In Memoriam

Things are dark and quiet here at Jo't Headquarters. Just the way I like them.

It's been a long running joke among my friends and family about the amount of hours I spend at work. So long, in fact, that it's starting to get funny again.

It's not just my unwarranted loyalty that, at times, seems to reach near mythical proportions. Nor is it the fact that my batteries need only the barest of time to recharge during the waning, nocturnal hours. It's not even that I'm a 3rd generation, stead fast, Republican Poster Child Workaholic. (Though, that answers so many questions, doesn't it?)

No, it's that my mind never turns off. It never rests. You see, whenever I'm not concentrating on a present task, or a project to fill the immediate future, that big movie theater in my head starts playing "The Jos Years: Day One thru 5 Seconds Ago." And we're talking full THX surround sound and HD quality picture here.

I remember EVERYTHING. No, really. I remember I wore a dark red and blue striped shirt with corduroys to my first day of Kindergarten. And yeah, while I may have seen pictures of that day, I can also tell you that Lori and Denise Whaley wore matching white cotton sundresses with yellow flowers on them. Lori with a blue barrette. Denise with a red one. Jason Smith wore a green polo and jeans. Foster Lott a Dallas Coyboys tee shirt. Mrs. Robertson wore a white, silk blouse with a teal scarf, and a navy skirt.

Just. Shoot. Me.

And, it's not just clothes. It's addresses. Phone numbers. Work shifts of the first job of that cousin I haven't seen in 12 years. Obscure movie quotes. Entire Shakespeare sonnets. Songs that were playing in a car passing by as I rode to school on my Huffy. (Come on, admit it. You had a Huffy. Fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.) Jingles. TV theme songs. Dear, God! The TV theme songs. Would someone PLEASE tell me how to excavate "Green Acers" from my head!?! (JJ, "Black Hole Sun" works in the short term, but GA just keeps coming back!)

Conversations. Yeah, all those long talks that took place just sitting in the front seat outside a cafe or dinner, watching traffic through the windshield. Arguments that served no purpose other than to prove just how stupid I can be at times. Everything I said that I wish I could have taken back the moment they came out.

Everything. In a continual loop. Over and over again, ad nauseam.

Know how many times I've heard the old "Don't beat yourself up" bit? Yeah, well, if I knew how to shut it all down, I would. If I knew why I was supposed to remember that the combination to my locker in 6th grade was 34-25-7, that "Brass Monkey" was the first song to play at our 8th grade "prom", and that Luke uses his left hand to throw the rock to bring down the door to kill the Rancor in Jedi, well, maybe I could make it go away.

But should I? Would you? Isn't it our past, and how we react to that past, that makes us who we are? Who would I be if I no longer had those memories to pull from. I'm a big fan of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The story is about a man who suffers a bitter break up, and undergoes a procedure to erase the memories of the other person from his mind. However, during the process, he realizes that in order to lose the bad memories, he must also lose the good. It's quite a good story that makes you sit and think long afterwards.

I've had my share of troubles. But, I think the good times more than outweigh the bad. And even if that's not entirely accurate, at least I'm striving now to make it so.

Well, gee (No, G.T.E.). Went a little deep on you there. Sorry. I just need to vent sometimes, and this is my outlet.

But still, if I could maybe turn the memories down from 11 to...9 possibly? You know, I hear alcohol helps sometimes...

Thanks for stopping by. Get back to work.

-Jos

"It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time." ~Barbara Kingsolver