Brain Landfill

Good evening.

Technically, it’s morning, but I’m wearing a retainer in my mouth and talking like Dracula is the only way for words to come out without the accompaniment of saliva. Otherwise, I’m Daffy Duck, but with underwear. I don’t know why I felt that was an important distinction, but we’re here now.

Is everyone following along so far? Great, I’ve lost half of you.

My braces came off 11 years ago, why do I still have to wear a retainer once a week whenever I feel like?

Paul, your teeth might move.

You could pack up my mouth in a U-Haul truck and that thing won’t even leave the driveway. There would be no need to send out a “Merry Christmas from our new location!” card.

That joke was brought to you by my grandfather, who once gave me a Christmas card that said, “Merry Christmas from our new location.” He hadn’t moved; he just bought a bunch of cards from a store before it went out of business, saved them in a shoe box, and took a new one out whenever birthdays or Christmas came around.

Very smart, if you ask me. Though the cards were starting to turn yellow.

Back to retainers!

Am I going to be 50-years-old, watching re-runs of Detectives After Dinner with my wife, and still wearing my retainer? When will this end?

By the way, Detectives After Dinner is a television show that hasn’t been created yet. I’m anticipating it will debut when I’m about 38-years-old so it can have a good 7-year run, so by the time I’m 50, re-runs will be on TV. I’ve planned it all out.

The show is about a husband and wife who turn into detectives after dinner, but they aren’t crime detectives. Those kind of shows will have fizzled out by then.

They are helicopter parents with four kids who don’t tell them anything because they’re too busy with technology to talk to “old people”. So the parents try and find out things about their kids, like who their friends are, what they have for homework, and why they really ask for two spoons in their lunch bag.

The excuse is that one spoon might fall on the floor, so it’s good to have a backup, but really they’re sharing their pudding cup with someone. That’ll be revealed in the Season 1 finale.

I’m copyrighting this right now. Don’t you dare try and steal this idea.

Where was I?

Right, retainers! I have nothing else to spit say about them.

Sorry, I just jumped into this post without any sort of explanation.

I think it’s important – every now and then (I fall apart) – to write about whatever comes to mind and throw it all together in one post. You may call it a Brain Dump, I call it a…a…a Brain Landfill.

Landfill sounds like a spa for pigeons, will dump sounds like an unkept backyard pool with a bandage at the bottom…again, for pigeons.

No matter what it’s called, I think it’s necessary. There are times when I feel like writing, but I’m searching for a topic. This eliminates the need for a topic.

So welcome to my Brain Landfill. Try not to fall.

Now that that’s out of the way, I think I should mention that I discovered a new song today and have listened to it 76 times already.

The song is called Television Romance, by Pale Waves. I had never heard of this band before. I think they’re relatively new, with only a few songs out. They sound like a combination of The 1975 and Halsey.

And despite popular belief, the song is not about The Bachelor.

That was a joke, there is no “popular belief” yet.

Music is a weird thing. Almost every song I listen to can transport me back to the time when I first discovered it.

Maybe it’s because I have the habit of listening to new songs a few hundred times on repeat when I first find them, so that song gets associated with a specific time in my life.

Admittedly, there are some that I can’t listen to in their entirety for one reason or another, or another, or another.

Give us an example, Paul! Give us an example!

Alright, the song “Help I’m Alive” by Metric. I can’t listen to more than 90 seconds of it. It brings me back to first year university. That’s when I first heard the song, plus Metric was the O-Week band that year.

Hearing it puts me back in my dorm room and makes me reminisce. It’s just too hard to listen to.

Has anyone else faced anything similar with specific songs?

While I’m on the topic of school, one of my favourite Netflix series is returning for Season 3 on July 20.

If you like football, miss your university days, and enjoy behind-the-scene style documentaries, Last Chance U is the show for you!

It follows junior college football players/student-athletes, who hope to get noticed and transfer to a bigger college. At the same time, they lack any motivation to apply themselves in the classroom, which puts their football career at risk.

Pick up your feet as we walk, we’re going to the other side of this brain landfill.

This post just got officially loony.

The current book my eyes are reading is called, Slobberknocker. It’s about Jim Ross’ life in wrestling. Jim Ross is arguably the best announcer the wrestling industry has ever had.

I’m really enjoying the book, but it’s one of those things that would be cool to discuss with someone else, except there’s no one to discuss it with. Ever face that problem?

I think I got into wrestling right when everyone else got out of it. That is so prototypical Paul, though. I’m either ahead of the curve, or behind the curve.

I’m rarely ever on the curve, and most of the time that’s intentionally. The rest of the time, I think avocado looks like elephant dung on the counter and can’t get my mind past that visual.

Anyway, I’ve written about it before – how I took a Sociology of Pro Wrestling course in university and the 19 other people in my seminar looked at me like I was a weirdo when I raised my hand to admit that I still watched wrestling.

No one else raised their hand.

As the weeks went on, it became obvious there were a lot of people in the room who still watched but were keen on remaining “cool” and saying, “I stopped watching when The Rock left.”

I could go on a rant here, but what’s the point? I do this a lot – talking myself out of writing about wrestling. I need to stop that. I’m working on it.

Where to from here?

Should I tell you about the giant bug that scampered across the carpet last night at the speed of light and how I caught it, or am I going to get flack from people who don’t kill bugs and just let them roam freely in their house like a pet?

I’m not going to chance it. Just know, I won.

Well, I think I’m done here. If I’m honest, I don’t remember much of what I wrote.

This was necessary, though. I encourage you to try it – start writing without a specific topic in mind and see what you come up with. Just don’t call it Brain Landfill. Pick random words from your post and make that your title.

Oh wow, I almost forgot there was a retainer in my mouth. My top row of teeth are going to be screaming in the morning, I can already hear some of them practising their shreks.

Yes – shreks, as opposed to shrieks. My wisdom teeth have left the building. The remaining teeth are illiterate.

Thanks for reading, you’ve been a fanthathtttic audience.

That’s all, folks.