This morning I decided to eat my breakfast with my left hand instead of my right. I was under the impression this would stimulate the right side of my brain and help me be more creative in my thinking. But all it really did was slow me down.

You can’t go fast when the spoon goes in your nose instead of your mouth. Thankfully, I wasn’t using a fork! But really, anything up your nose is bad. Trust me.

After the last bite, I wanted to scrape the bowl clean. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the dexterity to do this. I tried and tried but things just kept falling off the spoon. Finally, in a bout of frustration, I switched back to my right hand. Immediately I was overcome with grief and depression like that time I learned what veal was.

I had failed both myself and the right half of my brain, which, on reflection are kind of the same thing. Does that lessen the sadness or compound it? It doesn’t matter. A failure is a failure. For the rest of the day all I could do was analyze old grocery receipts and worry I had overpaid.