100 Thoughts in 20 Minutes

Judey Kalchik came up with this challenge, inspired by the ever-so-lovely food challenge that made the rounds over the past couple of weeks.

It reminds me of the writing exercise where people set a timer and write whatever comes to their mind until the timer is out, though I've never decided to number my thoughts, I couldn't resist giving it a try!

My brain goes a million miles a minute so let's see if I can think of 100 things in 20 minutes...

1. My name is Ashley.
2. My favorite color is green.
3. More like the color of the forest or an agate crystal, less like lime.
4. I like limes, they taste really good in drinks, especially my favorite drink, The Cape Codder - vodka and cranberry juice.
5. We're all made of stardust.
6. Time doesn't exist.
7. One day, the moon will separate itself from Earth's gravitational field, leaving our planet uninhabitable.
8. Additionally, the sun will explode into a supernova swallowing up the first four planets in our solar system.
9. Isn't that wild?
10. Outer space scares me.
11. I think it relates back to my fear of the unknown, ie. fear of death.
12. Probably that... because when you think about the vast size of the universe, it has two effects...
13. Things either mean a lot more than they actually do or they mean a lot less.
14. Your perspective depends on your point of view.
15. I try to be the person who thinks things mean a lot more.
16. But it's hard not to acknowledge the insignificance of life in the grand scheme of things.
17. I think that's why I try so hard to make things meaningful.
18. Weave words, tell stories, solidify myself in a place, in time, in space itself.
19. It's immortality in a way.
20. Though my body may die, maybe my thoughts will live on without me.
21. Carried through the wind in whispers of my kin.
22. I wonder if they'll be proud of their great-great-grandparent thrice removed.
23. Probably not, seeing as I don't even know who my great-great-grandparents were.
24. The sun is out right now, and it's storming.
25. I'm hoping after this challenge, I can catch a rainbow.
26. Maybe the leprechaun will be there, waiting to give me my prize.
27. That would be nice.
28. This is actually much harder than I thought it would be.
29. I started writing and my brain went to mush.
30. The curved lines softened, finding themselves smooth.
31. Language evades me...
32. Evade the police.
33. All cowboys are badass.
34. If you know what I'm saying.
35. Anyway, what kind of knick-knacks do you guys have on your desk?
36. I have a tiny mushroom who sits with his hedgehog friends, crystals, pens, a corduroy Pikachu, candles, a monstera plant, a lamp, dried flowers, sticky notes.
37. All kinds of junk.
38. My desk is a mess by the way.
39. ... Do you keep your desks messy or clean?
40. I find I work well in dysfunction.
41. Perhaps that's a representation of my own internal dysfunction.
42. My favorite crystalline mineral is lapis lazuli.
43. I think they're only found in select areas of Afghanistan, though I may be wrong, and I'm not consulting Google on this one...
44. Fact check that for me?
45. Back in ancient times, lapis lazuli was one of those things that only really, really, really, rich people and royals got to have.
46. Kind of like purple pigment.
47. Now I get to have one... How neat is that?
48. Oh no. Now I'm thinking of exploitation in the gem trade. Shit.
49. Why does my mind always do that?
50. It goes to dark places.
51. Unannounced and uninvited, mind you.
52. Do you guys sometimes think that we have access to too much information?
53. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to have so many answers at my fingertips.
54. I think the world wide web can be a very useful tool.
55. I also think it can be a bad thing sometimes.
56. I see so much death and destruction on a daily basis.
57. And I'm just expected to have it roll off my shoulders.
58. I know they had news back in the day but like
59. That shit was carried on horseback from town to town.
60. Now I log on to Twitter and see a dozen atrocities hourly.
61. Kind of gets hard to digest after a while
62. And I think I've been desensitized from a young age.
63. I'm not sure if our brains have evolved fast enough to handle the information age,
64. But I guess only time will tell.
65. Even if time is a social construct.
66. A good one, albeit.
67. But sometimes I wish that days and nights were flipped.
68. I enjoy being up at night.
69. It's quiet
70. Not right now, at night.
71. There was actually just a huge thundering boom outside my window.
72. It shook the house, so it was probably pretty close.
73. The sun is still out and it's still raining,
74. But I'm not as keen to step outside and try to find a rainbow after that,
75. Lest I get electrocuted by a lightning strike.
76. What a bizarre fear, one in a million chance, but it scares me enough to stay inside.
77. My dad thinks he got struck by lightning once.
78. He doesn't know for 100% certain, but one day, he was biking home from a baseball game in a thunderstorm.
79. He was going through a shopping plaza, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up on the pavement to people shaking him.
80. They told him to stay there while they called an ambulance,
81. But he biked back home to my grandparents! Lol.
82. He was a teen in the 1980s, and I get jealous of that sometimes.
83. My childhood was interesting and bizarre.
84. I consider myself a Zillenial, not quite a millennial, but on the older side of Gen Z.
85. Kids my age came of age with the internet.
86. We saw dial-up turn into wifi and flip phones turn into smartphones.
87. I appreciated the simpler times while also appreciating the technology that became available to me.
88. But there is something so romantic about the idea of waiting by a landline for your friend to call to see if you can bike to their house after school tomorrow.
89. Showing up places because of word of mouth instead of Facebook invites.
90. I also think about how much easier it must have been to do crime,
91. Not that I'm a criminal,
92. But like, it's arguably much harder to shoplift with cameras and facial recognition everywhere these days...
93. You know what I mean?
94. Not that I'm a shoplifter,
95. Okay fine, only a few times, and never small businesses.
96. Only big chains like Walmart and stuff.
97. They make enough money to go around.
98. Mind your business!
99. Well, I'm almost done now,
100. And I'm curious to check to clock to see how much time that took me.

I had a minute and 15 seconds left! That went by incredibly fast. Thanks for the fun challenge, Judey :D