Usage and Grammar of 看我这脑子

Question

Came across this phrase in episode 35 of Growing up with Chinese on CCTV. The father is having trouble sending an email and he says to his son,

咳，看我这脑子，我怎么把这事忘了。

Usage: I feel like 看我这脑子 would be roughly translated as "Where's my head" in the sense of forgetting something obvious, but I only think that from the context of the passage since I can't find much information on the phrase as is. Is there a more accurate English equivalent to this phrase? Does it have any other implications than forgetting something obvious? And is it commonly heard beyond the Beijing dialect they use in the above-mentioned TV show?

Grammar: The placement of 我 and 这 next to each other confuses me because I (probably wrongfully) translate them both to be articles for the noun 脑子. Alternatively, I'm thinking I ought to seperate 看我 as "Look after me" and 这脑子 as "This brain" and the rough translation I came to makes some sense, but I know 这 can sometimes mean "now," so I'm not sure. Which, if either, 我 or 这 is the article for 脑子?

Answer 1

看我这脑子

• 看： see or look;
• 我： here means 我的，mine;
• 这： such;
• 脑子： head;

As a whole, "Look, (that is) such a head of mine!" or "See, (that is) such a head of mine!" It means I am not that intelligent or brainy. In this context, it is specifically referring to one of the functionalities of a head, memorizing things, and it's just like to say "oh, my bad memory" or "look, my bad memory".