Chapter One

Welcome to My Brain

First, meet my brain. It is the size of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s fist, the consistency of flan, and weighs as much as a two-slice toaster. You probably think yours resembles a shelled walnut, but mine looks more like ground round with a high fat content. If you saw it at the butcher’s, you’d ask for something a little less beige.

If you were a plastic surgeon, you’d say my brain needed a facelift. The reason my brain is so wrinkly and ridged is that, like a suitcase packed with a lot of junk, it contains too many neurons to fit smoothly inside my skull. If you ironed out my brain, you could use it as an ironing board cover.

Or you could use it to power your night-light. Do you know that operating a robot with a processor as fancy as your brain would require the same amount of energy generated by a small hydroelectric plant? You could not afford its electric bill.

Of late I’ve been a bit worried about it. My brain, I mean. Although the combination to my junior high school locker seems to be stored indelibly in some handy nook of my temporal lobe, right next to Motown song lyrics, could it be that elsewhere up there, not everything is in shipshape? When I ask my brain a simple, no-brainer question like “What is the word for that thing that’s sort of a harmonica but more annoying and looks like you could smoke pot with it?” or “Who did that fat actress with those eyes and the diamond marry twice?” or “Abjure or adjure—which is the one I mean?” or “Did that lady say to turn left or right at the light?” or “The guy who just said hello to me—do I know him?” or “Have I already told Phil and Cynthia this story I just started telling them?” or “All that stuff I used to know about Charlemagne’s in-laws—where’d it go?” or “While I was looking at the fabric on the sofa in the background, did the villain in that scene get killed off?” or “What did I do last Saturday?” or “Did I turn off my phone?” or “How in the world was I planning to end this sentence…?”

Anyway, what I believe I was going to say is that my brain is not nearly as quick on the draw as it used to be. Indeed, sometimes, when I look for my glasses while wearing my glasses, I think, “My, my, it’s going to be a very smooth transition to dementia.”

What is going on? In my darkest moments, I imagine that my friends are humoring me when they insist the amnesiac lapses of their brains are no less alarming than mine. (“Have you ever squeezed toothpaste onto your contact lenses?!” a friend asked triumphantly.) Could they be conspiring to shield me from my diagnosis, kindly reasoning the news would only agitate me since there is no cure for what my brain has? Another interpretation is that my think tank is filled with so much accumulated intelligence—the shoe size of my ex, the names of Sarah Jessica Parker’s children, the calories in cottage cheese—that the contents are gunking up the works, not to mention leaving room for little else.

Or perhaps my brain simply has too much on its mind. How can it be expected to function when it must check my e-mail and texts every two to three seconds? Multitasking? It can hardly task. Back in the halcyon days when my cerebral cortex was in its prime, it had a cushy to-do list—a little homework, a few friends’ names to keep track of, nothing more. Not even laundry to sort. Still another theory is that my brain was never the hotshot I remember its having been. Was it ever really able to solve a polynomial equation? I think yes, but I can’t make promises. (You don’t think I kept a math diary, do you?) Furthermore, no matter what my upper story will tell you now, my habit for losing things goes back at least to my early twenties. Once, in a school cafeteria, I frantically asked all servers and eaters and cleaner-uppers in sight whether they’d seen my large black tote that, unbeknownst to me, I was conspicuously toting under my arm. I got funny looks, but nobody broke the truth to me.

Then there’s the saddest possibility yet: Maybe nothing’s the matter with my gray matter. Except for age. CORRECTION: second-to-saddest.

Will Reading This Book Kill You?

It is possible that you will become so immersed in solving the puzzles in this book that you will lose all sense of time, forget to eat, and eventually starve to death. It is also possible that page thirty-two will give you a paper cut that will become infected and the infection will turn into flesh-eating disease and you will be dead before you can say, “Page thirty-two.” Or perhaps you will be so startled by what I have to say your heart will say whoa and you will keel over for good. This is all possible, but it is not probable. In fact, the odds of dying from complications of this book are one in 233,457,830.

DIRECTIONS:

Below are several other unlikely ways of dying. To be fair (to fate), they are arranged alphabetically. Number them with number one being the most farfetched.

