My memory sucks. I think i've been around too much pot (didn't inahle mom, i swear, koff koff) or something and it's killed my brain cells - or maybe i dislodged something in my head the day i fell on my face from six feet (remind me about that because it's a great journal entry, but i'll just forget, ha).

Anyway i forget things sometimes if i don't write them down. I'm not so much a list girl as a "write random scrawls on post it notes and torn bits of paper" girl. But it works.

How's your memory? How do you remember stuff?

-- Sherry (sherina@masc.ca), June 16, 2000

Answers

If I don't put little Post It notes all over the house, I'll also never remember things. I'll usually put a portion of what needs to be done, i.e., "sewing machine" (which translates into: set up the sewing machine and mend some of my husband's and kids' shorts) or "strawberry plant" (aka plant the strawberry plant that I received from my youngest son in the garden before the cats eat the entire thing)

Here's a confession: those notes have been out for weeks and I haven't gotten around to doing either. But at least I won't forget that they have to be done!

If only I'd known to write myself little notes 5 years ago. I forgot to pick my 85 year old grandmother up at the downtown bus depot. She's from a small town in Minnesota and it was my responsibility to pick her up in downtown Minneapolis. When she realized that she'd been forgotten, she took a taxi out to a suburban mall and never bothered to call anyone! All afternoon I kept thinking that I'd forgotten something. Well, 3 hours after I was supposed to pick her up I remembered! I went home and she'd left a message on my answering machine, "I'm at the mall, come and get me". So, I had to call every relative available and we searched the mall until we found her!

Thank God for Post It notes!

-- Kathy (kathy@uswest.net), June 18, 2000.

Kathy: Man. That must have been an awful feeling. I don't think i've ever forgotten something to that extent - unless i still don't remember! :)

-- Sherry (sherry@masc.ca), June 19, 2000.

My memory is an odd beast. I can walk into a room and forget why I when there in the first place (happens to everyone i bet). Other times Mary will ask me "Have you seen the sissors?" and I will know that they are in the kitchen drawer even though that is not their usual spot; that i didn't put them there; and that i hadn't used them in weeks if not months.

I use email and the telephone to remind myself of things I need to do. Just this morning while I was getting ready for work, I picked up the envelope containing my car payment, and put it in my bag. I think picke dup the phone and called my voicemail at the office to remind me to take it *out* of the bag and mail it :-)

This Saturday I pulled a 12-pack of beer out of the fridge to take to band practice. I walked into the other room to put on my shoes. I kissed Mary goodbye, and stood in the door staring blankly. She asked "everything ok?" and i replied "I feel like I am forgetting something." She said, "hmm, i don't know. Maybe the cell phone?" Since we don't have a regular phone in the new place yet, I knew that wasn't what I would bring with me, but I couldn't remember. A couple hours later as I reached for a beer at the band practice i remembered. DOH! And Mary was standing next to me at the fridge when i pulled out the beer and I told her what i was doing. She didn't remember either :)

ok. What was the question?

-scully

P.S. Sherry, I still think you forgot to send me a Xmas card, and you are blaming it on the post :)

-- Scully (scully@terrapin-gardens.net), June 19, 2000.

My memory is good in general - in fact I keep too much in my head. My memory for people's names, on the other hand, sucks. I know the names, it's just that I can't retrieve them because of a faulty filing system. Just people's names. I must have had some traumatic experience with names as a young kid that scared me for life ;)

I had a friend who put post-it notes all over her apartment. The one that made me fall over laughing was one on the inside of her front door that said, "Don't open door to strangers." Hehehe!

-- Terry (terry@surfnetusa.com), June 19, 2000.