selective memory disease

i leave tomorrow again. this time for new york city. i admit, for all my frustration and confusion about what to do career-wise, i do have a pretty incredible job. i get to travel and meet cool people all the time. i really am thankful that this position ever came to me.

i remember the summer of 2002, moving to chicago before i had any idea where i might work, how i'd make a living and afford the rent of my swanky little flat i shared with brenda. i can still smell that summer ... it was chicago air: the lake breezes and the cool, spring air wafting right through the exhaust of traffic on the main drive outside our apartment and in through my windows.

brenda was gone for the first two weeks of our move to chicago, finishing up a teaching job in madison. so i spent a lot of time in my bedroom journaling, trying to figure out if i was an idiot for coming to a city without a job or a gaggle of girlfriends or promises of any tangible good thing. i rarely sat in the family room. i don't like sitting in family rooms alone. the name alone implies the necessity of company. and i didn't have any friends yet. and brenda wasn't gonna be there. so if i wasn't walking around the neighborhood or biking to the lake, i was sitting in my bedroom, waiting, i guess. yeah, waiting is probably the best word for it.

i look back on that summer as a peaceful one, though i'm sure my journals would cry out otherwise. it's crazy how we can obscure details in our rear view mirrors. my girlfriends will tell me that the summer of 2000 was an awfully difficult one for me, but i remember it as one of the best. i have a selective memory. it's true. that's why i journal as much as i do, so someday when my children are trying to tell me, "yes, mom, we did live in awful, cold, lonely greenland for 10 years," i'll have my journal to verify that horrible truth (should it ever happen to be so).

this selective memory disease also strikes with numbers. but with numbers, it's more like a subconsciously formed retaliation selective memory disease. see, my mother (and i love you, mom) loves numbers like no one else i know. you could be discussing anything and she'll find a way to bring numbers into it. take for example a conversation i might have with her on the way home for the gym. the number of questions here is innumerable ... for instance:

how far are you from home? in miles? in minutes?
how many times a week do you go to the gym?
could you take a bus and what number bus would that be?
how many people are out on the street at that time of night?
how long was your workout? and how many machines did you use?
how much is your gym membership again? and how many months did you have to commit to?

now, i mean no criticism of her. but you know - and please, those of you who can relate, please comment to affirm me so my mother doesn't think i'm the one cruel child on the planet and god had to send me to her - you know how when your parent(s) asks about certain things that you just don't think are important, you find that you make a specific effort to give no value to those things whatsoever in your own life? i mean, i bought 3 new shirts on saturday and i know i got a good deal on them which i happily shared with everyone on saturday, but now, i honestly couldn't tell you how much they were or how much i got them for. because i've pointedly forgotten. i know if i ever have children they'll surely comment on how i can never remember any numbers. and they'll assail me with questions like:

how can you forget what time i get home from school?
why do you always get dinner reservations for 5 when there are 6 of us total?
mom, it's my 14th birthday. why are there only 9 candles on the cake?
uh, mom, remember how i've been asking you for $3 every day for school lunch? yeah, well, the 25 cents you've been taping to the inside of my bookbag is really not covering much ...
mom, you gave me a bad cell phone number and i've been trying to reach you since this morning when i got back to the school at 9 a.m. after my week-long vacation in france that you still owe the school $1200 for. it's 3 p.m. where ARE you?

i need medicine. someone help me quick. i need a cure for my selective memory disease.

one last thing: mom, you're the best. happy early, early mother's day. i love you.