Practical Penumbra

Brain Cloud

I think my brain has a slow leak. Or maybe keeping a vampire's hours is finally catching up to me. Whatever it is (mad cow disease? brain cloud?) I've been extremely forgetful lately.
Maybe "forgetful" is the wrong word. Absent-minded? It's not like I've forgotten my name, or where I parked my car, or who the President is. But recently, more than once, I've forgotten whether I started a show or not. This is different than losing track of time doing paperwork and suddenly realizing it's 7:20 and I need to dash upstairs and hit the start button. This is nagging the kids to sweep the lobby, or getting candy from the storeroom, or taking a quick smoke break, noticing it's 7:30, and not knowing if I started the 7:15 show. Sometimes I have to listen to see if I hear it playing because I honestly cannot remember whether I started it or not.
I suppose part of it is due to the fact that it's a repetitive behavior; when you perform the same routine over and over, day after day, after awhile it becomes rote. Unless there's something out of the ordinary to make it stand out in your mind, it all blurs together. But that doesn't explain why the other day I was standing in the middle of the lobby talking to the kids and I suddenly realized I had a lit cigarette in my hand. Granted, I was on my way out for a smoke break when I stopped to join their conversation, but I have absolutely no recollection of taking out a cigarette and lighting it. It's like somebody else did it, and then left me holding the evidence. My mind was absent when this occurred. I experienced a "Senior moment."
Being an individual of great imagination, many scenerios have occurred to me: early onset Alzheimer's, stroke, brain tumor, the afore-mentioned mad cow disease (love that beef!!!), carbon monoxide poisoning, alien mind probes, multiple personality disorder, hardening of the arteries, and vast left wing conspiracy...Some of these possibilities are less likely than others, but lacking the medical insurance to pay for a CAT scan, it's difficult to eliminate those.
So for now I think I'm just going to attribute it to the looney left and the massive stress their idiocy causes. Hmmm. I think I'll sue PETA.....