I have a horrid memory. That's why I just wrote this post, and then almost as soon as I wrote it, I forgot that I did. And now I feel guilty that I haven't stuck with it in any way at all. Also, last night, my wife asked me to go make tea and defrost something for dinner. I went into the kitchen, made tea, and started thinking about something (I don't remember what it was, but it was likely something along the lines of optimal lip angles for tea cups both for drinking and for transporting tea from one room to another, and the difficulties of incorporating personal preference into that measurement). Then I forgot what I was doing, only to be reminded by the ding of the teapot that I needed to bring my wife tea. Then, she freaked out that I didn't defrost anything.
And by "freaked out", I mean, "made a tsk-ing sound" once or twice.
It's gotten so bad recently that I've resorted to keeping my own honeydew list (so named because cantaloupes get too much goddamn attention already) which as of this moment has 21 things I need to do ranging from register my wife to vote (I'm stalling because she's a republican) to selling out of my trading positions to buying chap stick (because it's that time of year when everyone's lips get leprosy and I refuse to use Vaseline).
It's actually vastly increasing my productivity. Whereas before, if I had any extra time to be doing anything, i'd just sit around and play risk, I'm actually takin' care of business.
I'm not entirely sure where I meant this post to go, mostly because I spent a great deal of time seriously considering how to optimize tea cups. Seriously. I even did a couple Google searches in the middle of the post.
But I DO want to say that Sammy is 9 months today! Gotta go to the doctor's tonight to ask all the important questions regarding pooping and peeing.
on a related note, I wonder how many times a pediatrician either says or uses a euphemism for poop in one day. Probably a billion.
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Memory: Jotting it Down so it Won't Run Away
Memory is funny. Funny in the way that the guy at the circus who is performing magic tricks accidentally catches on fire and you're not sure if it's part of the act or not.
For example, I remember that when I was 11, I tried to do a flip off of the swing set. As my backward movement came to a halt while swinging, I threw my head forward, let go of the chains and tried to flip onto the ground. As anyone normal would have expected, I landed on my face, broke my wrist, and when asked about it later, I told my dad and everyone else that I had simply "fallen off the swings" because I thought they would get mad at me for trying to do a backflip. I remember being incredibly worried that my dad would find out what I was really doing and get angry with me. I remember him telling me to walk to the hospital (which was only about a half mile from my school where I had the accident) and I remember the walk.
But I don't remember ever getting treatment for it or even having a cast on my wrist. If I remember so vividly the lie I was trying to pull off over the span of five or ten minutes, why don't I remember having a tremendously limiting plaster appendage for 6 weeks? I can't even remember which arm it was, or whether the cast was full arm, or half arm.
Memory is funny.
When I was 18 or 19 (as much as I try, I still can't really place it), I dropped out of college, dropped out of ROTC (and in the process lost my full ride for aerospace engineering), and ended up living on the floor of my buddy's bedroom in Virgina for about three or four months. I vividly remember turning in my uniform back to the ROTC people, and vividly remember calling my parents on Easter (who had moved away and left me behind to sleep on that guy's floor) sobbing and begging for them to come save me. I have no idea how it was decided that I would sleep on this guy's floor, why my parents decided to move and leave me behind, or really, what the hell I did for three to four months. I know I spent a good deal of time at Chili's. Because, damn - they've got good boneless buffalo wings, and I knew the waitstaff there, so they hooked me up with wings and beer.
And the more time goes by, the more I realize I'm either losing my memories of my teenage/childhood years or corrupting them with influences of my adult life. So I decided to start writing down those memories. Which is what this is the prototype of.
I want to be able to look back and be able to really decipher and catalog what it was that happened prior when I was 20. Yes, the memory confusion leads up until then. Even a little bit afterward, but when I start putting down all the memories, you'll understand why.
These posts will likely not be very funny. Except, perhaps, in a dark way. But they'll be cathartic. Cathartic and revealing. Because the majority of the memories I have from my teenage years and before definitely do not paint me in a very good light. And I think it'll be good to get a lot of them off of my chest. Some of these stories I've been holding onto forever.
And if other people would like to ridicule and reveal unflattering tales of themselves from before they were real humans (i.e. teenagers) perhaps I'll make this into a link-up meme. Perhaps not. Because, honestly, who wants to tell awful stories about themselves?
Me. I do.
For example, I remember that when I was 11, I tried to do a flip off of the swing set. As my backward movement came to a halt while swinging, I threw my head forward, let go of the chains and tried to flip onto the ground. As anyone normal would have expected, I landed on my face, broke my wrist, and when asked about it later, I told my dad and everyone else that I had simply "fallen off the swings" because I thought they would get mad at me for trying to do a backflip. I remember being incredibly worried that my dad would find out what I was really doing and get angry with me. I remember him telling me to walk to the hospital (which was only about a half mile from my school where I had the accident) and I remember the walk.
But I don't remember ever getting treatment for it or even having a cast on my wrist. If I remember so vividly the lie I was trying to pull off over the span of five or ten minutes, why don't I remember having a tremendously limiting plaster appendage for 6 weeks? I can't even remember which arm it was, or whether the cast was full arm, or half arm.
Memory is funny.
When I was 18 or 19 (as much as I try, I still can't really place it), I dropped out of college, dropped out of ROTC (and in the process lost my full ride for aerospace engineering), and ended up living on the floor of my buddy's bedroom in Virgina for about three or four months. I vividly remember turning in my uniform back to the ROTC people, and vividly remember calling my parents on Easter (who had moved away and left me behind to sleep on that guy's floor) sobbing and begging for them to come save me. I have no idea how it was decided that I would sleep on this guy's floor, why my parents decided to move and leave me behind, or really, what the hell I did for three to four months. I know I spent a good deal of time at Chili's. Because, damn - they've got good boneless buffalo wings, and I knew the waitstaff there, so they hooked me up with wings and beer.
And the more time goes by, the more I realize I'm either losing my memories of my teenage/childhood years or corrupting them with influences of my adult life. So I decided to start writing down those memories. Which is what this is the prototype of.
I want to be able to look back and be able to really decipher and catalog what it was that happened prior when I was 20. Yes, the memory confusion leads up until then. Even a little bit afterward, but when I start putting down all the memories, you'll understand why.
These posts will likely not be very funny. Except, perhaps, in a dark way. But they'll be cathartic. Cathartic and revealing. Because the majority of the memories I have from my teenage years and before definitely do not paint me in a very good light. And I think it'll be good to get a lot of them off of my chest. Some of these stories I've been holding onto forever.
And if other people would like to ridicule and reveal unflattering tales of themselves from before they were real humans (i.e. teenagers) perhaps I'll make this into a link-up meme. Perhaps not. Because, honestly, who wants to tell awful stories about themselves?
Me. I do.
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