Forgetfulness

[pameladean]

I forgot to take my morning medication today. About nine hours after I usually take it, I put my hand into my pocket, withdrew the pills wrapped in a tissue, and made a weak kind of Duh noise. I had already discovered that I had forgotten that it was I, not David, who was in charge of paying the cellphone bill; unfortunately, I discovered this when Lydy tried to call David's cellphone so that he could try to get her cellphone, which she had forgotten, into her hands before she left for a week-long trip, and was told that David's cellphone was temporarily out of service. Yesterday, I realized that I had mischaracterized the nature of the beliefs of Liavek's Faith of the Twin Forces (no, they don't drive the flower through the green fuse, although it would be much better for everybody if they did) and will have to rethink various subplots of the unsold novel.

I do still recall my name, how many cats we have and their names, how to make Tassajara bread without peeking at the recipe, all the iniquities of the present administration, who my sweeties are and why I love them, several sonnets by William Shakespeare, the lyrics to "Love Minus Zero, No Limit," and how deep to plant daffodils.

Pamela

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

It's good to see you're remembering the important things: Loved ones, food, planting, Dylan and Shakespeare. You could *survive* on that, you know.

Some days, it's a reach for me to come up with my own name.

[pameladean]

I kind of need the meds to survive, too, alas.

As for your name, well, Duh. I mean, when do YOU use it?

Pamela

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Snort! I did the pill thing recently myself. I got them all out and carefully piled them on the countertop while I got something to drink. Which is where I found them much later that same day. Jordin had to ask me to take his suit pants in to have them fixed about 8 times before I remembered. The things I wish would go away are right there on the tip of my mental tongue though. Sigh. Getting old is not for sissies.

MKK

[pameladean]

Only when the system is occasionally glitching a bit do I realize the ludicrous complexity of my multitasking and what an enormous amount of stuff I just remember rather than making notes about. It was a silly way to go on, I think. What if I'd woken up with amnesia?

Pamela

[vass]

I'm not a neurologist, but I believe most of those things are stored in different places and require different processes, so it's natural to be better at some than other some. This is my excuse for remembering more Gilbert and Sullivan than is healthy, but not lists of tasks or when to do them. I can also recite four sonnets written by characters in novels, but will have to recheck what time my exam is tomorrow. Two of them are yours (sonnets, not exams.)

[pameladean]

Gilbert and Sullivan is compulsively memorable even if it is stored in the wrong pocket.

I'm very flattered about the sonnets. I used to think I would be a poet, a full-time poet, but I am only a very incidental one.

Pamela

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am really spooked that there is some set of things like this for me, pertaining to this weekend, that my relatives will get here and gently inquire about something totally reasonable, and I will blink blankly at them and think, oh, yes, ______, knew there was something else I was supposed to be getting done. But I don't know what ______ is yet.

[pameladean]

Yes, I feel that way before every major social event involving food that I am in charge of. Luckily, with a tolerant set of guests and transportation, most things can be fixed.

Pamela

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Ah, the delights of middle age! (Been there, done--what were we talking about?)

[pameladean]

*snrch*

Pamela

[1crowdedhour.livejournal.com]

My sympathies on this. It's extra fun when it happens with things that people tell me at work, let me tell you. I am a walking example of that "what dogs hear" thing.

[pameladean]

Work. Eeeee. I fear for the continuity of my novel. Wah.

Pamela

[naominovik.livejournal.com]

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui, ce matin, avait declose
Sa robe de pourpre au soleil
A point perdu, cette vepre
Les plis de sa robe pourpree
Et son teint a votre pareil.

Las, las, voyez comme en peu d'espace
Mignonne, elle a, dessous la place --
Las, las, ses beautes laissez choir.
O vraiment maratre Nature
Puisqu'une telle fleur ne dure
Que de matin jusqu'au soir.

Alors, donc si vous me croyez, Mignonne
Tandis que votre age fleuronne
Dans sa plus verte nouveaute
Cuillez, cuillez votre jeunesse
Comme a cette fleur, la veillesse
Fera ternir votre beaute.

I may have spelled a couple of words wrong. But we were forced to repeat the entire poem verbatim, each and every morning of my French lit class in senior year of high school, and now I literally can't forget it, even though I would rather like to and haven't looked at it since (going on 14 years now). The appointment I made a week ago? Gone, but for the grace of Palm.

[pameladean]

I could never get around to learning to use the Palm. Post-It's are good, though.

When I want to make sure my memory is intact, I recite the list of last names of the students in my 7th-grade science class, which are in alphabetical order except for three late-comers at the end.

French is cooler, though.

P.

[homemakerj.livejournal.com]

I cooked down three huge pumpkins for pie because I like everything from scratch. I was in the final process of putting the squash through the blender when I decided, at the rate it was going, I'd be blending pumpkin meat until Christmas, plus if I had to hear that blender noise one more time I was going to sledge hammer it.

I went up to the attic and found somebody's discarded food processor. A test run proved that this was a much faster way to puree the pumpkin. Then I decided to use the lock mechanism on the food processor so I didn't have to stand there with my finger on the button. I promptly locked it up in off position.
I couldn't figure out how to get the thing unlocked, with the directions sitting right in front of me.

So, I sat down for a cup of tea and gazed at the gazillion bowls of pumpkin meat sitting around the kitchen. That got me hungry. Vernon had requested meatloaf with Italian sausage added. For the life of me, I couldn't recall how to make meatloaf. I looked up recipes in my cookbook. German meatloaf called for rye bread, which I didn't have. The next recipe was for barbequed meatloaf. That wasn't the taste I was going for.

