My Brain Works Funny

Sometimes, I just really don't understand myself. I mean, I don't understand the method by which my brain operates (or commits malpractice). This fact both entertains and disturbs me.

It disturbs me because I'm just about the most introspective person I know. I am constantly examining my motives and thoughts and trying to figure out why I do and feel the things I do. Frankly, I find myself a more interesting field of study than most I've run across. So, after year upon year of doing that, it doesn't seem to me that there should be anything about myself that I don't know, no feelings that I can't identify or express in words. I mean, I'm not stupid, and it isn't as though I haven't put any effort into this. When something's going on in my brain that doesn't make sense, at least to me, I feel like I'm out of phase with myself, that I've made some obscure but colossal error.

But it's entertaining, too. Because the things that puzzle me about myself tend to be kinda goofy. I mean, it isn't like I looked around the other day and discovered I was a serial murderer or anything. I just have these ideas that make no sense and don't seem to come from anywhere, and they sometimes make for lovely surprises.

Such was the case today. I went home very briefly, and I could hear a hose running as I came 'round the house to get to my apartment. I was inside for about twenty minutes and then came out to head back to work. The hose was still going, but this time I saw it. It was tangled into the fence on the right side of the alley, spraying water onto a spot on the building. I didn't see it when I came in, and I can't absolutely swear that it wasn't actually being used when I'd passed before, but the immediate impression on me was that it had been there, spraying the house, for at least half an hour.

Now, the thoughts in my head usually don't just float around ethearally (is that a word?), or flash up like subtitles on a movie screen behind my eyes. They tend to come in a kind of weird, stilted Socratic dialog; and when I'm alone, as I was today, they don't stay in my head. I actually have a discussion with myself. This was the discussion that took place as I stood on my porch looking at the hose spraying on the house:

Me 1: Look, someone's watering the building. I wonder why?
Me 2: Well, the buildings back here do need a good power-spraying. [I live in 41/2 Alley, and the buildings are pretty dingy]. But why a garden hose? And why just spray that one spot endlessly?
Me 1: You misunderstand me. I didn't say they were washing the building or spraying the building, I said they're watering the building. They want it to grow.
Me 2: Ah, that makes more sense. But who would want the building to grow? It's pretty cramped back here already. Getting the mail is a nightmare.
Me 1: Huey [the landlord] would.
Me 2: Oh, so it could grow new rooms he could let out?
Me 1: Yeah. Or, more likely, the existing apartments would just get roomier.
Me 2: That would be nice. We could use some more room.
Me 1: Of course we could, but if the apartments get bigger, he'll be able to charge more rent for them.
Me 2: Oh, no, we couldn't afford a rent increase.
Me 1: True enough. Well, only one thing to do, then.

And I stepped across the alley and turned the hose off, thus saving myself and my poverty-stricken neighbors the anguish of a rent increase. Happy and satisfied, I then walked on to work. It didn't occur to me until I was halfway there that, first, that conversation made absolutely no sense at all (although while I was having it, it seemed perfectly straightforward), and two, I'd had it out loud. If any of the neighbors had their windows open, I wonder what they thought. Not that I care, but I wonder.

Anyway, maybe this was some responsible subconscious impulse to stop someone wasting water. I'd like to think so. That's noble in a very small way. But, boy, the thought sure took a strange and circuitous path between impulse and deed, didn't it?

Any shrinks out there? Anyone have any thoughts?