Phrases that just kind of keep bouncing around in your brain, whether or not you like them

I can't get the phrase "pent-up demand" out of my head lately. I think it's because it's a news/econ buzzword that also sounds oddly primal and sexual and a bit dangerous.

"toot toot tootling like a calliope"

"Think about it. Don't tell me your thoughts." - n/a

It bounces around in my brain because I think it's hilarious and I want to say it to people all the time.

"maker-upper"

"yth esons owth esedhva"

"swag metropolis"

ia ia cthulhu fhtagn

"it dawned on me"

"all of a sudden"

"pant moustache pant moustache pant moustache"

"the outskirts of nowhere"

some reptilian part of my brain is obsessed with the cadence of yeats' phrase "the lake isle of innisfree" da da daa da da-da-da

Idiyappam

There's this older guy from the south who used to work in my office, very dignified and previously somewhat high up in a state govt, and once I was in the break room telling someone something about how if I had a bad cup of coffee I didn't feel focused all morning, and he overheard me and said "Now who says that's true? Don't you have control of your mind?" That was like two years ago and I still hear that ringing out in my head in his refined and slightly paternalistic southern diction, gently shaming me for not having more mental toughness.

Particularly the "Don't you have control of your mind?" part.

"Don't you have control of your mind?"

This raises the conundrum of what agency one uses to control one's mind. iow, what is the "you" in that question? Is it conscious of itself? An if it is conscious, wouldn't that identify it as what we usually call our mind? It seems unlikely that a mind can step outside itself in order to control itself.

Or, if we accept that the controlling agency is merely one part of a mind and the controlled part is another piece of the mind, one naturally wonders where and how these parts are divided from one another and shouldn't each of these constituents have its own name, so the proper question would be "Doesn't your X have control of your Y?"

I think that gets at why I find the phrase so beguiling, vexing, yet mesmerizing. It's become like a saying of a guru for me.

you are exceedingly perspicacious, man alive. that is, when you've had your coffee

On vacation in Miami, we had an early dinner with the kids at a trendy restaurant in South Beach. The patio was somewhat empty when we got there but was filling up toward the end of our meal. I had a folded stroller between my chair and the wall, and a party of Australians sat down at the table to my back, and the guy seemed to have trouble with his chair, so I said "Do you need me to move this?" (the stroller) and he said "Do you mind?!" in this particularly agitated, gruff sort of way that seemed to say "I can't believe someone has brought a child to spoil my trendy fun, I can't stand children!" That "Do you mind?!" has been ringing in my head for several days.

Recently, I was at dinner with my in-laws, and the conversation turned to the son of a friend of theirs. The son has become insanely wealthy through some kind of mysterious trading that no one is allow to know too much about. My father-in-law tends to become kind of fixated on people like that and started to go on in his obsessive way about how this guy is very knowledgeable about any subject you might want to discuss and has access to information beyond what you'd read in the media, and also how he is able to efficiently manage his business and his various properties and his staff etc., and in reference to this my FIL, in his deep voice and thick Israeli accent said "His throughput is incredible." Since that moment, I cannot get "throughput" out of my head. I feel this frenzy to increase my "throughput" - to respond to more emails, check off more work tasks, accomplish more around the house, all because of the phrase "his throughput is incredible" and probably an unconscious wish to get the admiration of my FIL that underlies it.

also stress causes repetitive thoughts
this happens to me a lot

I get phrases or words sometimes stuck in my head in a loop. "I don't know. I just don't know." Stressed out of my gourd earlier this year, I had that going in my mind like a mantra loop over and over for a few months. When my blood pressure gets out of whack, I get those loops and a high pitched ring in my left ear that gets louder when it happens. That high pitched ring I have had since I was like 9 years old when I had a high fever in the middle of the summer. It's a pain, but obviously never going to completely go away.

As long as it's stuck there, you may as well add some melody and rhythm to it and try to make it into a song, possibly a bit upbeat. It's at least worth a try.

don't think I haven't tried. "throughput" is a bit clunky though

through-oo
oo-oo-oo
oo-put

I have this giant sprouted rolled oats bag that I use to make oatmeal and there’s a line in the instructions, “simmer for ten minutes for oatmeal with a hearty chew, or cook up to 14 minutes for a soft and tender oatmeal.”

The phrase “hearty chew” keeps disturbing my thoughts. Do I, in fact, want a hearty chew? The words are so unappealing that they render me unable to determine whether I prefer a hearty chew or soft and tender oatmeal.

No contest, hearty chew every time