Can’t Brain 2: The Can’t-Brainening

Actually, today it’s not that I didn’t have brain capability, it’s just that it didn’t last past about 1:30pm. I could actually feel my brain shutting down! It was amazing.

Anyway, how are you today?

43 Comments on “Can’t Brain 2: The Can’t-Brainening”

  1. I can’t brain through the entire month of September because that’s the crazy season where I work so I’m always too tired to brain.

  2. Too many tours, book signings, conventions, reading books, commenting on books, etc. Your brain needs a rest and it is telling you this.

  3. There’s a Daily Cryptogram website, pretty self-explanatory. I’m on their mailing list, so they send me a new cryptogram every morning. Usually I can solve them in less than two minutes. Sometimes, like today, my brain just goes “Eh, maybe not,” and it takes me multiple tries, over multiple hours. I did eventually solve today’s puzzle, there have been times (very rare) I’ve just said “Aw, fuck it, not today.” When I get the next day’s puzzle (which includes the solution for the previous day), I feel like an idiot for not figuring out the previous day’s puzzle.

  4. Gaaah.

    Glarble.

    GaaaahglarblarblegrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRR.

    No brains left, nope, not a single neuron.

  5. I go for weeks with so little can brain that I swear if you put me in an MRI they’d declare me brain dead.

  6. We spent the majority of the day dealing with a blocked septic pipe. Not only can I not brain, I am not sure I can anything right now. I shall drink. And worry about braining tomorrow.

  7. Yuck. Thought it was a stomach bug, now they tell me this afternoon it is a gall stone. Oh how wonderful… Thanks Gall. How can you get stoned and leave me in pain??? That’s not right.

  8. Spent my day with the brain intensive activity of a detailed billing breakdown (Architectural, Consultants, Expenses, Additional Services, etc.) January – July for a high end Client who I am not at liberty to name (but whose initials are GWL). May the force be with me.

    Time to lubricate the brain cells with mass quantities of alcohol :-\

  9. As a reward for putting on real clothes and completing errands, I stopped at the Goodwill book store and picked up five books everyone else has read but I never got around to reading. Not a bad day.

  10. Scalzi: I noticed in the sidebar that you claim always to have pronounced “Voldemort” correctly. I’m not on Twitter, so I’m using this space to inform you that you’re not supposed to pronounce “Voldemort” at all! What part of “He Whose Name Must Not Be Pronounced” did you fail to grasp?

  11. My head has been filled with paste all week; any brainening I have done has not managed to slosh its way forth from the mire.

  12. Went to work, and got stuck in the far parking spaces. I could brain once we located a desk chair for the new office, but after walking and working hard, I can’t.

    But this not-braining feels like I did something

  13. I’m doing okay…trying to hold off before I start your next book. I read them too quickly! Good stories are like that for me…wonderfully swift energies.

    Having a brain shut down can come from overload and I could see with your brain is creating (all these new universes & great stories) it might have temporarily run out of energy.

  14. ennnnnnnnnnnnngh….

    Can’t brain, don’t wanna brain. Just wanna get done with the sinus infection, ear infection, and metformin and amoxicillin fighting a war for control of my guts… as in who gets to make me feel bloated and gassy for the next few hours.

    Ennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh…

  15. Braining didn’t happen in the morning, although it thought it might. But it was wrong…again…Had lunch meeting and braining was mediocre but acceptable until near the end when their brain and mine succumbed to post-prandial nonbrain. Then went to the Library and brained my way through a large chunk of a major project! This brain thing is either random or I’m random…randomly….

  16. I heard you read in San Francisco. You could see signs of the debraining; just slightly crispy around the edges. Great to see you.

  17. I am actually really good. I have been sick, so I am a little uncomfortable, but I have been having major breakthroughs in my mental health, and I am having a great time actually rebuilding my dating life. I may not be able to brain -except under certain conditions- but right now, braining would just get in the way.

  18. The thing that ate my brain yesterday? Ate it again today at work but I have faint hope of the task being completed soon.

    Tomorrow it is Saturday and I shall recover with GATE & Ushio And Tora.

  19. Workin’ for the weekend. Trying to neither despair nor be too optimistic about social stuff; trying to decide whether $500 RenFaire boots are a reasonable investment, if they’re supposed to last for years but I tend to go through normal boots in six to eight months because, I don’t know, my feet generate some kind of entropic field.

    Deep thoughts, y’know?

  20. In all fairness, I’m still drinking my morning tea, so I can’t actually be expected to be brainening yet.
    Plus I’m retired. So I only use my brain for entertainment purposes.

  21. I should probably be panicking about the event I’m vending at tomorrow. Instead, I’m having a lazy breakfast & watching WWE. (Sales were so slow at my last con that everything is pretty much packed & ready to go in the car as it is.) I expect I’ll wake up at 3 am and then panic. No rush.

  22. Brain left town. Substituted “mind,” which has a problem with something called “body.” Am comprehensively thoughtless…

    …until coffee. And then five minutes after coffee. And then mind tries to locate brain’s communication signal. And then mind resumes fog. Nice puffy fluffy fog…

  23. Starting to regret upgrading to Win10. Lost a working file yesterday when I went to save it and Excel froze. Poof, the file was gone. Backup was 2 months old and I had to rebuild the missing data. After that, my brain was well fried.

  24. I couldn’t brain because of doctor-prescribed Zoloft plus Xanax. But that meant I couldn’t stress about getting two crowns, so not-braiding for the win! Also, we went to Reptile Rapture in Madison, WI, and admired lots of nifty snakes and one followed me home and now I has a little bit of sad because I had to go to work instead of staying home and watching snakes and suffering beagle attacks (slurp slurp snuggle snuggle).

  25. So, change the line at the top of the blog to “I will show you the life of the mind”, and now 2 straight days of “Can’t Brain”. Seems like the life of the mind is kind of slow these days, or maybe the life has gone out of the mind? Or, I have gone out of my mind, or something like that.

  26. @orangemike: It’ll have to come out then.

    @DIgitalAtheist: I can only recommend lots and lots of simethicone. Will reduce the gas some.

    I did not brain enough for dinner. In my defense, it is very hot and thus I am obeying the adage about getting out of the kitchen.

    Doesn’t look like braining is going to happen again today. Either the heat has caused it to liquefy or I should be checking if it was stolen by evil aliens.

  27. Another retiree here: the brain only comes on for special events. Did get to the gym today though, so I’ve muscled some…

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