If you read me for content at all - and have a great memory - I've posted (years ago) about some OCD tendencies that I have. One is having things repeat in my head - usually names, sometimes phrases.
For years - yes years! - I would go through phases where I'd repeat "Boutros Boutros-Ghali". I don't know whey it popped in there, but it did.
All in my head, but the name ran through there hundreds of times per day. If anyone said his name I was doomed for weeks, as I could not get my mind to shut off.
Lo and behold, one day it was gone. And I can now safely type out his name and I don't get the same effect.
I've had lower key instances with "Mundungus Fletcher" (Harry Potter character) and Lou Alcindor, whom you might know more by his name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (or Roger Murdoch).
Do not ask me how I knew Abdul-Jabbar's given name. I don't know. But there it was, popped in, then stuck in, my head.
I have had other phrases stuck in my head on repeat too, but those I discuss with my shrink.
All of it though, has kind of gone away.
......until last Thursday and Friday.
I woke up with "Bertolt Brecht" running through my noggin.
No idea why. It's not like I heard something about him consciously, sub or un.
I know next to nothing about Brecht. I couldn't tell you where he was from, or time period in which he may have lived - or if he were still alive. Sure, the name screams German or Austrian, but who knew for sure.
During these periods, I say nothing to anyone about my brain being on a certain loop. It's difficult to truly understand. I just have lived with it for so long, I coexist with it all.
So - I'm at the gym this last Friday. On Thursdays and Fridays there is a HIIT class that takes place and once I overheard them doing trivia during the class. It wasn't even the instructor doing it, but her partner / husband / boyfriend. His name is Bjorn and he looks just how you'd think.
Anyways months ago I teased them about having to take tests during a HIIT class. He said he did it as a joke once or twice and when he stopped everyone wanted him to continue, so they do.
A few weeks ago it was 90s music. Nailed it.
Oh, I don't go to the class. They tell me the questions after the class. Hell, they don't even give the answers during the class, only afterwards. It's a weird set-up, but it works for me, because I get to participate without actually having to do a boot camp class.
The other day, I axed before class started the theme - Bjorn said, "what do you know about French film?" My reply?, "I'm out".
As it turns out only one question was about French film - and it was about a review from the 30's (?) where a French paper used a term for the first time - and what was it. I correctly guessed 'noir'.
But then there was one question about a horse's size - didn't get it. And one for if you sailed west from Madagascar, what country would you run into (it's Mozambique - which I got).
The last question: what composer wrote lyrics to "something I can't remember" and "something else I can't remember" and "Threepenny Opera".
I opened my mouth and said, "Bertolt Brecht".
They looked at me like I was a freak. Internally I looked at me like I was a freak. But I was also processing a backstory from the last two days of me repeating his name.
I'd love to say that exorcised my OCD demon, and to a degree it did. Brecht's name has popped up over the last few days, but not on a continual loop. I'd thank Bjorn for that, but then I'd have to explain myself and I'd just rather not.
*Mack the Knife" is a song from Threepenny Opera written with Kurt Weill (no Morty - not Kurt Vile).
Song by: Bobby Darin
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