I came downstairs this afternoon. My partner was talking to me.

I couldn’t understand a word. Not the sentences, not the context — just the occasional word floating through, disconnected from everything around it.

She was talking and I was watching, and none of it was arriving.

There was frustration on both sides.

Talking to yourself when the person you’re talking to is right there, is its own kind of lonely.

I didn’t know what was going on. So I came back upstairs.

This isn’t a hearing problem, the sounds reach me. It’s somewhere between the sound and the meaning — the part that turns one into the other just wasn’t working.

Words without meaning. Conversation without comprehension.

Crazy is the right word for it. Not dramatic. Just surreal.

This blog is written with the assistance of Claude. That’s not a footnote — it’s rather the point.