Well, right now, I should preparing to walk out the door to run around and throw a frisbee. Unfortunately, the weather has decided to be uncooperative. And it's being particularly annoying, granted that it's supposed to rain, but hasn't started yet, and probably won't start until our scheduled game time.

So, instead, I'm sitting here pondering my existence. No, really.

Unless you went to some hackneyed religious school, you probably heard about that process called evolution. In one sentence, life develops, losing faulty traits and gaining useful ones (or vice versa) on a long, slow path to either survival or extinction. (Of course, all paths lead to extinction, granted that the sun will disintegrate the Earth in a few billion years, but that's a story for another day.)

When I was in college, right around the time my wisdom teeth finally became too annoying to handle, I took a biological anatomy and anthropology class. Good class, interesting topic, misguided teacher. (I could go on at length about her ridiculous grading method, but that's a story for another day.) One of the more interesting points of discussion during one particular class - and as my wisdom teeth were carving grooves inside my mouth - was that some members of our species are born without wisdom teeth. Some people point to that as a sign of modern evolution. The assertion: we don't need them to grind food anymore, so they're going away.

Honestly, my point here isn't to dialogue evolution. But that makes a nice introduction to the problem.

You see, as part of the whole "losing crap you don't need" model within evolution, I sometimes wonder why me / myself / my body does what it does. Or why it doesn't do.

For example - why are sneezes and coughs involuntary? Last weekend, while making a left turn off an interstate on-ramp, a sneeze decided to rear its ugly head. And it wasn't going to be denied. I couldn't stop the car in the middle of the intersection; instead, I had to struggle to keep my eyes open and on the road while in the middle of a sneeze. This pondered the question: why can't I just turn that off? It can't exactly be good for one's survival for an involuntary action to send them into a bridge's guardrail.

Actually, that's not the one that really gets me. And it could be just me and my broken mind.

This afternoon, while not getting any work done, I started poking around to see who performed a certain song. I found a band name, and it reminded me of a person's name. The person's name then reminded me of something I did in the spring of 1996 that, at the moment it happened, seemed kinda funny, but, a few minutes later, turned out to be kinda stupid. Nothing major, just a blip on the radar of life. But I cringed while watching it all unfold in my mind.

The burning question is this - why does the mind see fit to continually bring back memories of moments gone wrong? And at seemingly unrelated times?

For me, this happens far more regularly than I would like. I can only imagine what someone else must think when they see me wince for no apparent reason. Little do they know, but at that moment, I'm revisiting a random moment nine years ago where I cursed within earshot of a friend's parents. There weren't any consquences, nobody's feelings were hurt; I don't even think they were paying attention. It was such a totally unimportant event, even if I felt a little embarrassed later. Regardless, why on earth did that memory get permanently stored and brought back right then?

I can understand storing a moment where something went wrong, simply for the sake of knowing what not to do should a similar incident take place. "The last time I didn't use a pot holder, I burned my hand" kind of stuff. But while I'm re-stringing my guitar, I really don't need to be reminded of that time six years ago that someone asked me a question and I answered a different question in response. Yet there I am, wincing once again.

The aggrivating part is how inaccessible those moments are any other time. As I'm sitting here typing this, I'm trying to think of other instances, and I'm drawing a blank. But I bet within a couple of hours, another will come screaming back.

So if you see me wince, don't worry - it's not you. Well, it's probably not you.