Cognitive impairment. Two little words but boy they pack a punch. I used to be really smart. IQ130+, top of my class in everything, never took a course that was beyond me (except a couple where the sociological issues were the problem). Then I got FMS. I feel like I took a stupid pill. I have zero short term memory as well. I can't remember a phone number long enough to dial it. That's why I don't knit lace. How many stitches and how many rows? Arithmetic was never by strong suit but now sometimes adding one digit numbers is hard--I don't even know if the answer I came up with (13?) is the right one. It's doubly frustrating because I remember it wasn't always like this. I can still remember all the words to all the Beatles songs and most of the MARC I need for work but the little everyday things are really beyond me. And please don't give me, we're all getting older, because this happened relatively suddenly and I wasn't all that old when it happened. Those of you who can still do it (whatever the It is you want to do) be thankful that your brain chemistry isn't as screwed up as mine is. And BTW, that theory of FMS is the one I think is right, that the brain chemistry has gone kerfluey and your muscles don't do what you tell them to so you drop everything, etc.

What brought this on? I sat down and warped my new inkle loom this morning. And it just wouldn't work. I have a simpler inkle loom and I know how it works but this one just wouldn't. I looked at my book and the diagrams and I looked at the loom. I tightened and loosened. Finally I was getting so frustrated that I went out to the chemist and the P.O. (bye bye socks!) and came home and had lunch. Went back to the loom. Of course it wouldn't work. I had warped it the wrong way around. If you don't know how an inkle loom works I won't bore you but in the end I had to cut the warp off and start all over. If you cannot focus your brain, you can't see that your loom is not warped like the picture in the book. I now feel much more concern and compassion for those among us who aren't the sharpest tool in the shed. They aren't blogging and doing book reviews and it may not because of where they grew up or how their parents raised them. They may have been born with the stupid pill already engaged and looking at the diagram in the science textbook is not going to make sense no matter how long they look at it. So at least take pity on me when I can't figure out how to make change or remember your name even if I see you every day. There are some days when I wake up and don't even know my own name. I'm not really this stupid, really I'm not, at least not all the time (so far).