Do Empty Heads Weigh Less?

It’s finally happened.  I tried to stuff one bit of information too many into my head and instead of just refusing, it emptied itself of everything.  My brain contains nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Zippo.  Zero.  I have no words to write.  No thoughts to share.  It’s empty.  I am walking around with lump of vacuous flesh and bone balanced on my shoulders.

Before my unfortunate brain drain I’d had a brilliant idea for my next post.  It was so good I chuckled to myself just thinking about it.  I was excited to write it.  I was excited for somebody to read it.  But I was in the shower at the time and not at my computer.  The shower is where I seem to do most of my thinking and where I work out things that have been bothering me and where I review the day and solve problems.  And it’s where I do a lot of mental blogging and blog editing.   More than once, in the middle of my nightly shower, I’ve grabbed a towel and dripped all the way across our wood floors to the laptop to edit a post because the perfect word finally came to me, or I figured out how to make a sentence flow more smoothly, or the perfect blog post title popped into my head.  Maybe it has something to do with rubbing my head as I shampoo my hair that gets the blood flowing to my brain, but whatever it is, I seem to do my best thinking in the shower.   

I, of course know that wet, slippery feet and soapy water dripping from hair is not recommended for wood floors unless you’re trying to achieve that warped-wood look in order to break up the monotony of flat smooth boards.  I also know “electrocution due to a water-soaked keyboard” is not covered under my computer warranty, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t drip on both my floors and keyboard ― because if I don’t react to those shower-induced brainstorms immediately I will forget what it was I wanted write or what I needed to add to my perpetual list.   So when that “oh, boy, this is going to be a great post” idea came to me you’d think I would have grabbed a towel and slipped and slid to the computer or written a quick note on a post-it.  You’d think that, wouldn’t you?  I mean that’s my normal routine.  But no.  This time I told myself there was no reason why I couldn’t remember one simple idea for five more minutes.  Really.  How difficult could that be?  So I repeated my idea to myself four or five times.  Then I got out of the shower.  And I couldn’t remember it.

I should have known better.  What was I thinking?  I hoped I’d remember when I woke up the next morning but I didn’t.  I didn’t remember it the next day either … or the day after that.  A few days later I decided to put a notepad and pen beside my bed in case the idea came back to me during the night because even though I don’t mind running to the computer sopping wet, crawling out of a nice warm bed and staggering through a freezing cold house in the dark has never tempted me.  I figured even if the lost post idea didn’t come back I could at least jot down any crazy dreams I wanted to remember or any other new blog post ideas that may come to me in the wee hours of the night.  And a small notebook close to the shower seemed more sensible than dripping all the way out the bathroom, through the bedroom, down the hall, through the kitchen, to the dining room where the laptop has become a permanent guest at our dining room table.  

It’s been about a week and a half now and that missing blog post idea still nags at me.  It’s been almost a week since I carefully placed that notebook on my bedside table confident I would be filling it with all kinds of “perfect” words, thought-provoking blog post ideas, or maybe even details about the crazy dreams I’ve had so instead of telling Dean “I had a dream that went on for two hours and I think there was a hedgehog and popsicles and I think I was lost in a tunnel and I think you were there but you might have been hunting the hedgehog and I think the popsicle was dancing”, I could tell him I know there was a hedgehog but he wasn't hunting it because he was dancing with the popsicle.  I would know this because I would have written it down.   But that has not happened.  Instead … nothing has happened.  The notebook lies there patiently, clutching the pen, waiting for me to jump out of the shower, hair bubbly with shampoo and head bubbling with ideas.  It stares at me all night long, daring me to dream something crazy and scribble it down.  But I have had no dreams to remember and no thoughts to write.  

That’s not quite right.  I do have one thought.  I'm beginning to think it wasn’t that last bit of trifling information I tried to shove in my brain that emptied my head.  I'm beginning to think that innocent-looking little notebook, lying on the table is sucking my brain dry.  I'm beginning to think I have notebook’s block.

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Do Empty Heads Weigh Less?