forks, or lizards. Like conversation is just a giant word association game. You mention “Lizard” and I thumb through my rolodex of experiences…exposing all my lizard stories. If you are lucky, that is the lizard story I pick to tell you. It’s like google was modeled after my style of brain. ( vainest thing ever said by anyone )

I mention that only because I know I am not alone in this brain style. I know this because I woke up laughing at 3 am. Well I didn’t really wake up laughing, I just woke up, and then I noticed there was magic in my closet. YES! actual magic, twinkling little lights coming from the depths of my dark closet, like a galaxy of stars or 1,000 little jungle eyes flickering in the night….Finally the dragon kiss of 1997 had cast it’s spell! I embrace the wizardry!

Turns out the twinkling fairy lights were just reflections from the new sequined disco dress shimmering in the gentle blow of my air conditioner.   I love sequin ( but hate sequence..go figure)  I bought this dress for my sons 5th birthday party… It’s tonight. At a dance club. ( Yeah I’m throwing a 5 year old birthday party in a bar…what ? )

So now I am wide awake staring at the dress that could have been my magic destiny and I am thinking about thoughts and the way brains work and I think of my friend “Name Changed to Protect the Innocent”  and I start to laugh.  She was telling me this story the other day about how she was having a meeting and there was like an electrician or something and there was all this very important technical stuff going on and for some reason she got distracted and instead of offering some valid point appropriate to the matters at hand she said….” did you ever have braces? “

That’s it. That is all she said, this story was told to me several days ago and now it is the middle of the night and I am HOWLING, tears streaming down my face laughing so hard…Now this is unfortunately not that unusual for me, the other night I found myself laughing about a fart joke someone had sent me and I laughed so hard and for so long I was worried about my own self. Is this a sign of a brain tumor? Don’t tell me!…is it?

I went on a fancy vacation when I was a kid and I read this book called Broca’s Brain… By Carl Sagan. I don’t remember much about it other then desperately wanting to be a neuroscientist…and having this great moment when a woman asked me if I was in fact a neuroscientist …she seemed very impressed with me and I realized I didn’t actually have to be a neuroscientist I could just carry this book around…(it just dawned on me that she may have been facetious when she asked me that. I was 18, I think my hair was purple..she was making fun of me wasn’t she? ….damn)

I like to practice what I call intuitive neuroscience… I have NO training, I have never dissected a brain, I realize this is about as insulting to real brain surgeons as my “on line minister degree” is to people who spent years in seminary….But I just FEEL like I know what is going on in there…and when I meet people like ” Name Changed to Protect the Innocent” I think WOW there are a lot of us out there, whose synapsis wander but are not lost. I have drawn the conclusion that our brains are more foldy then the rest….We don’t think in a straight line, we have grab bag of thoughts, not a timeline. I am coining the phrase Hat Basket Thinking. For people ( like me ) who are triggered to speak seemingly as if they grabbed topics from a hat basket…I think it’s a higher form of evolution, guided by the energy of the universe and ability to gain insight from one’s own experience. Hat Baskets Unite.