Memory Full

Okay, sports fans, here's the deal.

My brain is full.

It's so full, I don't seem to have the wherewithal to write regularly for this space.

And that's not the only problem. There's the it's-not-good-enough syndrome, so I never post anything...and when I do, it's too long to read in one sitting.

So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to write a little bit, several times a week. That will toughen me up, not make me lower my standards exactly, but maybe I'll get used to the idea that a blog is a web LOG -- not essays for the New Yorker.

And I'm going to empty out some memories that I don't need any more. They do seem to create mental clutter and use up synapses that would be better used for things like, say, remembering the name of that thing on the counter that makes the bread brown...I had that word yesterday...oh, that's right. The toaster.

Ready? What follows is what I'm putting in the Goodwill bag for my brain...

646-5873. That was my phone number in 1972.

292-5368. Another phone number, that of my best friend in the second grade. Her birthday is July 7, one month after mine. I haven't seen her since 1984.

I lived in a pink apartment building in Beaverton when I first moved to Portland in 1981. It was the same apartment building I lived in back in 1965. (I do want to keep a few memories of that apartment, all from 1965: My baby brother riding his tricycle around and around the courtyard, learning to bake bread, pie and cake at the age of nine, and the clown costumes my mother made for Hallowe'en that year. I cheerfully relinquish the memory of flunking fourth grade math twice and stepping in cat poo in my bare feet the day we came back from the beach.)

How to clean the toilet and how to iron a dress shirt. I have found that when I look my husband in the eye and declare that I really don't know how to do something, he will do it for me. I'm cheating on this one...he already cleans the bathroom and does all the ironing. Do you think he would believe me if I said I don't remember how to wash the dishes? If I still wore lipstick, I could probably manage to ruin some laundry by forgetting to take it out of my jeans pocket.

I do not need to know how to use a mimeograph machine anymore.

That IBM Selectric Executive typewriter that cost $2,000 in 1977? I know that to erase a capital M, you must backspace five times. Once for a lower-case "i." I know the backspaces for every single letter and number. I give it all up.

I no longer wish to know how to make Fast Rabbit (a cheese sauce made with condensed cream of mushroom soup and cheddar cheese) or Raggedy Ann salad (canned peach on lettuce) or a Hot Dog Round Up (slice a hot dog almost through, sideways, four times so it curls up when you cook it. Put it on half a hamburger bun and fill it with mustard and ketchup. I knew you wanted to know, so I told you.)

The number to call the police in Baltimore, pre-911. 222-3333. It probably doesn't work anymore. But it sure came in handy when I lived just below the hookers on Chase Street.

The sound that the first video game made that my neighbor Pete had in 1976. The one with the little round monsters floating down? You're lucky this blog doesn't work with your sound card. Pete voted for Reagan, too, back when Reagan was just a B movie actor. But I will keep the memory of the Ernie Kovacs re-runs that we watched on his static-ridden black and white TV. I give up the memories of the cockroaches in Pete's shag rug, though.

I would like to forget the sound the Addressograph made. I would like to forget that such a thing as an Addressograph existed.

That mean manager at lunch rush in the Eugene Farrell's restaurant in 1974? She used to plate my orders on really hot plates fresh from the dishwasher and then shout my number, "Five THOUSAND!!" I give up all memory of her.

I want to keep sleeping in the "way back" of our Volkswagen bug when I was little. Likewise sitting on the flat folded down seat of my Dad's 1963 Porsche with my brother while he cruised at 80 mph from Portland to my grandparent's house in Southern Oregon. This was before seat belts were mandatory and a good thing, too. Would have messed up the card game.

Also I want to be careful not to erase the memory of the fresh peach ice cream that seven cousins, my brother and I made under the direction of my Uncle Weldon in 1965.

Thanks, folks. I feel my mental processes clearing up already! That thing on the counter...it's a toaster! And that other whatchamacallit...it's a...microwave!

More soon. Thanks for sticking with me this far.