Memory, Un-Memory and Long-dormant Thoughts about Pixar

I have this really weird relationship with memory. I suspect everyone else does too, but I’ve never been in anyone else’s brain (that I know of) so I’ll just talk about mine for a bit, if that’s cool.

I have a really excellent memory. Sometimes. For example, I can recite every line in Toy Story because when I was 10 I loved it a lot, and my friend and I watched it twice (that’s right, twice). Ever since then I have been able to pick up at any point in the film and keep going until the eyes of those around me become very glazed indeed.

In Year 11 I had a main role in a play. I learnt everyone else’s lines including mine. Not deliberately, it just happened. In an exam that I knew I was not going to do particularly well in, I spent the 40 or so minutes at the end when I wasn’t allowed to leave, writing out the entire thing. Just for something to do, just because I could.

I was in a choir for all of high school, and the conductor was one of those amazing people who slightly terrified you, but mostly inspired you to do better than you thought you ever could. He refused to let us perform with music in front of us, so we had to memorise many, many pieces of music, most not in English, every term. And I never struggled. I felt guilty when he pulled me out in front of the others to demonstrate how I rarely looked down at music in rehearsal, because it wasn’t really an achievement for me. I’d sung the piece a few times, so now it was in my memory, perhaps forever.

But on the other hand, sometimes I have a terrible memory. Faces. I’m appalling at remembering people’s faces. I have started forcing myself to picture people’s faces right after I’ve met them, trying to focus on distinctive features so that if I run into them at Coles the next day I don’t completely blank them.

Going back to school, friends will often say to me ‘oh remember when this happened?’ and I’ll think *nope*. And I’m talking about big, important events here too. Like the time my grade got the school camp cancelled for successive generations due to our poor behaviour… I know that full story now, because I made people tell it to me, but I don’t have any real memories of it myself.

Worst of all are the false memories. Things I have apparently made up completely, but have somehow convinced myself are real. My minor in Psychology from the University of Queensland taught me that it’s very common to have false early memories, which I do, but I’ve also got ones from my teenage years, from adulthood even. And these tend to freak me out, really. If you remember something, does that automatically mean it happened? No. Of course not, but it sure as hell feels like it did. And if you forget something, doesn’t it really cease to have happened at all? At least for you anyway.

I often think about this late at night. You can never remember what happens right before you fall asleep, because everyone suffers slight amnesia during the first phase of sleep (thanks UQ Psych). But sometimes when I can’t sleep I’ll try to force myself to remember something. “Ok Lizzy,” I’ll say to myself, “in the morning try to remember that you thought about...” but I can never remember what that thing is. Sometimes I remember that I thought about memory and sleep amnesia, and sometimes I’ll think about it days later, but usually it’s lost to me. I assume, anyway.

I recently had a light sedation for a medical procedure. The doctor put the needle in the back of my hand and said, “Ok, you probably won’t remember anything after this.” I remember staring at an orderly’s pants that were in my line of sight and thinking, the last thing I’m going to remember is a butt and finding that a bit funny, and I also remember thinking why am I not asleep yet?

And then I woke up.

But it turns out I’d been out a lot longer than expected; they’d given me a double dose of the anaesthetic because I’d started talking (what a surprise). Somewhere after the thought about the orderly’s butt and not being asleep yet, I started jabbering away, and, unable to get me to STFU, they drugged me up a bit more.

The nurse told me all this as she checked my blood pressure and heart rate. And here’s where weird memory stuff comes into it. I know she told me what I’d been talking about. I remember that. And I remember being in the recovery ward, but I don’t remember getting there. And I remember giggling to myself and another nurse asking what was so funny, but I don’t *completely* remember what I said.

Because I’m pretty sure the first nurse told me I’d been talking about Pixar film conspiracy theories. Like… what? In the moments before unconsciousness, a bunch of medical experts couldn’t get me to go to sleep because I needed to tell them about how Andy’s mum is really Emily? About how all the Pixar films actually occur at different times in the same universe? Is that it? Is that what I was saying?

See I don’t know, because I don’t remember what the nurse actually said, only that I was giggling to myself in recovery because I *knew* that I’d been going on about Toy Story on the operating table. But maybe she said something completely different? Maybe Toy Story is so ingrained in my head that when I can’t remember other things I replace them with it? I honestly have no idea. If all we are is a brain controlling a meat suit, then I am a brain trying to understand itself. And that is enough existentialism for a Sunday afternoon.

