one of my best friends is a documentarian, and for Christmas she sent me a video of our college memories. after laughing at my wearing short-sleeved, collared man-shirts far too often and our drawn out, drunken (completely embarrassing) conversations, I realized how many memories slip away from your mind forever. I am on that video doing/saying things i have no memories of. its not a “i was so wasted, dude” kind-of thing. I was (in some of it) completely sober. i don’t remember large parts of my childhood, but I always thought I remembered most of my adulthood. I don’t find it strange that I cannot describe what happened op May 17, 1996, but if I were to see a video of that day I would expect to be able to say “oh, yeah, I remember that.” but that’s not the case. I think that characteristic varies wildly from person to person. My sister-in-law remembers everything. every conversation, every person she sees, everything they were wearing. (granted, this is all coming from somewhat of a fashion perspective) and I have known some absent-minded professor types who can’t remember what they did earlier that morning. “did you mail that letter?”….”I have no idea.” (guess who?) It cant be any kind of measurement of intelligence, how many useless details one remembers, though it has to be related to the capacity of brain-work. Not brain capacity, but how much one bothers to use one’s brain. Can I practice using my brain more? This is all very disturbing. I feel like a New Guinean who has never seen herself on video.