we'll all be very grateful to hear that my ego got its proper dressing down this weekend and that my head has now shrunk back to a sensible size. i can do many, many things of tremendous importance in the world. i can organize socks. i can explain the difference between good and well. i can boil water like a madman. i can make pickled eggs. i can quote at crazy length from just about any movie released between 1984 and 1994. i can untangle knots without resorting to the alexandrian solution. these are all, i am sure you will agree, highly useful skills.
however, i cannot consistently break a forest of tasks into individual trees. i get lost in the forest every single time. this is usually a metaphorical forest, but this weekend at the cottage i came to understand that a literal forest, or even a literal clump of trees, can reduce me to rocking back and forth and staring at my useless hands. i cannot run a chainsaw for more than about 10 minutes without flipping out. even if the chainsaw weren't a problem, i cannot prune a tree for any use, because i get too distracted by my desire for symmetry and my fear of falling (one of my many talents is that i can completely wipe out while walking slowly on a perfectly level sidewalk, so i'm not really crazy about situations from which even stable people topple). i cannot seem to stack wood without getting a zillion splinters in my fingers.
i'm really good at taking out splinters, though. i'm good at small things. i'm like, all fingers, no arms.
i continue to be bad at interviews, even when i have time to prepare the answers.
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