blinking

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.  I read this book because it was recommended by a colleague who did not know he was recommending it to me.  He mentioned seeing a former colleague out in the world one day, and although he only said hello to her, he returned with all kinds of opinions about how she was doing and what was happening in her life.  I told him he could not possibly know these things, and he told me that according to Blink, he certainly could.  So I read it.  It was interesting, and made some sense of inner feelings that I have thought of as hunches, inexplicable knowings.  There is a science to this stuff, which pleases me, as I like science very much.

Now I am reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which is also nonfiction, a genre I have mostly neglected but now read with increasing frequency.  Henrietta Lacks is about genetic coding and DNA and cancer, and the life of a woman who was exploited by the medical system.  Also very interesting, recommended by my mother, who no longer reads books, she says, because she prefers sudoku.

The sudoku thing troubles me, somewhat, because my mother is (was?) a serious reader.  Now she claims she cannot concentrate long enough to read a book, which is bizarre.  What is happening to her?  She has always had a fear of dementia, which she instilled in me, and when I was a child she asked me to promise I would poison her if she ever showed signs of dementia, rather than allowing her to live encapsulated in madness.  "Slip it in the tea", she said.  I would repeat it.  "In the tea."  Sometimes in public places we would see an elderly person mumbling to himself, drooling a bit, looking dishevelled and behaving strangely.  My mother would give me a pointed look, and remind me, "In the tea."  

*