__ Asteroid

__ Bus crash

__ Cancer

__ Car accident

__ Drowning in bathtub

__ Fairground accident

__ Falling coconut

__ Falling off a ladder

__ Falling out of bed

__ Food poisoning

__ Heart attack or stroke

__ Left-handed people using a right-handed product

__ Lightning

__ Plane crash

__ Radiation leaked from nearby nuclear power station

__ Scalding tap water

__ Shark attack

__ Snakebite

__ Terrorist attack

__ Train crash

__ Work accident

ANSWERS:

1	Shark attack: 1 in 300,000,000
2	Fairground accident: 1 in 300,000,000
3	Falling coconut: 1 in 250,000,000
4	Asteroid: 1 in 74,817,414
5	Bus crash: 1 in 13,000,000
6	Plane crash: 1 in 11,000,000
7	Lightning: 1 in 10,000,000
8	Radiation leaked from nearby nuclear power station: 1 in 10,000,000
9	Terrorist attack: 1 in 10,000,000
10	Scalding tap water: 1 in 5,000,000
11	Left-handed people using a right-handed product: 1 in 4,400,000
12	Snakebite: 1 in 3,500,000
13	Food poisoning: 1 in 3,000,000
14	Falling off a ladder: 1 in 2,300,000
15	Falling out of bed: 1 in 2,000,000
16	Drowning in bathtub: 1 in 685,000
17	Train crash: 1 in 500,000
18	Work accident: 1 in 43,500
19	Car accident: 1 in 8,000
20	Cancer: 1 in 5
21	Heart attack or stroke: 1 in 2.5

SCORING:

To compute your score, calculate the difference for each item between the number you assigned it and its actual number. Now add up these results. Or have your bookkeeper do this. If you received a score of 15 or less, you are immortal.

Middle-Age Mad Libs

DIRECTIONS FOR THE ONE PERSON WHO HAS NEVER HEARD OF MAD LIBS:

Ask someone how to play.

1. What Did You Do Last Night?

Three-syllable noun

Long word

Large household appliance

Three-syllable verb ending in -eer

Science word

Preposition

Conjunction

Last night? When was last night? I, uh… what did I do? Hold on, lemme look it up in my whatchamacallit, [THREE-SYLLABLE NOUN]. Uh-oh, where’s my—don’t tell me I left it in the back seat of the [LONG WORD]? Oh. Here it is. How’d that get inside my [LARGE HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE]? Anyway, we went out with the whatstheirnames. He works with whosis and she’s the one with the brother. The brother went to jail for, what’s it called? ing [THREE-SYLLABLE VERB ENDING IN -EER]? We went to that movie that’s very popular but nobody likes. Called maybe [SCIENCE WORD]? The suave guy who used to be in everything but now you never see him, he’s in it. Didn’t he direct that movie where people smoke? I think it has a [PREPOSITION] or a [CONJUNCTION] in the title. So, what’d you do last night?… What do you mean you and I had plans?!

2. Directions

One-syllable word ending in k

French-sounding word meaning “man about town”

Word you don’t know the meaning of

Same word as above

Latin word, or, if you were not educated, a four-syllable word beginning with m

Remember when we used to go to Esther’s? Not the first place, the second place. Start off like you’re going there, but don’t go that way. Go the other way. Stay on that until you come to that street we always miss. Make a right. Unless it’s a left. You’ll come to a [ONE-SYLLABLE WORD ENDING IN K] in the road. It’s actually more like a [FRENCH-SOUNDING WORD MEANING “MAN ABOUT TOWN”]. Keep going. There’ll be a tree on your left and then some rocks. Go past where the gas station used to be until you see a little, like, [WORD YOU DON’T KNOW THE MEANING OF] thing. If you see a big [SAME WORD AS ABOVE] thing, you’ve gone too far. We’re the house with the red s [LATIN WORD, OR, IF YOU WERE NOT EDUCATED, A FOUR-SYLLABLE WORD BEGINNING WITH M]. It’s impossible to miss.

3. If Lincoln Had Lived

Unit of measurement, plural

One syllable, begins with sk-

Railings on a staircase

Place where nuns live

Adjective

Four, uh, what’s the word? Four [UNIT OF MEASUREMENT, PLURAL]? No. That can’t be right. Four [ONE SYLLABLE, BEGINS WITH SK-]? Four [RAILINGS ON A STAIRCASE]? Anyway, that word plus seven years ago—or maybe even longer—in any event, our fathers brought forth on this—what’s the thing called when it’s not a country but it has countries in it? [PLACE WHERE NUNS LIVE] or whatever. So, then, something something something and dedicated to the president. No, no, no. I’m the president. I think. Dedicated to the—what? Wait a minute, wait a minute, it’s a hard word and it’s—does anyone know? Where was I? The important thing is that all men are, that all men are created [ADJECTIVE]…