All afternoon I sat, alternately trying to unlock the food processor or remember how to make meatloaf. I just got hungrier. I had lots of food in the house, so why not eat something else to tide me over? I couldn't think of a thing to fix. Instead I took off my belt, to take the pressure off my hungry belly.

Vernon came home and unlocked the food processor. By then I didn't even want to be in the kitchen. It just made me hungry. A lightbulb went off in my head. I'd bake chocolate chip cookies! Even though I didn't like them, I could make them in my sleep. I baked the cookies, which broke the cooker's block, so I made the meatloaf. By the time it was ready, I was full of cookies.

Vernon asked if we were having baked potatoes or mashed with the meatloaf. "We're having meatloaf, dammit! Meatloaf salad, meatloaf peas, and meatloaf pie. And, I'm not eating because I'm not hungry!" I still haven't baked the pies.

[pameladean]

This made me laugh out loud.

I have the same problem with being fixated on making a particular thing and persisting in wanting to make it even when making something else would be faster and easier.

Pamela

[homemakerj.livejournal.com]

In hindsight it makes me laugh, too, but at the time it was serious stuff.

If it's any consolation...

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

...I completely forgot to pay my rent this month. Fortunately I've been very good about that, and all my landlord did was leave a note on my doorstep.

Re: If it's any consolation...

[pameladean]

I think a lot of us are under rather more stress than usual. I'm glad your landlord is sensible.

Pamela

Re: If it's any consolation...

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

My landloard may be sensible, but he sure is odd...

[quietspaces.livejournal.com]

This makes me feel *so much* less alone and odd! I can remember the fellow who owned the neighborhood grocery where I shopped my first summer of college, 39 years ago, but I will no longer do any cooking except in a device with a timer and automatic shut-off.

I am not sure whether it is memory problems or distractibility, though.

[pameladean]

Yeah, I see that a lot of the stories people are telling here are about distractability. Mine has certainly gotten more insistent in the past few years.

Pamela

How deep?

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Do you plant yours?

Re: How deep?

[kchew.livejournal.com]

I go for about 8-10 inches deep. The squirrels in my neighbourhood are voracious, and tenacious. I have a little digging tool that looks like a very deep cookie cutter that I use to dig the holes: it's too hard with just a trowel when you have 20 bulbs to do.

[erikagillian.livejournal.com]

Daffodils are poisonous, surely? I vaguely recall that daffodils were something like half their width below the soil, but as my memory is also full of strange holes, I could very well be wrong.

When we were planting bulbs professionally, we'd either dig a big flat area and put the bulbs down and cover back up, or use a power drill with a bulb auger, which sounds easier than it actually can be. My favorite thing was when the cord whipped around the drill and locked it on, it'd either try and beat me to death or rip off my arm.

[pameladean]

Winter aconite is poisonous, but that doesn't stop squirrels from digging it up, saying the squirrel equivalent, of "Ewwwww, poison," and DOING IT AGAIN if you replant the corms.

Daffodils go 8 to 10 inches down. If you plant them shallower they don't bloom as well. (Says the lazy, occasionally what-the-hell gardener.)

Pamela

[kchew.livejournal.com]

I don't know if they are, but the tulips that I planted with them are definitely squirrel hors d'oevres. All my daffodils came up, however, so the depth must have been OK. I'm not looking forward to excavating them next spring, when I have to divide them.

You're right about the auger: I think that I'll stick with the cookie cutter!

Re: How deep?

[pameladean]

Actually, yes. I did once fail to plant a dozen tulips, but I always plant my daffodils.

Pamela

[kchew.livejournal.com]

I started using the calendar function on my computer so that I would remember things like deadlines and appointments, but I forget to use it. *headdesk*

[pameladean]

One of my sweeties has the same problem. So would I, if I tried.

Pamela

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I have a sneaking belief in the idea proposed by Douglas Adams that one can only hold seven things in one's mind at once, and that if an eighth thing comes up, one of the other seven goes. This is really the only thing that can explain some of the places I have found my hairbrush, which generally moves about the house with me in the mornings until I think of something else.

Also, thank you for reminding me to take my medication.

[mareklamo.livejournal.com]

Ah, the magical number 7 plus or minus 2. There are actually studies about the maximum number of things a person can hold in mind at once. Unfortunately, I cannot remember any of the authors.

"The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two"

[enegim.livejournal.com]

by George A. Miller (Psychological Review, 1956) is at http://www.well.com/user/smalin/miller.html .

- a compulsive psych student

Re: "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two"

[elisem.livejournal.com]

That was mentioned in a class I took when I was learning to be a volunteer at the Science Museum some twenty years ago. They use it in exhibit design.

A helpful way to remember yer druuuuuuuugs

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I've been taking St. John's Wort three times a day, and an aspirin & Saw Palmetto once a day, and -of course- have been unable to remember or not if I've taken the little suckers.

One day, when going into the fridge (where I keep my pills) I noticed the egg holder in the door. A light bulb went off, and I started to use it to lay out my pills the night before*. Sorta like those weekly pill holders one can get at Walgreens - the thing is, I know I'd forget the pill holder (Susan Grandys once advised me against getting a lap-top computer because "you tend to forget things, David".), but it's nearly impossible for me to forget the refrigerator (it's that big white thing over there that I keep tripping over...)

____
*yeah, I know, "before what?"