Rebellious minds

My brain's a piece of work.

I tell her we're writing, and she takes a vacation to the Boringest Place on Earth. It's a theme park dressed in khaki khakis, where everyone has two well-behaved dogs and two equally well-behaved children; they all eat coffee ice cream in sugar cones; the soundtrack alternates in 12-hour shifts between instrumental 80's ballads and NPR cooking specials; the carnies have perfectly manicured teeth; and there's nary a tattooed grandma wearing magenta spandex or a bedazzled tube top.

That's my brain saying "go to hell, bitch face." And then she takes me there, because she's my brain, and she can make my arms and legs move in whichever direction she chooses -- I'm her $2 knockoff Barbie, the average-looking variation of the perfectly built beauty queen doll that you buy in the bargain bins at craft stores.

Some people's brains are obedient and disciplined. My brain thinks she's special, because Attention Deficit Disorder keeps her in a constant haze of pink euphoric bliss. The medication keeps her shenanigans in check, but nothing is 100 percent effective -- even abstinence fails in this department.

My brain on ADD plots brilliant schemes to distract and derail me - the polka-playing clowns who juggle flaming lederhosen in my frontal lobe; the itching sensation that's directed to unmentionable body parts while I'm searching for the words to rescue me from writer's block; the radio that plays taunting snippets from songs I desperately want to remember.

She also communicates with my children. I'm certain of this, because it always happens on the days I ignore her, one or both of my little ones will dig up a pair of scissors and cut someone's hair off, or find a bag of candy and blast themselves into sugar-fueled hysterics that feature screaming and running and jumping and crashing and smashing and many more terrible things.

So I made an appointment for a frontal lobotomy.