Heather Menzies Jones
www.WriterHeather.com
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What Fresh Hell?

Berlin - March 8, 2018

 

I woke up last night – not unusual – I wake up many nights at two or three regardless of wine or coffee – I’ve heard that sleep is disrupted at my age – people joke about it, although it’s not so amusing when it’s dark and one’s mind churns. I try to remember my German lessons, which article, das, der, die – which one adheres to which noun. Then a name becomes stuck. I can’t remember someone’s name a name that would have at one point in the past tripped off my tongue but now it unglues itself and only hours or days later will it pop unbidden into my head and I think I’m coming down with my heritable brand of cognitive decline.

Mind Games

Again, am I the only one who is terrified? No, not of Alzheimer’s. I’m talking about not trying hard enough (at all) to prevent it. I cringe when I hear those ads for Lumosity - you know, the online site for brain games designed to insulate your gray matter against the ravages of various dementias. According to a commercial on my supposedly ad-free NPR affiliate, all I have to do is take a quiz, and then see how my intelligence aligns with everyone else’s in the world. . .

What?

The world? Really? Essentially, my scores would be compared to those from people who live for this kind of crap.

I realize, this sounds benign enough. Lumosity would like to administer a test. Of what, you might ask? My inherent ability to solve logic problems? Recognize patterns? Do calculus? Then, I’d be stacked up against others from around the world. Singaporean high school students? Chess experts from Russia? Math whizzes from Japanese preschools? 

Um, no, not happening.

Below, is my non-comprehensive list of things I DO NOT DO:

  • Ÿ  Crossword puzzles - not with a pen or a pencil- are you f!@#$ with me?
  • Ÿ  Card games – not solitaire, certainly not bridge
  • Ÿ  The Jumble
  • Ÿ  Those arcane puzzles at the end of each Harper’s magazine - I can’t even figure out the instructions
  • Ÿ  The puzzles at the end of the New York Times Sunday Magazine - I start sweating when I read what constitutes genius level and then can’t reach subnormal. . .
  • Ÿ  Sudoku
  • Ÿ  Take fish oil supplements
  • Ÿ  Take ginkgo biloba

Now, I forget, where am I going with all this?

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