“Makin’ Whoopee”

A little Duke Ellington number came up on the computer this afternoon, and it reminded me of this song for some reason.  There’s no other reason for this post.  I just felt like hearing this fun little song performed by two very, very underrated artists.

Fact is, my brain’s kind of deserted me the last few days.  I feel a bit stuck.  I don’t mind a good rut; I live my life based on routine.  But although my activities and actions are pretty proscribed, my mind is usually going a million different directions at light speed  (trust me, it’s not nearly as fun as it sounds).  I have noticed that my thoughts do tend to run in cycles, with certain ideas dominating at various times.  I have a set of worries and fears that plague me pretty much all the time.  There’s a few story and poem ideas that bounce around in the foreground sometimes.  There’s a set of regrets and what if’s that like to sucker punch me  on occasion.  The daily to do list is always there, waiting to be checked off.  And the daydreams are always ready to move up when there’s nothing else to think about.  The only things that really change are the specifics.

When I get something in my mind, I tend to hang onto it like a dog, shaking it like a rat between my teeth until its little neck snaps.  (I saw our dog–a dalmatian–do that once; it was kind of horrifying.)  I turn ideas over under sideways down in my head, twisting them until they’re recognizable by no one but me.  The current bit of weirdness running through my mind is the idea of paranormal investigations.  I even went so far as to google “paranormal studies” and “parapsychology” today.  During my first great ghost story phase as a kid, I really thought that might be a cool career to get into.  I still think it sounds pretty cool, but I’m not really considering it; it’s just another bee in bonnet.  I have to ride it out until this particular thought flies away.

The inability to settle on one cool idea or line of study has perhaps hindered my life–although it has made me pretty good at Jeopardy! and Trivial Pursuit.  I know a lot of stuff because I’m constantly picking up strange little thoughts and thinking about them until all the thinking has been thunk.  I like to learn things.  Just about anything, it turns out.  It’s led me down some interesting musical paths, too.  Watch the video again just in case you didn’t notice.