Do you have feelings about fruit?
I’ve just been giving my kiwis a squeeze and — what’s that? No, no, it’s not a euphemism for some activity best kept to myself; I really was squeezing some kiwi fruit and finding with annoyance that they still aren’t ripe. And as I glared at the obstinate little orbs lying fuzz-covered in their basket I realised that a part of my brain is permanently devoted to feelings about fruit.
The thing is, I can’t afford to waste brain space on fruit. It’s all I can do to remember to put out the water bottles on Sunday nights and to recollect what country M said he was going to when he doesn’t show up for dinner.
It’s the involuntary aspect of it that galls me the most. I have never wanted to have strong opinions on fruit and certainly would not have agreed to rent cranial space for such piffle. But I was never asked. It’s as if my brain just does things without even consulting me and I find that quite rude.
You may wonder what I’m jawing on about. Feelings about fruit? Your first response may be to say, well! I certainly do not have feelings about fruit but Jenn, if that’s what blows your hair back you just carry on.
But let me ask you this: do you have a favourite kind of fruit? I’m sure you do. Well, that’s a feeling, an opinion. That’s brain real estate. Now picture different fruits for a moment, and see if you don’t have quite a lot to say about each one.
Take the kiwis I was squeezing. I was annoyed at them for taking so long to ripen. It seems to me that theirs is a defiant sort of character, deliberately uncooperative. They sit there in the fruit basket for weeks like little stones and then suddenly without warning get mushy, all of them on the same day. And you can’t tell when they’re starting to soften by looking at them either, the way you can with bananas.
Bananas don’t last more than three days, that’s true, and it’s definitely a mark against them but you have to admit that they are very forthright. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and you know exactly what’s going on under the peel at all times.
Then you have apples, so reliable and steady – the kind of fruit you’d do well to marry. But beware the too-shiny ones: a waxy skin often hides a mealy character.
Get a load of the grapefruit. Boy, I don’t even know who eats them. Well, I do, actually: my dad. But then again he eats chickpea omelettes for breakfast. I think grapefruits are just mean. They smell so good, they look incredible (especially the ruby ones) but when you dive in you get a mouthful of sour, bitter nastiness.
My mother-in-law is under the impression that I like grapefruits and keeps bringing me bags of them. They’re fresh and wonderful looking, picked from the tree the day before. I know how ungrateful I am to say this but I just can’t stand them. They’re not easy to get rid of, either. They’re very large and take up all my fridge space but if I leave them out on the counter they might be seen by M’s mom, who will demand to know why they haven’t been eaten yet. The kids don’t want them. M will drink the juice of them if I get out the big juicer and splash half the kitchen whilst extracting their liquid. I can’t even give them to Nowras because he tells everything to everybody and I would no doubt get a call from my mother-in-law the next day, ticked off and requiring an explanation. (If you think I’m exaggerating let me tell you that when I threw out a book last fall that had been given to us by my father-in-law he somehow heard about it from Nowras — who, of course, takes out the garbage — and came to ask me why I had chucked it. And the book was a forty-year old, beat-up children's encyclopaedia.)
Are you starting to come around to my theory? And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Looking around the room where I’m sitting right now, I realise that I have detailed opinions about every single thing in the room, right down the mystery screw that’s sitting on the side table. I found that screw on the floor of the bedroom two months ago and set it on the table in the hopes that someone would find out where it belongs. I don’t want to throw it away because I know it has fallen out of something that needs it. Maybe the closet is going to collapse in a heap of dust one day, all because of that missing screw.
The point is, that screw occupies neural space. On some level, I think about the screw every time it enters my field of vision. And to a brain already brimming over with useless information, it’s just an outrage that that screw has even been allowed through the neural processing door.
Noonie asked me yesterday why Canada has both French and English as official languages and whereas a few years ago she would have been satisfied with my answer of “Because that’s how it’s always been,” she wanted more information than that. Unfortunately, I was in no position to give it. Oh, sure, I tried to fob her off with descriptions of life in pre-dominion Canada (chiefly supplied by what I’ve seen in Heritage Park and by watching Little House on the Prairie): all those beaver pelts steaming off to Europe to satisfy the whims of fashion, people building houses out of dirt etc. I even tried to distract her by triumphantly recalling a snippet from my grade six social studies textbook that said Louis Riel in his declining years tried to rename the days of the week.
But Noonie pressed her point and in the end I had to admit defeat. I didn’t know why Canada had not ended up with only one official language. I started to open my mouth to say as much but Noonie was already there. “I know, I know” she said, holding up a hand. “You used to know this stuff but it’s just been so long since you’ve thought about it that it’s completely gone from your mind, that if I’ll wait a moment you don’t mind looking it up on Wikipedia for me.”
There was nothing I could say to that. It was all true. I felt a wave of frustration at my brain’s screening methods. I used to know most of the chemistry periodic table inside and out, too, but it’s all gone now. Yet I remember things like my first-year-university roommate having shoes with a strikingly pointed toe. I mean what’s the point of remembering that? Pointy-toed shoes are more important than the physical properties of sodium?
No, the brain’s screening process is sorely inept. Stupid stuff is allowed to stay, good stuff to leak out. It seems that somebody in the memory department isn’t watching the door very closely. What we need around here are some bouncers.
