Sport psychologists often say that a key trait of the best athletes is constant visualization – playing through, in their minds’ eyes, upcoming competitions, again and again, until, when they come to a big event itself, it seems like nothing new.

I, instead, and likely far less helpfully, tend to visualize post-facto. After a conversation, I run it repeatedly in my head, tweaking what I said or what they said, working out more clever responses than I could possibly have generated in that first, in-the-moment pass.

The problem is, recently, somewhere in all of those conversational re-runs, I forget that I’m supposed to be doing them only internally. Mid-conversation, I’ll suddenly say my next line out loud: “Sure, in Kansas,” or “Anybody can option the script.”

It isn’t until the full sentence is out of my mouth, however, that I realize I’ve somehow moved from inner world to outer. Then, guiltily, like someone who trips on a curb and tries to dance it off, I act the next few moments as if it were entirely intentional to have suddenly voiced a non-sequitur, out of nowhere, and to nobody in particular.

And, frankly, it never really works. But, at least, I can replay that recovery, again and again in my head, until I’ve come up with something that would.