The King of the Sun

Part I: In which I quote a movie

My memory is a funny thing. Thursday as I was getting into the car with H and M-Lite something somebody said reminded me of a movie quote, so I spouted off what James said in James and the Giant Peach, which was something like

James: You saved us from a giant shark, single-handedly

The Earthworm: No-handedly, thank you

James: Exactly. You're a hero!

It's not the exact quote, but I imdb-ed it later and it's pretty close. H looked at me kind of funny and asked how long it had been since I'd seen that movie. I figured it must have been about eight years since I saw it last, why do you ask? Because apparently it's weird that I can see or hear something and remember it later. I forget things about myself a lot of the time - important things, important memories, details that should stay with me, but I remember all sorts of things that aren't useful at all.

Part II: AP European History and how I second guess myself

Krebscout got some paint that she'd ordered and we were talking about brands. Hers was Utrecht, and I said I liked that brand of paint, because in my mind it was the best. She asked me why I thought so, and I said that I liked it because Utrecht was famous. She and Optimistic. said they didn't recall the word Utrecht being of any importance whatsoever. I said that there was a treaty of Utrecht, or a pact, or something, but under their discerning eyes I wavered a bit. At least I thought there was a treaty. Now that they had questioned it I started to doubt. Optimistic. was a history major, and if it didn't ring any bells with him, maybe I was wrong.

We looked it up, and there definitely was a Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 that helped to end the War of Spanish Succession. I knew there had been a treaty, even if I didn't know at the time what it did. I just don't know why that fact from History class stuck with me when so many others did not.

Another thing is that I can memorize long sequences of numbers or letters. I can spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious forwards as well as backwards (suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus) all in one go in under 15 seconds. I also used to know pi to a hundred digits. So when I was a senior in High School and my AP Euro teacher gave us a list of events from the French Revolution to memorize in order, I started by memorizing the first letter of each event on the list. I still know the first 7 letters of that list - CTSGEDP. Why I still know that sequence almost three years after the fact is beyond me.

Part III: We fill the tires

Optimistic. noticed that our car tires were getting too low, so we made plans to spend Thursday morning getting them filled, as well as doing general maintenance work on the car -you know, cleaning it out and checking the fluid levels and such. I'd even bought a tire pressure gauge a couple of days earlier, so we were all set. When confronted with how much to fill the tires, I said that the gauge should read 30, because that's the number I've always associated with tire pressure. I hear "tire pressure" and I think 30. Optimistic. reasoned that it would be much higher, so we consulted the manual, and it said that the rear tires should be at 29 and the front tires should be at 32. So around 30 then. Why did I even know that? I heard my Dad try to explain to Bony M how to use a tire pressure gauge once. He didn't have one on hand, so his explanation consisted of "You press on it and a little dipstick pops out" and it confused her quite a bit. Let's say that they had this conversation (which I wasn't even apart of) when Bony M got her license, which was probably when she was 16 or 17 years old, which would have been 7 or 8 years ago.

I don't know -maybe everyone remembers things like that and it's just H who doesn't. Maybe it is just me. Maybe I've talked too long about this already. It makes no sense to me, but the point of all this is that I'm trying to not second guess myself as much, because it turns out I'm usually right. I just need some confidence. I need to say "Listen to me! I know what I'm talking about!"

(Also, this is the first time I've linked anything ever, and I'm immensely proud of myself, just in case this post couldn't get any more pompous. Look at me, I have a memory. Ooooh.)