Friday, May 4, 2007

Are You Sure You Want to Send Your Brain to the Recycle Bin?

"American Pie" (the song, not the insipid movie) came on the radio this morning as I was sitting in the drive-through at McDonald's. I sang every single word of that song. Didn't miss a one. And it's like one of the longest recorded songs in the history of music. I'm thinking: that song was popular when I was in seventh or eighth grade, roughly 35 years ago. How is it that I can remember every stupid word to that song, but I can't remember why I got up from the chair in my office and walked into the bedroom ten minutes ago. I literally had to stand in the middle of the room and reconstruct my thought process. Oh yeah, it was to go to the bathroom. Obviously I'm much worse off than I thought since I passed the bathroom going into the bedroom. It's a miracle I didn't end up in Arkansas before I realized I missed the potty 200 miles ago. I'd have better luck remembering the Gettysburg Address: "Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." (I memorized the whole thing in third grade, but can only remember the opening sentence.)

I've decided I'd like to have an "Organize Favorites" folder for my brain, like I have on my computer. Or better yet, of course, a "Delete" key. I'd be able to trash all those useless song lyrics I have floating around in that vast grayness in my skull. I swear that in any given conversation I can spontaneously recall at least three lines from songs that would be relevant to the discussion at hand. It's ridiculous. And annoying. If I could purge my brain of useless knowledge I'd be . . . . probably really dull. I think my superhuman ability to store useless knowledge is what makes me special. It makes people look at me and say "How do you know that?" I'm just a freak of nature. And knowing my luck, I'd accidently delete information that I really need, like my social security number, or the eight hundred and ninety five zillion passwords I have embedded in my brain. Or my name.

Tonight was the Spring Court ceremony at SMNorth. Tyler was in the top ten and got to escort the beautiful and extremely talented Danielle Marie Hohly. She is one of the nicest young ladies I know. She and Tyler have been good friends since middle school and they are quite a pair. If I had to pick a future daughter-in-law right this second, it'd be her. As it is, I'm just really grateful that Tyler's had the blessing of their friendship. This whole rite of passage (graduation) is nearly upon us and it makes my heart hurt to realize that this precious time with Tyler is slipping away, moment by moment. At our parent session at ESU the first thing one of the speakers told us was to "let go." I wanted to jump up on the table and scream at the top of my lungs, "I've only been holding onto him for eighteen years. I can't just let go because you say so!" Jeez, woman, is your heart made of stone? Sniffle. Sniffle.

Maybe if I deleted all those funny, tender, heart-stopping and indelible memories of Tyler it wouldn't be so hard to let him fly. Nope. Those things are part of the system network. Deleting them will make the computer unstable.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

good play on words.
i'm going to miss your crazy information, and your weird knowlege of every answer on jeopardy.
these last couple of months will be fun, i hope.
OH, and miranda has had a twelve o clock curfew for the past year, and when she graduates, she won't have one at all!
we should really consider this, i think i would like it a lot.
please don't just shoot it down, it's a really worth-while discussion.
okay, later days chica bonita.