Back to my ol’ noggin. What would it take to—poof—transform it into a spiffy young noggin? Back to the days when it was in tip-top shape? The days before the nuts and bolts and wires and connections inside my head started to slow down, shrink, get sidetracked, forget, become lazy, and go amiss in dreadful ways, but let’s save the science for later? We’re just getting to know each other’s frontal lobes, and by each other’s I mean mine. Here I just want to say that I would like a brain lift. Why not? If grown men can have bar mitzvahs, grandmothers can give birth, and Mick Jagger can sing “Time Is on My Side,” then can’t I have the mental prowess of someone who looks young enough to be carded, or at least someone qualified to think she will keep on thinking forever? There are a lot of neuroscientists who claim that cognitive rejuvenation is possible through a miscellany of interventions, ranging from exercising to eating sensibly to turning the photographs on your desk upside down to buying a piece of art that vexes you. Should I bring out the crossword puzzles? Learn to play bridge? Chew gum? Take a nap? Drink more coffee? Eat blueberries? Give up tofu? There are studies that tout the restorative benefits to the brain of each of these undertakings. There are also studies that say phooey to them all. How to proceed?

I would do just about anything for my brain. If you don’t believe me, keep reading. But first…

Test Your Neuro-Knowledge

Can you figure out which of these facts I’ve made up? Answer true or false.

1. Women who have large breasts compared to their waists score higher on cognitive tests than do less curvaceous types.

2. In a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow worries that he has become too brainy.

3. We only use 10 percent of our brains.

4. Becoming rich can change your brain and make you less empathetic.

5. If a right-handed person wears an eye patch over his right eye for a week, his brain will remap itself and he will become left-handed.

6. Teenagers with IQs of 125 drink twice as many beers a night as those with IQs of 75 or less.

7. Drinking alcohol kills brain cells.

8. High school students with longer ring fingers relative to their index fingers have higher math SATs. Those who have a higher index-finger-to-ring-finger ratio do better on their verbal SATs.

9. Analytically minded folks tend to be left-brained, whereas artist types are more commonly right-brained.

10. Boys have bigger brains than girls.

11. Ears emit sound that can sometimes be heard by others.

12. Pea brain is not just an expression. A pea has a primitive neural tube that regulates the rate of transpiration and operates many of the plant’s functions, such as photosynthesis.

13. If you made a smoothie by blending the contents of your brain, it would provide all the vitamins you need.

14. You have more thoughts on days when the barometric pressure is lowest.

15. There is a tiny region in the brain dedicated to passwords.

16. When a part of your brain is damaged, other parts can pitch in and take over.

17. People with higher IQs are more likely to be alcoholics.

18. The reason we turn down the radio in the car when we are lost is that we only have so much capacity for paying attention.

19. If you were to connect all the blood vessels in your brain, they would circle the earth four times.

20. The pathologist who removed Einstein’s brain during the autopsy kept it with him in a jar for twenty years.

21. Learning is largely a function of growing new brain cells.

22. A study by Excedrin found that accountants get more headaches during the workweek than any other professionals.

ANSWERS:

1. (T) Women who have large breasts compared to their waists score higher on cognitive tests than do less curvaceous types.

2. (F) In a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow worries that he has become too brainy.

3. (F) We only use 10 percent of our brains.

4. (T) Becoming rich can change your brain and make you less empathetic.

5. (F) If a right-handed person wears an eye patch over his right eye for a week, his brain will remap itself and he will become left-handed.

6. (T) Teenagers with IQs of 125 drink twice as many beers a night as those with IQs of 75 or less. (Could it be that the latter haven’t figured out how to open the can?)

7. (F) Drinking alcohol kills brain cells.

8. (T) High school students with longer ring fingers relative to their index fingers have higher math SATs. Those who have a higher index-finger-to-ring-finger ratio do better on their verbal SATs.

9. (F) Analytically minded folks tend to be left-brained, whereas artist types are more commonly right-brained.

10. (T) Boys have bigger brains than girls.

11. (T) Ears emit sound that can sometimes be heard by others.

12. (F) Pea brain is not just an expression. A pea has a primitive neural tube that regulates the rate of transpiration and operates many of the plant’s functions, such as photosynthesis.

13. (F) If you made a smoothie by blending the contents of your brain, it would provide all the vitamins you need.

14. (F) You have more thoughts on days when the barometric pressure is lowest.

15. (F) There is a tiny region in the brain dedicated to passwords.

16. (T) When a part of your brain is damaged, other parts can pitch in and take over.

17. (T) People with higher IQs are more likely to be alcoholics.

18. (T) The reason we turn down the radio in the car when we are lost is that we only have so much capacity for paying attention.

19. (T) If you were to connect all the blood vessels in your brain, they would circle the earth four times.

20. (T) The pathologist who removed Einstein’s brain during the autopsy kept it with him in a jar for twenty years.

21. (F) Learning is largely a function of growing new brain cells.

22. (T) A study by Excedrin found that accountants get more headaches during the workweek than any other professionals.