Chatting with Ethel

I don’t know what kind of a brain you have (obviously) but mine is fairly demanding, especially in the middle of the night when I would prefer to be sleeping, but she (I assume she’s a she since she’s my brain.)  has some cockamamie (have to check out that word) idea and decides we should have a little chat about it. I assume the middle-of-the-night brain is a different character altogether than the middle of the day brain, so I call her Ethel.  

Chatting with your brain is weird. Chatting with Ethel is...well chatting with Ethel is still weird, but when throwing those random middle-of-the-night thoughts out in polite conversation, which, of course, are never actually identified as middle-of-the-night thoughts (we in the untidy and irritating world of insomnia who periodically get up, like idiots, to give our brains free rein at 3 a.m. realize these are not always thoughts ideally shared with a spouse/ex/roommate, or any other person who might ever have any power over us)...where was I?

Ethel!  I named my brain Ethel so that when I share 3 a.m. thoughts, (it is actually 3:45 a.m. as I type this) I present them as if they are simply part of a polite conversation with Ethel, a dear friend who stopped by to chat.

I actually suspect Ethel has an agenda because she loves chocolate and knows that when she wakes me for that 3 a.m. chat I will be somewhat irritated and need soothing, so there’s likely to be a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate in it for her.  She’s such a sneaky little stinker.    

BTW, Ethel was curious about that word cockamamie so I looked it up since we (Ethel and I) love words and are often curious about their definition and etymology.  Etymology...where a word comes from...as opposed to entomology (another cool word)...the study of insects. At any rate, here is what some random internet dictionary had to say about the word cockamamie:  "...mixed-up, ridiculous, implausible," American English slang word attested by 1946, popularized c. 1960, but said to be New York City children's slang from mid-1920s; perhaps an alteration of decalcomania (see decal). There is a 1945 recorded use of the word apparently meaning a kind of temporary tattoo used by children.

Therefore, if you were to say, “That’s a cockamamie tattoo,” you’d be redundant.  Well, actually you wouldn’t be redundant, you’d be being redundant.  Which really sounds redundant.

So you can see it’s amazing that I get any sleep at all.