Still crazy after all these years

      I reached 9,010 words today. I shouldn't have any trouble going over 10,000 tomorrow which will keep me on track for NaNoWriMo. Whee. No, I mean, WOOHOO!
      All of this simply means I have officially lost my mind. It had been rumored for a while that I had. After all, it was small and easily misplaced. Of course, I had lost it before when it rolled under my couch, but that was an accident. This was deliberate. I chose to participate in NaNoWriMo myself.
      Why oh why did I sign up for this insane creative typing exercise?
      Several possible reasons:
      I lost my mind.
      It seemed like fun at the time. (This was also the reason given by my grandpa when he and some other boys attached firecrackers to a couple of chickens and set them off. His parents were not amused by this attempt to put chickens in orbit. One assumes that the chickens weren't all that pleased, either, but no one knows since nothing was found but feathers.)
      I really like feeling so much pressure that the top of my head blows off (and thus once and for all solving that pesky thinning hair problem).
      I wanted to jumpstart my writing again since it had stalled, sputtered, coughed twice and then came to a dead stop during my fantasy novel (slated to be completed in 2010).
      But we're going with the first one.
      Of course, through the years, there had been indications that I was losing my grip. I remember an incident at when I was attending a small community college. My friend Joyce and I walked out to my car to drive to a local restaurant for lunch. I discovered I didn't have my keys, that the car door was locked, and that my keys were in the ignition. I called the campus police who sent over an officer who tried to open the car with a long, narrow piece of metal. It didn't work so he called maintenance to get a screwdriver to pop the trunk lock. That didn't work, either, so then they called another campus officer who brought over a lock-pick kit. He couldn't get the door open, but they called another officer who was more skilled with the kit, and eventually he opened the door.
      By that time, my car was surrounded by three campus police vehicles, a maintenance pickup and about 20 or so policemen, college workers and students. I thanked everyone, and as the crowd dispersed, I looked at Joyce. She was leaning against my car, draping her body against the back left passenger door. I had noticed her doing that when the last police officer arrived
      "Is something wrong?" I asked.
      She looked around and then whispered, "Your back door is unlocked." Like a true friend, she had hidden me from ridicule. Like a true friend, she brings it up every single time we talk.
      And then there was the time I flooded my kitchen with suds. I had started the water to wash dishes, gave the sink a good spurt of dishwashing liquid, walked out of the kitchen for a moment -- and didn't come back for an hour! Luckily the water topped one side of my double sink and went down the drain in the other side, but the suds rose higher and higher, rolled over the side of my cabinet and proceeded to spread across the floor, producing a winter wonderland in my kitchen. It was surprisingly difficult to clean up.
      Or recently I was tearing my office apart looking for my reading glasses. Finally I decided I had left them at home and drove all the way there to get them. They were in my shirt pocket.
      So you see that I should have realized a long time ago that my mind could go wandering. And I hate it when I'm out of my right mind. My left mind gets so lonely and constantly asks me when my right mind will return. I actually know the answer to that question this time: December 1.