I think I am an intelligent person, but I am not gifted in spatial logic. I have real trouble figuring out those flipped around shapes where you have to choose which ones are the same. I have to turn a map the way I am going.
Many years ago I went backpacking with my cousin J and her friend J (we called ourselves Triple J, ha ha). The friend J was a wizz with maps. Whenever we arrived in a new city, she could look at the map and immediately know which way to go. My cousin J, like me, has a terrible sense of direction, but she has one weird gift, that she always knows which way is north. I only know which way is north from two places: at my house, and driving up North Road. While travelling through Turkey with J and J, we went by bus to Canakkale. The road followed the coast and it is really beautiful. At one point I was unable to work out which direction we were travelling in and started poring over the map laboriously trying to figure it out. It was a genuine epiphany to me when good-with-maps J pointed out that the sea was on our right so we were travelling in the direction where the sea was on the right side of the road on the map. I'm serious. And this knowledge has been seriously helpful to me ever since.
Apart from school geometry and map reading, there are three other skills I have struggled with. I have finally mastered them all, but not without great hardship and difficulty.
1. Knowing which way to twist a thing to open it
The key to mastering this valuable skill is one small phrase which I learned from a bartender I worked with many years ago: LEFTY LOOSEY RIGHTY TIGHTY. Oh, the other people there laughed at this bartender, aged 23, intoning seriously "lefty loosey, righty tighty", but that phrase has been INVALUABLE to me I tell you.
2. Knowing which way to put the batteries in
I finally decided to teach myself this and remember it forever, just LAST YEAR. I don't think about positive and negative and such, I just remember the flat end goes against the spring. YES!
3. Knowing which way to turn when I step out of the elevator at work
This one has been the hardest. I spent eleven years in my last work building, and I memorized which way to turn coming out of the elevator after about nine years.
I've been in my current work building one and a half years, but I'm getting older and I don't want to struggle with this another seven years, so I've made a real effort.
My problem is, I overlook the obvious. Because I can't do something, I assume it must be really intricate and clever (instead of considering that maybe I'm just thick). So initially I started by trying to keep the spatial logic of the building in my head. I'd walk up to the elevator bank, and consider which way I was facing in the lobby in relation to the street outside, then picture in my head where the street was in relation to our office window upstairs, and in relation to the elevators on our floor.
But then JUST THIS MORNING while composing this post in my head, I got into the lifts and stepped out at my floor, and suddenly realised that if I get into an elevator on my right, then I turn right when I get out. If I get into an elevator on my left, then I turn left when I get out.
As you can no doubt immediately work out, this means that when I walk into our building and into the elevator bank, I am already facing the direction of my office. Which means even my initial mental mapping method should have been easy.
I STILL do it. My only hope is to quickly write the name down or jot it in my phone, otherwise it goes. But writing down someone's name as soon as you're introduced to them is weird and creepy; the only time you get away with it I think is mums-at-the-school-gate in an our-kids-are-friends-lets-organise-a-playdate situation. Even there I've stuffed up - there are a couple of lovely mums at school who I just simply cannot ask their names again as I've done it at least once (twice) already, and "oh god I'm sorry I'm SO bad at names!" is only charming once (twice).
I've tried repeating the person's name back, it still doesn't stick. I have noticed others doing that trick of asking you a couple of questions soon after being introduced and always including your name in each question. It is oddly flattering even though you know they're doing it to remember your name. Perhaps it's the effort of trying to retain your name that is flattering?
Anyway it's something I'm pretty terrible at, and I need to find a way to improve.
I've drawn a little cartoon of how this feels for me.
You see? It's not my fault! (I wish I could blame birds).
Do you forget people's names? Have you learned any good tricks for NOT forgetting?
You know that Gary Larson cartoon, 'Medvale School for the Gifted', with the kid straining to push a door marked 'pull' in giant letters?
I think I'm pretty smart (don't we all?). But in day to day things I've often felt stupid. There are things that other people seem to know that I don't know how they know - like there was a group lecture or 'Guide to Life' conference that I missed some day.
I take comfort from the fact (or maybe myth) that Isaac Newton used to regularly forget his own address, and I also often think that I read so much and have spent so many years studying and then learning at work, that my brain is just... full.
