Deconstruction

It turned out that I'd actually written about constant mental deconstruction of the environment elsewhere, about a year and a half ago, six months before we had a diagnosis for Rosie (or even dreamed that we needed one) and the Great Revelation descended on us. But I'll quote myself here:

I have a weird thing anyway, that I can't think about anything at all without this sub-surface line of thought about how it was built. If I see a couch, I'm thinking about how much padding was used, whether the frame is solid wood, whether it was joined or nailed or what. If I see anything of plastic or clay, there's always this sub-thought about how it was cast or thrown or molded and the process of it hardening and being popped out of the mold and etc. Anything I read, I automatically deconstruct into functional passages and the framework of the article or the arc of the story. With labels on things I end up musing over the glue that holds them on (and how the glue might have been developed) and the decisions that went into the positioning of the label and who researched the facts and whether it's printed on paper or a paper-plastic blend. I literally can't look at anything without imagining how it was put together. Half the time I'm awake, that's probably what I'm thinking about.

I ask me, what the hell is that? The only thing I can tie it to is when I discovered as a kid that I could write to manufacturing companies and ask for a brochure about their products. Goodyear and Peter Pan peanut butter each sent me these booklets that showed how tires and peanut butter were made. Fascinating! But somehow it doesn't seem to be something that would fuel a lifelong obsession. You'd think I'd have been an engineer at that rate.