How are you?

It's a fairly basic question.

Or so I hear.

But it gets me every time.

Stumped like rain forests, as Francis might say. It surprises me, how I continue to be surprised, over and over, by the same things.

a baby playing peek-a-boo.

Now, some people, hesitate over this question because they know the answer is supposed to be, "fine" but perhaps they are not fine, they are depressed, and sometimes you cannot say you are depressed when people ask, because they are not really asking and don't really care.

This is not my problem.

I am perfectly capable of telling someone-- I am ragingly homicidal, not that you care.

My problem is just that I become confused by the question. Each time. Even though I have worked this all out before...

How are you- still hits me each time as-- How is it that you are? How ARE you? How are you YOU? How are you existing? How do you BE?

And so I get very distracted by that answer and my How.

How are you feeling? What is your current physical or emotional state? Questions like THAT don't slow me down at all. But even though I KNOW- How are you- is one of those questions, I can't skip to the end, I have to take the scenic-synapse-route.

What's up? Is another one that throws me off. I have seen human #1 say-- What's up. And then, human #2 replies with-- What's up. And then they change the subject...

So I think-- What's up-- might be my least favorite one, because it can just mean hello. But then other times it can mean-- How are you?

But, back to peek-a-book.

The really LOVELY thing about synapses stuck in a loop?

Looping back lovely things is lovely. is lovely. is lovely. is lovely. is lovely. YAY CAKE!!!!

CAKE. pony? Chicka!

Each of those three-- CAKE, pony?, and Chicka!-- trigger a happy-slap to the brain.

Cake and pony both have to do with a time I was sad, and then a friend cheered me up. The memory of the YAY!! of the moment, somehow got attached to those words for me. Very Pavlovian I suppose.

Anyway, cake and pony started from a specific event, and they are now on their way to being Chicka's. Chicka does not have a story attached to it, it is just a word I yell or mutter when I am feeling happy. After awhile, the happiness must have stuck, because now Chicka has the power to incite happiness, not just express it.

Garret and I can be driving/riding in a car. I might feel annoyed or neutral or anxious. Then, he yells, CHICKA!!!

instant HAPPY!!! i laugh. then, sometimes if i am mad, i swat it off like a fly and try to focus on what i was CHICKA!!! laugh! on, on... on what i was talking about before Garret deciCHICKACHICKA!!!! laugh! what? what i was CHICKA!! laugh. ok. yes, yes. chicka. ok, chicka.

My brain may have to run a lot of laps around Whazzups and How r u's... but it can remain entertained by the thought of CAKE!!! for a good twenty minutes.

I have a frightening temper, but it can not stand in the face of someone sweetly asking me, Pony?

And I can still feel a delightful little jolt of surprise when people pop out from behind pillows, and I get to laugh myself sick as a baby, content to watch the trick for hours.