I’m beginning to think I can’t think unless I’m brushing my teeth.

Every time I lean over the sink, my mind must rearrange itself and I come up with these blistering epiphanies that grab on and won’t let go. It’s annoying, to say the least, but probably so because it’s always true.

In the recent past, my home computer choked and coughed and came up with odd configurations in a lot of places. It still worked, but nothing was the same. Being the computer genius I am, I played a game of solitaire. When it still didn’t work right, I played another game. That was safe. That didn’t change. I could do that without fighting the demons — those little guys with their thumbs in their ears and fingers waving in the air who mock me beyond mercy. “You can’t do it. Why try. Give up. Do something safe. Play solitaire.”

Those little beggars have plagued me all my life. When I was in high school, my sister Suzan and I took night classes at the high school.