I have this feeling a bit less as I get older (finally! some of that 'wisdom' creeping in), but I still get it.
When I was a kid I wondered for a long time, and finally asked my dad, how they bent bricks to make them go around corners.
I have owned one of these mops for nearly 15 years, and only just figured out TODAY that it is much easier to screw the little posts in first, BEFORE you put the sponge on the frame.
I once agonised over a school maths test question "What is the chance it will rain on a given day?" by searching for weather statistics to help me calculate the answer, panicking, and then trying to work out my own statistics on scrap paper involving every kind of weather there might be, and the likelihood of each occurring. The answer to the test question was "Fifty per cent".
I spent ages trying to figure out how to manage the little date button on my watch so it would always be accurate, and worse, expressed annoyance at how difficult it was to try and work out which month it was synchronised with... at which point I was told you have to set it in the morning on the first day of every month. To be honest, this still impresses AND annoys me with its simple genius - I mean, the date changes automatically every day, so why would I ever realise I have to manually set it every first of the month? Who knows these things?
Two skills I would love to master, but have not so far, despite repeated attempts:
knowing which way to turn when I step out of the elevator at work
remembering which way batteries go into compartments (the positive or the negative side on the spring? And is the flat end or the raised end positive?), instead of having to look for the tiny diagrams
It appears at least one of my kids is following in my footsteps. While coming out of a 7-Eleven one day she looked at the big red 'Push' sign on the door and read it out as if it rhymed with 'lush'. " 'Puh-sh'?" she said loudly, while trying to pull the door open. "What's 'puhsh'?" Luckily she was not offended at the 7-Eleven lady laughing behind her. Or at my teasing ever since when she has tried to pull a push door, "No M., don't pull it - you have to PUH-SH!"
This comes courtesy of So Now What - with thanks.
Instructions: put your fruit-flavoured or other brand MP3 player on Shuffle, and write down the first 15 songs that come on, and what they mean to you (if anything).
Now the temptation here is obviously to scroll through your songs and pick the 15 most interesting, and chuck in one embarassing one to make it look honest - or you can do it properly.
I considered the first then went with the second. But you'll just have to take my word on that won't you?
1.Muse - Supermassive Black Hole Yes, I admit it - I got this from Twilight. I actually really liked the first Twilight movie - very moody and evocative, and great soundtrack. Well I've gone off the soundtrack a bit since, but still love this and one other song on it, Full Moon by The Black Ghosts.
2. Mr Scruff - Ninja Tuna I honestly have no idea what this one is or how it got here. Do not recognise it at all. It's quite good though.
3. Slade - Everyday This is a song from my childhood. It was big on the radio when I was a little kid and my dad went away quite often on business. I loved the song and/or he used to sing it to me - I'm not sure which came first. Anyway at some point my parents realised I loved this song and my dad bought the single. I still remember how happy he was when he started to play it for me and then I cried, his face fell and both my parents were surprised (disappointed?) at my reaction. I'm not sure but think it had something to do with feeling a bit overwhelmed with both their attention focussed on me for a reaction and confusion hearing a song on our stereophonic record player that I associated with the tinny sound of the radio - but anyway I burst into tears. I still remember it and I now have a pretty good understanding with my own kids of what can set that kind of reaction off, just generally too much attention and build up of excitement.... Kids, eh! But I still love the song.
4. Giorgos Alkaios & Friends - Opa (Eurovision 2010 - Greece) Well, what can I say. I liked it. My husband is from Greece and they take Eurovision VERY seriously there, there is not the irony-ladden aspect to it that we use to watch it in the English-speaking world. In our house we watch Eurovision as a family for the two nights it's on, all four if us sitting on the couch or the girls dancing in front of the TV, and we all judge the songs and pick our favourites and laugh at and pan the shockers, and naturally the outcomes rarely agree with any of our opinions. I also have ANOTHER Greece Eurovision entry on my iPod, My Secret Combination by Kalomoira. I know it's not that good, but I like it - and who can't like Kalomoira, she's so cute!
5. Will.I.Am - I Like to Move It I actually prefer the The Travelling Song, which I also have. Both from the Madagascar soundtracks. I love the Madagascar movies, possibly even more than my kids do.
