3x Thursday: 07/24/y2k+8: Favorites and Memories

1. What are your favorite kinds of plant life (plants, flowers, etc)? Why?

Okay, this may sound a little sick, but you asked for it: I find carnivourous plants fascinating. I used to have a Venus fly trap, which, sadly, I killed. I have a black thumb. Everyone knows by now not to buy me plants. But plants that eat insects and/or small animals - now, that is really neat!

2. Do you associate any memories with certain things (flowers, objects, etc)? Any you'd care to share?

Oh, sure. But usually it is less obvious things, like an odor or a bit of music. Just a few minutes ago, listening to the soundtrack of Ratatouille I heard a bit of what sounded like Silent Night and the memory that it conjured was powerful enough that I thought I was going to cry! My father (Harry) used to sing that to me in German when I was little. I have few memories to go on of him that are positive, so to hear that was amazing. And very, very powerful. Same thing with odors. I might catch just a tiny wiff of something that will bring back very strong and effective memories that normally would not be on the surface or accessible to me with such vividness.

3. By what method do you keep track of your memories (blogs, scrapbooks, etc)? If you don't do anything to preserve your memories, how do you keep track of them? Does it matter to you?

Oh, yes, it is very important to keep memories. So much so that most of my contemporaries wish to strangle me with my own camera cord... that is how I catalogue and track every thing I want to remember. I have never had a very good immediate and surface memory... turns out it really is all in there, but I'm a person who needs to have it triggered. When a memory of something is triggered (and I find that discovering the catalyst is not up to me so much) it is strong and powerful and will stay with me longer.

But since I read avidly and am constantly adding new memories and information to the bank, it becomes harder to recall quickly that information that I wanted. Others that work with me likely find me especially irritating in this manner. Conversations with me are frustrating and inconsistent because I need to have the old memory jogged by association, so it comes out as recall it... in a terribly non-linear fashion.

Blogging is also my way of logging in memories that are at the moment on the surface but will get lost somewhere in the vast sinkhole that is my brain! I reread some of my old posts and laugh - what was I thinking about? Oh, yes! That's it - sometimes weird stuff like what would it be like to be a man (thanks to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation for airing an episode about an M to F that was brutally killed) or people spitting in public (always an attractive thing to see) and sometimes I just need to rant about the little things or the big events in life. But I have three years of blogging to look at - granted that the first year was not all that invigorating... only 38 posts (unlike January 2008 - 61 posts and July 2008 (by and far my most prolific month) - 99 (!) posts. Good gods... do I hear laughing and comments like "Get a life!"?)

This is my life! It may not seem ideal to you, but that really isn't the important thing here, is it? It is the importance to me. I'll never publish a book but I think I have proven beyond a doubt that I am a writer at heart!

OK, now you can see why I love memes. They do make me think. This is something I'd never have known about myself without being asked this. And they make me feel, as well. I feel hugely wonderful at this moment. These little things that are big make the differences in life!