Blame the forgetfulness on age, heredity or holidays
It’s terrible getting old.
I can’t remember a darn thing anymore.
For instance, last week I forgot to write a column. Well, I
didn’t forget exactly, but I forgot which day of the week it was.
Which doesn’t bode well when you’re talking about deadlines.
Blame the forgetfulness on age, heredity or holidays
It’s terrible getting old.
I can’t remember a darn thing anymore.
For instance, last week I forgot to write a column. Well, I didn’t forget exactly, but I forgot which day of the week it was. Which doesn’t bode well when you’re talking about deadlines.
My column is typically due on Mondays, although I often stretch this out until Tuesday and my very kind, very forgiving editor very considerately puts up with it. This works well … except when there is a Monday holiday, and then my brain tends to fly out the window.
The problem with a three-day weekend is that you get up on Monday, and because it’s a holiday, somehow inside you feel that it’s not really Monday at all, but a second Sunday. Then Tuesday rolls around, the kids go back to school, and you realize you’re behind a whole day.
Last week, I pretty much spaced out and woke up on Tuesday thinking it was Monday, and believing I had the whole day to write a column. Then I received a nice, polite e-mail: Where’s the column?
Oops.
Thus, no Pinnacle column from me last week.
But believe me, this is just scratching the surface of my forgetfulness. I also have a really awful habit of inadvertently overscheduling.
A friend will say, “Oh, let’s have coffee,” or “Let’s go for a walk,” and because these activities sound so pleasant, I automatically say yes.
Then I go home and realize I’d already scheduled a colonoscopy or something for that morning.
Which means I have to shamefacedly call my friend, say, “No, I can’t go after all,” and then of course several years will pass before we go on that walk or go get coffee.
These days, I tend to blame it on old age, but truth be told, I’ve always been like this. I have a mind like a sieve. I also have an absolutely rotten memory for names and faces, rather a lousy trait for a journalist.
Invariably, the people who recognize me don’t ring a bell in my head at all. It’s extremely embarrassing, especially when they recall every detail of our last conversation, which was probably an interview for some newspaper or other, which happened, oh, 10 or 12 years previously.
For me, 10 or 12 years is a lot of interviews under the bridge. So I forget the occasional person, it’s true. Somehow they never forget me.
Or if you want to go further back in my history, you could point to heredity. My dad, who is a doctor, is rather famous for his inability to recall patients’ names. He ends up referring to them as “Mr. Thingy” and “Mrs. Thingy.”
Obviously I inherited my lack of recall from him.
Whatever the cause, it’s getting worse. Enough brain cells have died over the years to make the whole memory game a lost cause.
Or maybe life is too complicated, I’ve got too much going on and too little time.
That excuse could work part of the time. But not on holidays, where in theory I have the day off. So I’ll just have to come up with some other logical explanation.
