This is my friend, ummm, what's your name again?

So those of you who have known me for a long time know about my eternal struggle with driving directions. I am terrible at giving or receiving driving directions--I don't know street names, route numbers or exit numbers. I don't know where one thing (building/street/town) is in relation to another, I just know them when I see them. And when I get driving directions, I need them to be very specific. Directions that start with "turn left out of your driveway" work best.

It's much better here, for some reason. I know how to get places. I think it's better because when you walk, you go much slower and you pay attention. And if you go too far, or take a wrong turn, it's much easier to stop, look around, and go back. If you miss an exit on the highway, you have to know when to get off next and where to get back on. You can't just stop where you are and turn around. And if you're really lost while walking, it's very easy to just walk inside a building and sit and look at a map, or ask for directions. You can't read a map while you're driving, unless you have one of those funky OnStar things or a passenger who is navegating. But even OnStar makes mistakes, and the passenger may interpret things differently or forget to tell the driver when to turn. (They always say that women shouldn't navegate for men because women read maps differently, and they just get irritated with each other.)

Hang in there, I have a point here.

So now that I have this newfound aptitude for directions, I guess my brain had to make room for this information by kicking something else out.

I can no longer remember people's names.

There are people I've met a month ago, who I see on a regular basis, whose names I cannot remember. I see these people, we have conversations. But God forbid we should run into someone else I know--I don't know how I would handle the introduction.

So that's why you see a lot of photos in my Flickr album that say, "I think?" next to a person's name, or where I've only identified one or two people in the photo. I honestly can't remember the other people's names.

My prof from my undergraduate years used to tell me that I'm not absentminded, I'm just presentminded elsewhere. (I know someone else said that before her, but again, I can't remember the name!)

Truer words have not been said.

G'night y'all,
Kait