6. Bonnie Tyler - Total Eclipse of the Heart Are you kidding me?! The epitome of iPod embarassment and it actually came on in my 15?? I was tempted to skip past this and not count it, but then this is the point of the whole exercise, right? To create an even playing field of lameness among all iPod users. We all have our shame. Everyone loved this song (without irony) when it came out in the 80s, and I remembered it a few years ago when it appeared in the movie Urban Legend, where the first girl to get killed sings badly to it listening to her car radio to cheer herself up, before getting decapitated by the person hiding in the back of her car. Not sure how the killer managed to stabilise and stop the car after doing this but no matter...
7. Prince - Cream I loved Prince throughout the nineties. Only this song has stood the test of time in my music library. LOVE IT.
8. INXS - Need You Tonight 80s, 80s, 80s!!! Loved this whole album, and saw INXS three times in concert - once in Portugal while backpacking, sort of a weird interlude. In 2003 I was backpacking around Europe with my cousin and her friend, and after weeks of fairly good penny pinching we fell in with an American physiotherapist on a two week holiday from New York, who clearly made very good money and who was also a lot of fun and very persuasive. We ended up living things up in Portugal and spending as if we were also high-paid New York professionals instead of the penniless 23-year olds we were. What with beers and dancing till late most nights and going to see INXS at their Lisbon concert, we cleaned out our budget for the next four weeks, in four days. Those were great days though!
Another memory: I bought this album through my sister's record club membership, and still remember how she got my order wrong and ticked the box for the album instead of the casette. I was initially annoyed but was happy when the album came, because then I taped it and then, CHOICE, I had both!
9. Tone-Loc - Funky Cold Medina C'mon - who doesn't like this? 80's again. I fear I am betraying my age (as if this blog wasn't doing that for me). Also somewhere on my playlist, Wild Thing, from the same album. All that's missing to round off the era is Young MC's Busta Move!
10. Grace Jones - I've Seen That Face Before I have the entire Grace Jones Island Life album on my iPhone, and indeed still have the casette rattling round somewhere. Love the whole thing but this song and La Vie en Rose especially. I think I may have discovered this song and the album Island Life from the Harrison Ford movie Frantic, which I thought was a great movie at the time but which I otherwise don't remember. So weird about Grace Jones - not sure exactly what she was or what she represented, but this album was pretty cool.
11. Jill Barber - Old Flame Not one of my faves but I do like this whole album. My favourite song on it is Oh My My.
12. Giannis Kotsiras - Anathema Se This is one of a few albums in here where my and my husband's playlists got entangled when I tried to move libraries from our old desktop to my laptop; I have left them there because I like to listen to them sometimes. This is a beautiful song - a decent translation courtesy of http://lyricstranslate.com is included at the end of this post.
13. Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer I was never a Peter Gabriel fan in the 80s - probably a bit too mature and intelligent for my tastes back then - but a casual comment from my sister about how Solisbury Hill is one of her favourite songs, lead me to think "Oh yeah, I quite like that song", then to seek out and download about 10 Peter Gabriel songs that I suddenly found I really really liked. I remember about this one how technologically amazing the video clip was at the time - we were in awe! It's not much now but a glimpse does bring back the memory of how unbelievable it was back then.
14. Dolly Parton - Joelene When I was a kid for some reason I loved the Olivia Newton John version of this song. Not sure why the lyrics should speak to an eight-year-old girl, but somehow they did, something about a girl knowing she was out of her depth and unable to hold her own against others - perhaps that is a common childhood feeling. Or perhaps, as a girl you internalise the various lessons that come your way in pop culture and life, about what it means to be a woman, how a woman should look and act and what and what not to do (unfortunately the lessons are not all equally useful, valid or effective). Even now the image of a woman tormented by knowlege that her husband is falling for someone else and she is powerless to stop it, is incredibly sad to me.
15. Bobby Darin - Dream Lover I'm not sure how I came across this song, possibly one of my parents' several 45's I used to listen to as a kid. But I have always loved this song. That was a good thing about having young parents (sorry kids!) - my parents were really into their music and had heaps of LPs and singles, and used to play them often. (They also used to go out quite a bit and were sometimes short on patience with us - another mark of young parents). Anyway, along with Neil Diamond's Shilo album, this song was one of the first I loaded to my iPod when my mind turned to golden oldies.
