68 minutes

Lest you think my brain handles language just like yours does because I write just like you might, let me explain the difference. My brain handles language much more slowly than yours. These posts are written a phrase or a sentence at a time, almost never all in one go. For this post, I'm going to insert a * every time I take a break. So far, I've taken two.*

Normally, when I speak, I do okay if I keep it short. I'm not one to speak in long soliloquies.* When people see me write, they assume that I'm an intelligent being.* When I speak, my IQ drops about 50 points. People who have only heard me speak, and not write, ask me questions like "You can drive? A car?" and "You went to college?" These questions are not one-timers*, either. They've each happened at least a dozen times.*

But tired and anxious is a deadly combination, and I become both at work.* The echolalia, a.k.a. the repeat game, really kicks up then.* It. drives. me. nuts.*

One of the things I do is repeat the tail end of questions people ask me.* "Can you take out the trash?" is met with "Take out the trash? Can I... um... yeah."*

(Pause. Insert melt down here).

Another* thing I do is get hooked on random phrases I've heard and* have this incredible urge to spit them out at random. "Sometimes I play the repeat game." "Right on red."* "God, You reign."* Not a big deal when I'm alone in the laundry room at work (favorite activity there = put the radio on and repeat, repeat, repeat), but after work when everyone is sitting around and it's all I can do not to say "right on red," it's a little-- okay, a lot-- weird.*

I also repeat my own thoughts, after I've thought them, out loud, over and over.* There's a word for this... palilalia, I think. It fogs up my brain of new thoughts, though, and gets really aggravating.*

I wish I could sum this up nicely and wittily, but my brain is done.*

It's rare that I run out of words to type with, but... as my mom would say, stranger things have happened.