introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K

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games

take your time - 26 july 2o22

"in my jacket a pack of playing cards-- just jacks, jokers and a queen of hearts. my heart is beating, beating like ringo, as i pull into the drive-in bingo"~jens lekman


the heat wave has been so high that we've spent most of a week visiting my parents' pool and sharing a dinner table. everyone pitches in for the cooking and the clearing. bonus: my kitchen stays clean with only one dish in the sink that needs doing.

on saturday, mom's best friend, sally, came to visit. i've been adjusting to meds (another story, maybe for tomorrow?) and napped on the couch through the first few hours of her arrival when they all went swimming and got out a giant container of northwest cherries to share. when i came out to join them it was raining sideways and i needed to close my car windows. i was groggy but they were getting out games. i never get to play games anymore.

mom brought out Rivers, Roads, & Rails--a tile game. she heard about it from a friend and bought it but had difficulty understanding the rules. i love tile games like Carcassonne and this looked familiar. the rules were simple enough--match up the rivers roads and rails. an easy game for little kids around age 5 to get going on more complicated gaming functions. i loved it immediately. in practice, it was a heck of a challenge.

my turn must have been taking too long--i was strategizing how to use the most tiles in each turn--and my mother started just saying you need a river or a road and rail and a river...it was infuriating. i was trying to remember how long it has been since i played a game other than uno or memory with my kiddo and this woman is going to shout out randomness but using the words i needed in my head to make sense of what i was plotting. i finally kindly (at first) explained that i can and will think through my own turn. that i'm not 5 years old. that i understand the point of the game. that i'm looking at all the tiles on the table. i'm not as fast as i used to be, this is true. i was usually planning more than one move at a time when i was playing more games more often. mom-brain is real but i was more frustrated with my mother. she was trying to help, maybe? but instead it just underscored how slow and clunky my brain is. it will work if i will it but it takes so much longer and people don't like uncomfortable silence while you think it through.

but thats what i have right now. i have this brain that won't cooperate. i have lots of looking up words that i used to just use in conversation. i have to keep asking questions to confirm i understand. i have to ask multiple times what someone needed from me where once i had the directions down on the first try. i have a brain that is slowly (hopefully) rebooting back to normal but it's taking time and i'm running out of time.

if there's one thing that isn't helping, it's the pressure of knowing that there is a fixed timeline to figure this out. and i'm trying to figure it out from inside the house. i never ever expected things to be so damned complicated in here.

stay cool, stay hydrated.

xo,
jones

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.what came before. - .what happened next.

a new leaf - 23 august 2o22
the devil, reversed - 18 august 2o22
tell me something good. - 17 august 2o22
brain candy - 1august 2o22
games - 26 july 2o22

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