I was making said flashcards when my sister sat down at the other end of the table and proceeded to eat dessert while leafing through what appeared to be the local yellow pages.
"Um. Are you reading the phone book?"
"What? Oh, yeah."
"..... Why?"
"Well it's really the only thing I can handle right now-- I'm exhausted and I can't read anything that stresses me out like Time or Newsweek and this is mindless and sometimes, you know, I'll find something interesting."
She showed me an ad for a carpet cleaning service and then I tried to tell her about how when I'm on a plane, I can open their inflight magazine and stare at the various maps for a good hour. I don't really have concrete thoughts while I'm doing this-- I'll just consider the US or the world and let my mind sort of wander and touch on subjects.... where I've been, where people I know have been, where I might like to go, if I can even identify most of the states east of the Mississippi, if I can even identify the Mississippi....
She told me I'm crazy.
And I hadn't even told her that reading sometimes stresses me out too, how if I'm just looking to curl up with a book I have read I often can't decide on one because my mind automatically focuses on the parts in the book that make me cringe or feel angry and I have to decide if it's really worth it to open it back up. Same with movies. Now you see why I like going to the theater so much.
I also didn't tell her that I wash my hands before and after I use the bathroom. Or that I can't wear clothes with objects on them that don't "go" together. Like I was all flustered the other day because I wanted to wear a sweatshirt with a unicorn on it, but I also wanted to wear my warmest long-sleeved shirt which happens to have a mammoth on it and they're not really in the same category.
