You know, sometimes you look up and your life has become a Kodak commercial. (I love making these sort of references - it's a kind of generational inside joke). Turn around and there's hair growing in strange places. You can't remember the name of your first grade teacher and that girlfriend you swore you'd never forget is not even a chapter anymore - more like an italicized paragraph.
It's as if there's really only just so much room and the mind keeps truncating stuff to make room for new stuff. Not archiving, mind you. This is a really bad librarian who rather than putting things back in the stacks, files the jacket and throws away the book. Now frankly, I'd rather have a clearer recollection of what's-her-name than try to remember whether or not I put out the garbage on Wednesday night. Well, ok, I don't remember that either, but I do remember the perfume ol' so-and-so wore.
Perhaps it's just as well. Maybe my personal librarian isn't trying to erase the details - gory as they may be - as much as smooth out the edges. I think this is what they must mean by "experience".
What brings me to this tome is the fact that I couldn't remember the name of my favorite actor. I could remember scenes in vivid detail; lines verbatim and even movie titles. But I couldn't remember his name to save my life. What's
more, even after being reminded, I had forgotten his name the next day. As if this was a piece of information that had been deemed "archived" and there was nothing I could do to re-shuffle it to the front.
To add insult to injury, we cracked open the original Trivial Pursuit game the other night. If you haven't played this game in a few years, don't bother. Those questions were written in 1980 - the passing of twenty-some years has only added more rounded edges to little bits of crap you didn't want to remember even back then.
I wonder if I remember how to set up a backgammon board.
Edison was credited with saying "I never remember anything I can look up". Thank God they're installing high speed internet in retirement homes.
By the way - Her name was Gail, but I'm still struggling with Clint What's-his-name.
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