My own special brand of Extra Stupid part the first:

For some reason this year I keep mixing up seasons. when I mean spring I say fall and when I mean fall I say spring. As I just told someone: Shut up, I have the dumbs.

I don’t know why I do it. They’re both transitional, sure, but they are also different things. And not that hard to keep straight. Yet, this year (I haven’t done this in the past that I am aware of) I can not say the one I mean. Pretty much ever.

Eventually my friends will simply smack me upside the head until I learn, all Pavlovian-like.

My own special brand of Extra Stupid part the second:

Everywhere from where I am is “down”. Which, actually, sounds far more condescending than I mean to imply. Still. I am in NY. If I am going to Florida I say “I’m going down to Florida.” and if I am going to Boston I say “I am going down to Boston.”

I go “down the block” no matter where I am going, everything is down the street, every direction is just, pretty much, down.

“Hey man, how do I get to Figaro’s?”

“You go down 6th till you hit Bleeker than you turn and head down Bleeker till you pass it, like MacDougal I think.”

See the lack of east, west, north or south there? Those directions were actually given to someone a few years back. Took them over an hour to find the place. Not ’cause they were dumb, but because all I told them was “down, down, down!”

I know I’m doing it, but somehow I can’t seem to stop it.

My own special brand of Extra Stupid part the third:

I can not tell distance. Everything is ten feet from where I am, or it’s fifty, or one hundred. I just pick one and guess and run with it. I wish I were kidding.

One day, outside the Empire State Building (33rd and 5th, actually right outside the Starbucks there) I was standing around with a friend, let’s call him Vinnie because his name is Vinnie. While we were standing there a blind man walked up to us and asked us to direct him to the White Castle that was nearby.

This thing was across the street and like, so I’m told, fifty or sixty feet from the corner. So I, without hesitating, say, “Cross this street and then turn right and it’s like ten feet from the corner.”

Vinnie found himself laughing too hard to correct me. I didn’t see why until I watched the guy cross and try to find a door in the side of a building. Luckily someone else noticed him there and helped him.

Learn from this!

If you’re blind, don’t ask me for directions. If I name a season, think and reason out if I might be stupid. If I give you directions, demand more nouns than “down” as descriptors.

I really wish I could help it, but I’ve got the dumbs.