Gentle On My Mind.

Ever drive down freeway and--just for fun--put the car in reverse? Have you ever tried putting the car back into drive after you've done that? It's sort of like watching Paris Hilton perform Shakespeare.

"Get thee to a nunnery!"

Ok, maybe that works. See that's my problem today. My brain is like that transmission shrapnel. I don't know what it was; maybe my dream mind tried to solve the whole divorce thing again. Yeah, it wouldn't be the first time I woke up with a brain Charlie horse. I don't know if that was this knot or not though.

All I know is I woke up with the head full of broken parts, and it's taken me all day just to organize them into heaps of grey salvage matter. Stop by, see if something works for you. It's the Pick Rob's brain salvage lot. One man's "garbage in" is anther man's "garbage out."

I should have known. The first thing I tried to do was this morning's Sudoku. It said "Genital"--no, wait, that's not what it said at all--"Gentle," that's what it sad. See? That's another thing. When my brain goes on sabbatical, I'm forced to rely on spell check. It's like using a wolf to drive the sled sheep. Oh, it'll fly like a jet, but you have to watch it closely, otherwise they'll break for lunch, and everything afterward is just mutton heads.

That's my mind and spell check. I'm not the only one. I received an email from a friend who was using the iPhone spellchecker. That thing goes after words like a word guerilla. You have to watch every letter or it'll spell check you into communication warefare.

My friend wanted to know about my "bray." Yeah, I'm not sure. I emailed back explaining that I'd been called an ass before, but I'd never been asked about my bray.

"My bray? It's off today. I'm a little horse."

Yeah I said it. What are you going to do? All the iPhone emails are gonna call me a "trucking assult." Yeah, I feel threatened now. The iPhone. It's a great gadget but I think the spell check thing was designed by a person with passive aggressive issues. It just offers words nowhere near the real message. I'm sure that if you don't reply appropriately, the phone shuts off for an hour, forcing you to apologize and reboot.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing! If you don't know, then go truck yourself."

"Ok, I'll go sleep in the moving pads. Let me know when I it's ok to talk again..."

Yeah, pretty obvious I've been married, huh? See that's the thing. Communication can be so tough when you're getting along. It just collapses when you're out of sync. MyUnwife and I, we never finished each other's sentences but that's because I never shut up. I could read her body language and hand gestures and that's all I needed. When we started down the divorce trail, those gestures were limited.

"You're number one too baby!"

"Wrong finger."

"Oh."

Add a pair of passive aggressors to that mix and you've practically got a Michael Bay adventure of Pearl Harbor proportion. That's why you need to find a way to slow things down. If you're communication isn't working, try speaking Japanese. No? Try something; anything can work. Dinner, charades, even holding each other in comfortable silence may work wonders.

Why didn't these things work for me? Because I'm an expert in miscommunication. I only work when things are strewn out along the freeway. That's why when my iPhone friend emailed me with "have a great mining," I emailed back and told them to have a "goon day" too.