Hung up

I'm adrift. I feel I am simply not here today.

I'm feeling... resistant to interacting with people. As the day wears on, it's taking more and more effort to pull my thoughts together to produce speech. I guess I feel disconnected. Or on hold.

At the same time, there seems to be a lot of activity going on in my head. I find myself noticing the same thoughts -- mostly unresolved issues and outstanding action items -- drifting by, again and again. I've tried snagging a few for serious consideration, but I can't seem to think hard enough to get anywhere. I pick 'em up... and put them right back down. Catch and release. Good for fish, not so good for action items.

So here I sit, churning like a hard drive that hasn't had a fresh Windows install in several years. My mental Task Manager would probably show CPU usage at 100%. When that happens to a PC, folks say their computer is "frozen" or "hung up". Yeah, that sounds about right.

In PC-land, that usually indicates one process/program is out of control and hogging the CPU and/or RAM, bringing the rest of the system to a grinding halt. Sometimes killing that one process allows the system to recover without having to reboot.

Thinking about it that way, I have a notion of what the runaway process might be. Not sure I can stop thinking about it*, and since I don't drink, the only way I can think of to "reboot" involves climbing into the car and high-tailing it out of town. Or curling up in a ball with my remote and watching all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space 9** back to back.

Neither of those are going to happen*** so I guess I'll just have to ride it out. Maybe completing some other outstanding action items would free up enough mental energy to let this process work itself out gracefully, without me having to skip town, literally or figuratively.

* Don't think about pink elephants!

** I told you I was a geek.

*** Besides, I noticed this morning I have a headlight out. Another action item! Damn!