I am really bad at names. I fear I am too self centered, but when my anxiety subsides I think it is more about not being able to remember things that don't immediately connect. Your name is not my experience of you, it is another thing, a sound. It doesn't connect for me. I discovered that I had that problem when I was required to learn foreign language in high school. Lists of words to memorize just killed me. I did better with some connections because they tied to something else, like Spanish ventana for window is ventilation. Or casa leads to castle. But that is not so obvious in many words. In music I have the same trouble. I can't "read" music even though I have all the symbols and can sight read for singing as long as it isn't really strange music. No matter what I do it seems, because I cannot tolerate the deadly work of memorizing past this way that meaninglessness slides off my brain. I have done that, like with the Sanskrit mantra I chant, but it seems to take me a long time to wear the grooves into my brain's surface. I am really bad at names.
Anonymity
I get all crossed up
Trying to name you.
You squirt out from under thumbs
Like globs of quicksilver do,
Rolling to a stop
Right beside my heart.
Naming is awkward,
A wart on my thumb
Or between my fingertips.
I've studied ways of speaking
Without naming you,
I wish for no names.
December 27, 2008 9:19 AM
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Now about change...I don't really have something growing on my nose that I know of, but it makes my point.
Impermanence
I say I like change
But I'm probably lying.
I only like those
Parts I want to change
When they change my way, not yours.
Yesterday I found
Something new growing
On my nose and I thought, Shit!
Guess I hate this change.
December 27, 2008 9:45 AM
Hurry
1 week ago
Why you want to limit yourself? I am strongly believe you can overcome it. Do not let your fear to hold you back. You have been given a powerful brain, much more than computer. In this instance, may I be allowed to refer you to the Philippians 4:13 I can do everything through Christ, who strengthen me. Meditate this verse and keep me posted of the development. Thanks and look froward to hearing from you,
ReplyDeleteWhat? Thanks, I guess.
ReplyDeleteChristopher, my brain is like that too. I thought it was just me, hehe. I'm like you I mean, not like Mr. Oh, tee hee! What was your name again? ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat?
ReplyDeleteI am the same way with names. Maybe it's genetic.
ReplyDeletePatia, maybe so. I have no trouble remembering names once there is some kind of context.
ReplyDeleteHuh?
ReplyDeleteWow. That's not how you do it, money for nothing and the...
ReplyDeleteIt's a strange day in the neighborhood...
Giggle
ReplyDeletexxx
Anything for a laugh, eh?
ReplyDeleteLove you
what Mr. Oh said of course, and this too:
ReplyDeleteIs it all in that pretty little head of yours?
What goes on in that place in the dark?
Well I used to know a girl and I would have sworn
That her name was Veronica
Well she used to have a carefree mind of her own
And a delicate look in her eye
These days I'm afraid she's not even sure
If her name is Veronica
Do you suppose, that waiting hands on eyes,
Veronica has gone to hide?
And all the time she laughs at those
Who shout her name and steal her clothes
Veronica
Veronica
Did the days drag by? Did the favours wane?
Did he roam down the town all the time?
Will you wake from your dream, with a wolf at the door,
Reaching out for Veronica
Well it was all of sixty-five years ago
When the world was the street where she lived
And a young man sailed on a ship in the sea
With a picture of Veronica
On the "Empress of India"
And as she closed her eyes upon the world and
picked upon the bones of last week's news
She spoke his name out loud again
Veronica sits in her favourite chair
And she sits very quiet and still
And they call her a name that they never get right
And if they don't then nobody else will
But she used to have a carefree mind of her own,
And a devilish look in her eye
Saying "You can call me anything you like,
But my name is Veronica"
Elvis Costello
GD, Thanks for dropping by with your friend Elvis. Poesy and songs are poesy and songs, and like novels are of limited use in trying to understand the poets and the songwriters. So much of ordinary life is lacking and so other things are inflated quite naturally. We are cartoonists by another name.
ReplyDeleteHad to go check Mr Oh's profile, no further though. Nearly as good as the one I had who was very polite, said he's been reading along... went to his blog and just one entry, in very strange English, about how to redecorate your bathroom, and a few clearly puzzled people in comments thanking him for visiting and saying if they wanted tips on bathroom redecoration they new where to come... he's not been back.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I love both these. I'm not too bad at names but terrible at faces, if I ever see them in any context other than the one I habitually see them in, it drives me mad not knowing who they are or where I've seen them. Tom is crap at names but never forgets a face, always knows when he's seen someone before and where. He can identify actors in cameo roles in films from way back before they were famous, but can never remember what their names are. Fortunately, the Jack Spratt syndrome kicks in and between us we manage to function...
I really like the globs of mercury under the thumb...
Lucy, Blogspammers. I don't get it, why do that? Whatever.
ReplyDeleteIt is really helpful when you have a complementary partner. :)