I’ve just been giving my kiwis a squeeze and — what’s that? No, no, it’s not a euphemism for some activity best kept to myself; I really was squeezing some kiwi fruit and finding with annoyance that they still aren’t ripe. And as I glared at the obstinate little orbs lying fuzz-covered in their basket I realised that a part of my brain is permanently devoted to feelings about fruit.
The thing is, I can’t afford to waste brain space on fruit. It’s all I can do to remember to put out the water bottles on Sunday nights and to recollect what country M said he was going to when he doesn’t show up for dinner.
It’s the involuntary aspect of it that galls me the most. I have never wanted to have strong opinions on fruit and certainly would not have agreed to rent cranial space for such piffle. But I was never asked. It’s as if my brain just does things without even consulting me and I find that quite rude.
You may wonder what I’m jawing on about. Feelings about fruit? Your first response may be to say, well! I certainly do not have feelings about fruit but Jenn, if that’s what blows your hair back you just carry on.
But let me ask you this: do you have a favourite kind of fruit? I’m sure you do. Well, that’s a feeling, an opinion. That’s brain real estate. Now picture different fruits for a moment, and see if you don’t have quite a lot to say about each one.
Take the kiwis I was squeezing. I was annoyed at them for taking so long to ripen. It seems to me that theirs is a defiant sort of character, deliberately uncooperative. They sit there in the fruit basket for weeks like little stones and then suddenly without warning get mushy, all of them on the same day. And you can’t tell when they’re starting to soften by looking at them either, the way you can with bananas.
Bananas don’t last more than three days, that’s true, and it’s definitely a mark against them but you have to admit that they are very forthright. They wear their hearts on their sleeves and you know exactly what’s going on under the peel at all times.
Then you have apples, so reliable and steady – the kind of fruit you’d do well to marry. But beware the too-shiny ones: a waxy skin often hides a mealy character.
Get a load of the grapefruit. Boy, I don’t even know who eats them. Well, I do, actually: my dad. But then again he eats chickpea omelettes for breakfast. I think grapefruits are just mean. They smell so good, they look incredible (especially the ruby ones) but when you dive in you get a mouthful of sour, bitter nastiness.
My mother-in-law is under the impression that I like grapefruits and keeps bringing me bags of them. They’re fresh and wonderful looking, picked from the tree the day before. I know how ungrateful I am to say this but I just can’t stand them. They’re not easy to get rid of, either. They’re very large and take up all my fridge space but if I leave them out on the counter they might be seen by M’s mom, who will demand to know why they haven’t been eaten yet. The kids don’t want them. M will drink the juice of them if I get out the big juicer and splash half the kitchen whilst extracting their liquid. I can’t even give them to Nowras because he tells everything to everybody and I would no doubt get a call from my mother-in-law the next day, ticked off and requiring an explanation. (If you think I’m exaggerating let me tell you that when I threw out a book last fall that had been given to us by my father-in-law he somehow heard about it from Nowras — who, of course, takes out the garbage — and came to ask me why I had chucked it. And the book was a forty-year old, beat-up children's encyclopaedia.)
Are you starting to come around to my theory? And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Looking around the room where I’m sitting right now, I realise that I have detailed opinions about every single thing in the room, right down the mystery screw that’s sitting on the side table. I found that screw on the floor of the bedroom two months ago and set it on the table in the hopes that someone would find out where it belongs. I don’t want to throw it away because I know it has fallen out of something that needs it. Maybe the closet is going to collapse in a heap of dust one day, all because of that missing screw.
The point is, that screw occupies neural space. On some level, I think about the screw every time it enters my field of vision. And to a brain already brimming over with useless information, it’s just an outrage that that screw has even been allowed through the neural processing door.
Noonie asked me yesterday why Canada has both French and English as official languages and whereas a few years ago she would have been satisfied with my answer of “Because that’s how it’s always been,” she wanted more information than that. Unfortunately, I was in no position to give it. Oh, sure, I tried to fob her off with descriptions of life in pre-dominion Canada (chiefly supplied by what I’ve seen in Heritage Park and by watching Little House on the Prairie): all those beaver pelts steaming off to Europe to satisfy the whims of fashion, people building houses out of dirt etc. I even tried to distract her by triumphantly recalling a snippet from my grade six social studies textbook that said Louis Riel in his declining years tried to rename the days of the week.
But Noonie pressed her point and in the end I had to admit defeat. I didn’t know why Canada had not ended up with only one official language. I started to open my mouth to say as much but Noonie was already there. “I know, I know” she said, holding up a hand. “You used to know this stuff but it’s just been so long since you’ve thought about it that it’s completely gone from your mind, that if I’ll wait a moment you don’t mind looking it up on Wikipedia for me.”
There was nothing I could say to that. It was all true. I felt a wave of frustration at my brain’s screening methods. I used to know most of the chemistry periodic table inside and out, too, but it’s all gone now. Yet I remember things like my first-year-university roommate having shoes with a strikingly pointed toe. I mean what’s the point of remembering that? Pointy-toed shoes are more important than the physical properties of sodium?
No, the brain’s screening process is sorely inept. Stupid stuff is allowed to stay, good stuff to leak out. It seems that somebody in the memory department isn’t watching the door very closely. What we need around here are some bouncers.
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