Did I tell you this already?

What I would give to have my brain back. In a world of Botox, nip and tucks, and monster trucks, you'd think they could've mastered brain transplants (I'd like one like that, but a little bigger please).

I am always amazed by the (mostly useless) things I can remember. In my past-life as a bartender (my most favorite job--ever), it came in handy knowing that the silver-haired Tour Boat captain would start his evening off with a Gin and Tonic with two limes (and I'd be setting it down on the bar as he settled into his stool), and the mormon girl who always looked like a fish out of water until I'd set a new non-alcoholic drink down for her to try (fancy glass and all).

As a food server, I stopped writing my orders. Tables of six might start out with a condescending attitude until I showed up with every little quirky thing they had tweaked in their menu choices.

So, rather than come up with some more bad poetry for you, today we're tripping down (lack of) Memory Lane.

I guess my first memory, or at least the one that seems to be the most predominate, is walking around the back corner of my house, along the rose bushes that were blooming and my mother was explaining to me that our dog Tiger had been killed the night before. He was hit by a car. Now I am sure she didn't put it that way, in fact I remember being pretty ambivalent about the whole thing, so I know she didn't use the word "killed". Tiger had been given to us by Omar Sharif. It was one of his dog's pups. I'm told I was about three years old.

I remember getting one of those plastic swimming pools for my birthday and I couldn't wait for everyone to go home so I could play in it (I grew up in a world where little girls wore party dresses with bows on the back-- not good for swimming). My friend Michael stayed behind and played with me. He was a lot older than I, and is the reason I have "Season's in the Sun" on my playlist. It reminds me of him. His family, embarrassed that he was gay, was estranged from him when he died. He was a victim of Aids.
My other memory of Michael was the day he came to our house with a single red rose for my mother. who broke down and cried. the first time in the week since my dad died.

And speaking of party dresses,

I had one with horizontal pastel stripes. I loved it, but I didn't love how much trouble I got into when I spilled a tube of vampire blood on it.

I fell out of a tree once while building a human's nest with a friend. She poked me in the rear- end with a limb, of course I was gonna fall. I landed on my back on a root. When I stood up, unable to breathe, my Dad dropped his rake (I will NEVER forget the look on his face) and came running towards me yelling, "Honey!". He and my Mom were both Ambulance Technicians at the time A few years after my Dad died, I took the same training, but was unable to complete the final when I slashed my hand on a dog food can lid (impossible to do CPR with a sliced-up hand). My mom came home to a kitchen with blood all over it. "J, you've been taking Emergency Medical Technician courses, what do you do when you cut your hand like this?!"
"You run around until a real Ambulance Technician comes home to help you".

There are a lot of memories in between, but the next one was hard to take. I was back home after a year of college back east and a year or two of working in Phoenix Arizona. There was a guy in the local bar (where everyone hung out to dance and listen to bands). He looked very familiar. He was so happy to see me and called me by name. I had no idea who he was. Since he seemed hurt, and he was such a nice guy, I started asking people who could clue me in. Imagine how frightening it is to learn that someone who used to be one of a close, three-person friendship has been wiped clear from your memory. After my friend Lori explained this to me (telling me stories of how she, Mike and I spent a lot of time together), I started getting flashes of memory (it's like hanging out under a strobe light) of this guy in a Texaco uniform. I was able to deduce where he had worked, but everything else is gone.

There's lots of theories why I am missing chunks of memory.

I could blame my experimental days in High School (and the fun friends I had that would slip me new and unusual concoctions in things I really thought were quite harmless-- thanks guys). I am the poster child for my 19-year old, "Why NOT to take up drugs" or "You too, could (not) think like this". (He actually uses my memory problems against me and the 9-year old has caught on as well, only he's not so good at it. "Mom, remember, you said I could eat cake for breakfast if I finished my dinner last night". "Nice try pal. Only I can have cake for breakfast").

Genetics? My Grandmother, whose daughters swear what she's suffering isn't Alzheimers, or Senility, doesn't remember much beyond young womanhood. She's currently living in a care-assisted home, and may or may not remember you if you stop by. She clearly cannot differentiate between the past and the present.

Stress-- a proven memory zapper, and I suffered an illness in the 80's. I was in intensive care and my mother had been told I would not survive the night. A week later, I was released from intensive care and began a long recovery process. Most of the year prior to that illness is gone. I have a newspaper clipping of a play I was involved in, and if it weren't for the clipping, I wouldn't have remembered the play at all. I sang and acted in it. I hope I was good.

Recently I read, or heard (this really sucks) something about how to be sure you remember a moment forever. There was something about taking a deep breath and really focusing on the moment while repeating in your mind "Remember this moment".

At least I think that's what you're supposed to do, I can't really remember.