As Random as the Crow Flies...

I was accused at work today of inserting a non-sequitur into conversation. Once I stopped to consider what was last spoken aloud and my most recent statement, I had to admit that it did, indeed, sound completely unrelated to the conversation. I am guilty of the non-sequitur (if it is a crime) frequently as I am frequently forgetful of the fact that not all people can follow the Train of Thought Schedule posted in my brain station. My trains move fast (and aren't always fully boarded....) once they head out and switch tracks with alarming rapidity. In fact, the more time passes in my life, the more likely I am to watch the zippy red light of a laser-pointer until I see something shiny. In my defense, today, the conversation was less a direct exchange and more of a running sidebar while each worked on their individual projects.

It was later tonight while making supper that I began to examine how one train of thought becomes another, or how one grain of thought becomes a tree with many branches and roots from a seed you can no longer recognize, or how a germ of an idea becomes a rampaging epidemic - a plague of notions - an infectious brainstorm. If you had been cooking with me, I might have remarked that escargot had been on my mind all day. And I could easily have followed that remark with "Are zombies a meat source or would eating udead zombie flesh (in the event of a zombie-related apocalypse where we were running out of protein sources) turn you into a zombie yourself, same as a zombie bite?"

If you haven't quit reading by now, humour me.

Escargot - thinking about how I would cook escargot, especially for company. What if my company liked to keep kosher? Are escargot kosher or do they fall in league with the lobster?

At this moment, I also had a thought about what to make for dinner on Sunday night and considered lasagna. Which wouldn't be kosher either because of meat and cheese together and you couldn't sub in pork, obviously, and I'm not sure on the rules with dairy and poultry.. So I decide if I invited company with dietary restrictions, it would have to be vegetarian lasagna.

Vegetarian lasagna could be cool, I guess but then I think I couldn't likely go vegetarian myself since I love beef and feel that if cows aren't eaten, then they don't have a purpose, would die in the wild and are creating methane, etc, polluting, without any gain except their actual existence..... (one of my half-empty trains)

And then I begin to wonder what if I had to go vegetarian by circumstance - say zombies (thanks, Richard) take over the earth, stewardship of livestock goes the way of the dodo and the only source of meat is other people. I don't think I could eat other people no matter how dire the circumstances. But zombies, on the other hand......

And all this happens in my brain in a matter of moments. I'm sure random track-jumping happens in your brain, too. (Please tell me I'm not the only one...) It can happen as fast as a fast-forward click on the iPod, affected by the associations made by our individual experiences. Each web of tracks looks different. Each train schedule has different departure times and destinations. And I'm really hoping I'm not the only one to get to the end, look down at my ticket and ask...

"How the hell did I get from there to here?"

And the photo above does have something to do with this post but I honestly can't remember exactly what it is... :-)