Cross posting this from another social networking site, it's old as hell but I looked at my profile here for the first time in ages and it's so empty....

I have Brain Parasites.

I have Brain Parasites. That�s my new excuse. It sounds pretty stupid, doesn�t it? Still, asinine as it sounds it very probably true. It would make a pretty good title for a Lifetime movie (I Have Brain Parasites, starring Sally Fields, running time 92 minutes) or maybe a very special episode of Friends or some other brainless sitcom that none of us will admit to watching. Anyway, that�s it. Anytime I act out, throw a fit, sulk when things don�t go my way, over sleep, am late for an appointment, lock my keys in my car, lie to a friend, fail to make a decision, ditch out on plans I made or just generally fail to really live my life you can rest assured that it is because of my Brain Parasites.

It�s beautiful, really. No more wasting time in the mad scramble to come up with good excuses. No more struggling to twist and contrive the circumstances of my life to make it look like things aren�t actually my fault or responsibility. No more emotional Judo to try to dump blame into someone else�s lap. Brain Parasites made me do it. It�s an excuse for all occasions, gift-wrapped and with a big red ribbon on top.

We�re all making excuses, day in day out. It seems that people spend as much time making up excuses for why their life is a mess as they do messing it up in the first place. I�m convinced that about 90% of the reasons and rationales people have for all their mistakes, errors in judgment and failures are just post hoc constructions that they�re desperately trying to sell to the world and themselves. And that last bit, that "themselves", is probably the saddest part. I mean, hell, if you�re late for work 3 days a week I�m not going to fault you for making up some bullshit story about faulty wiring in your alarm clock or maybe Epstein-Barr syndrome to foist off on your boss. But convincing yourself that none of it is really your fault is sad. If 90% of our explanations for why we�re fuck-ups are just excuses then I�m pretty sure that 90% of the time we�re making those excuses for our own benefit rather than the entertainment and education of the rest of the world. People will go to great lengths to preserve their self-image, the mental picture that omits all the nasty, lazy, petty little day-to-day failures that are part and parcel of human existence. Excuses are a great way to make sure you never notice that you do all the same shit that makes you bitch about all those other assholes everyday. And don�t get me wrong; I�m certainly not excluding myself from any of this. I do all of it, everyday, but in my case it�s different. You see, I have Brain Parasites.

Now, some people might doubt the existence of my Brain Parasites. They might even think that I made them up just so I would have an excuse for all my transgressions and misbehaviors. And while these parasites are an excuse, I assure you that they are also very real. The specific Brain Parasite that I�m speaking of is a friendly little critter known as Toxoplasma Gondii. (Some of you have probably heard me talk about this before, if so bear with me for the benefit of the ignorant and unwashed masses out there). T. Gondii�s natural host organisms are usually felines and rodents but Gondii is nothing if not adaptable and is capable of surviving in several thousand host species. T. Gondii spends its days hopping from one intra-cellular cyst to another (kinda like you and me and crappy townhouses). It spends the sexually reproductive part of it�s existence in the lower intestines of cats forming an oocyst when it is done, which is deposited in the environment along with whatever else falls out of the cat�s ass that day. I feel that the word oocyst deserves special attention here, because whenever I read it I hear "Ooooooh! Cyst!" like someone just opened a present to discover an especially impressive cyst inside. Anyway, these oocysts lat around in cat shit until the make their way through the environment and ideally wind up in a rat or mouse. Once in the rat things get interesting, as T. Gondii does some other crazy asexual reproduction and eventually forms another type of cyst that winds up in the rats brain tissue. These cysts cause chemical changes in the brains of their host rat which removes it�s fear of cats, increasing the chances that said rat will wind up in a cat�s belly where T. Gondii can begin it�s wonderful dance of fucking and cat shit all over again. What the fuck does this Discovery channel bullshit have to do with me not returning your phone calls or ignoring my alarm clock? Well, rats and mice are only Gondii�s ideal host. It�ll live quite happily in a primate�s brain, too. And while I�m a lot less likely to be eaten by a house cat than your typical field mouse, Gondii is too stupid to notice what kind of brain it�s in and will take a chemical dump in my head too. Studies have shown that humans infected with T. Gondii show measurable changes in behavior, much like rats. Only instead of removing my panic response to the smell of cat urine, it makes me more neurotic, jealous, insecure and self-reproaching. Some researchers have even suggested a correlation between T. Gondii infection and the incidence of Schizophrenia! So, you see, I�m really not in control here. It�s actually all the doing of single cell protozoa that lives in my brain. Seriously, I have Brain Parasites.

I have Brain Parasites and you might have them too! I know it might seem gross at first, but really, this is a golden opportunity for both of us. If I can convince the HR Department that this is a legitimate issue I�m looking at practically unlimited sick leave. If I was a college student I�m sure I could wrangle a million extensions on deadlines and second chances on missed exams from something like this. If you want to get in on this, though, you need to act fast. The Centers for Disease Control place the world wide infection rate for T. Gondii at somewhere between fifteen and twenty five percent in the US, which means that either you or one of your loved ones have Brain Parasites too. If you have cats your chances of infection are even higher. My roommate has cats that like to walk around on my kitchen counters, so the chances I�ve gotten some oocysts (Ooooh! Cysts!) In my food over the past 2 years, assuming I wasn�t infected by the gazillion cats I had when I was a child. Anyway, I�ve not been TESTED for T. Gondii antibodies, but I�m pretty sure I�ve got it. That�s my story and I�m sticking to it. I suppose I could go get tested if I wanted to seem truly credible, but I just can�t seem to get my act together enough to do so. It�s tough to get organized when you have Brain Parasites.

So anyway, I just wanted to let all of you know ahead of time the reason I�ll do whatever rude, inconsiderate or irritating thing to you at some unspecified future date. And when you wonder why I�ve not really amounted to anything or why I waste my time and potential day after day, you�ll know the answer ahead of time. Hell, if I ever bitch to you about the fact that I�m unhappy or ask why the hell I let so many chances slip through my fingers, you can even remind me. I have Brain Parasites. What�s your excuse?