Memories...light the corners of just about everything

My friend Kristi thinks that I'm somehow connected to everyone on the planet. Here's the plain truth. I have this crazy memory for details. They can be important or insignificant, and if the topic involves numbers, it's usually stuck in my head for good.

So, I remember the names of people whom I met in passing at nearly every instant of my life. I remember friends of friends and boyfriends of friends whom I'm sure would never remember me. No significant event needs to happen either. It's just the way my head works, to no fault of my own.

One evening at Kristi's, we were hooked on the most guilty pleasure of all, The Millionaire Matchmaker. It was better than that. The Millionaire Matchmaker Marathon. By about the 10th epsiode, I recognized a guy that a friend of mine dated in junior high school. I met him one time. Kristi, I'm sure, thought I was on drugs, until he started spouting details that I already knew and said out loud before he did.

In college, I was often able to close my eyes, and picture my notes, color coded of course, to recall the data for the final. It wasn't that I necessarily remembered the material, it's just that I memorized what my notes looked like. I have a confession...remember in that blog, a few ago, in which I spoke of the A+ I received in a physics class. Here's the truth. I memorized the practice quizes and homework sets so at test time, all I did was repeat the solutions with the new numbers. I still understand nothing about that silly, elusive charge always labeled "q", but at final time, I memorized the practice final and regurgitated the answers, simply calculating off the new parameters offered that day.

I remember almost every birthday of everyone whom I ever knew. And, I remember their kids birthdays too. If I heard it once, it gets stuck in my head. Then, I end up in conflict. Come birthday of said party, do I call and wish them a happy day, or do I appear like a stalker with an overinterest in an acquaintance's life, someone whom I no longer have regular contact with? Do people like to hear from their pasts on their birthday? Or are those chapters closed and required to stay that way? I call my dear friend, Lori every year on her birthday. This is my longest friend and by my calculation, that's 36 phone calls. I now call her on my birthday too, to remind her to call me. I don't get hurt feelings anymore, now that I know that most people don't have this affliction.

I have emotional memory too. That's a term that Kristi used the other day and I thought it was perfect. I can remember exactly how I felt on a certain day, so vividly that I can relive it many years later. It's not like remembering feeling happy or sad. It's more that my entire state can become that state again while recalling or reminiscing about a certain event.

I'm sure my family, (read Husband) HATES my memory. I try not to use it for evil causes but honestly, who can resist the temptation of relaying every detail and punctuation mark of a conversation from eight years ago, when you know it projects you in a beam of light? (read I was right, he was wrong.)