I’ve been trying to write this blog on and off for about a year now. Ironically, I often forget that it’s an idea I had and then rethink of it, feel like a genius, and then realise it’s one of my oldest ideas and therefore not something new at all. But still, I’m pleased I’ve finally put thoughts to words to internet about this.

*Screenshots have been shamelessly stolen from Jon Negroni's blog, click on those theory links up there to make up for this, if you haven't already. You won't be disappointed*

Sanity is… Writing Lists and Baking

Hello my name is Lizzy and I’m addicted to writing lists and baking.

Around my house you will easily find up to five or six lists on any given day. Shopping Lists, to-do lists, goals lists, assignment lists… Basically if it can be listed, it *will* be listed, and if I haven’t written it out in a list, it probably won’t get done.

When a list is almost completely checked off, I’ll give up on it. It’s too messy now, too full of scribbles. I’ll take the one or two things I have left and start a new list with them - moving in a perpetual cycle of things to complete, of lists.

Sometimes I have to resist the urge to put “write a list” as the first item, because someone might see it and judge me. But apparently, admitting this in a blog is just fine, so there you go. Possibly more shamefully, sometimes I actually do write things in after the fact and then tick them off, just to prove to myself that I’ve accomplished them. It’s like they didn’t happen unless I write them down. Mental, I know.  

Today’s list* looks like this:

-       pencil case update

-       ironing

-       print forms

-       pack folder and notebooks

-       put oil and water in car

-       wash clothes

-       make lunches:

o   bread

o   zucchini slice

o   banana bread

I’m going on prac tomorrow, so today is the day I organise all the little fiddly jobs to make sure I don’t rock up in front of a class and realise that I’ve forgotten how to teach. No, I don’t have to write “remember how to teach” on a list; what I mean is that once all the tiny things are sorted, I feel infinitely more confident, more ready to try new things and be challenged. But if I’ve got the wrong pencils in my pencil case well then… god help us all, I’ll be balled up under my desk by 10am.

Also, that last item in the list is important. When I have a lot to do, I often take the time to make food. This seems bizarre, I know. I’m so busy I hardly have time for sleep and yet I spent two hours today doing nothing but baking. Is there logic to this? Possibly not. But there is something very comforting about baking, to me, anyway. I usually make at least a batch of muffins each weekend. This could just be because I really like muffins though, not sure.

But it goes back to the original point, I’ve organised my lunches now. I’ve got fancy bread and a zucchini slice and banana bread. I’m actually ensuring that in the middle of a stressful week, I’ll have at least one serve of veges in my lunch, I’ve got something sweet to push through that last little bit of the day, I won’t be hungry. But more importantly, I don’t ever feel stressed out when I’m baking. My mind goes blank, really, and I don’t think about any of the things I’m worried about. I just think about flours and cinnamon and whether I should use up the bananas in banana bread or if I should make them into muffins and how many chocolate chips are too many chocolate chips. Is that even an amount?

So yes, I’m addicted to lists and baking, but they keep me sane. And frankly, that’s very important right now.

It's possible that I only wrote this blog to show off what I made today... 

*One of. There’s a whole other list for assessment. Shhhh I’m perfectly sane.

This Girl Gets a New Blog Design: You Won't *Believe* What Happens Next!

I have always been a procrasti-cleaner. Since my early days the only time my room has been clean has been when an impending due date is getting the better of me. While yes, there is a significant amount of time wasting going on, I just can’t think straight when my work area, or any area vaguely near me, is messy. I feel like I’m better at life when things are tidier. And in fact, I’m better at things when life is tidier too. That’s some deep thinking right there.

This is all a very round about way of saying LOOK AT MY BLOG ISN’T IT BEAUTIFUL?! If you missed the memo yesterday, then you can’t have missed it now. Hum Drum Plum is now prettier, more streamlined and just well tidy. I feel so much better about it now that it doesn’t look like it was designed by a less-than-dextrous monkey.

I can’t guarantee that uni and prac aren’t going to eat my life and my will to write, but I know that I want to keep trying, and that my attempts are going to look super nice no matter what. Because did you see that banner? Wow, right?

Anyway, in celebration of my new-found enthusiasm, I present…

Ten Ways to Make it Look Like You’ve Actually Written Something of Value:

1.     Write it in list form because that takes up lots of room.

2.     Use gifs. The internet loves gifs and again, they take up lots of room, making it look like you have spent a lot of time on your blog when you haven’t.

3.      Consider cats as an option.

4.     Say the same thing twice, but with different emphasis.

5.     Say the same thing twice, but with different emphasis you guys. 

6.     Reference current internet trends, even if you don’t fully understand them. It makes you look relevant.

7.     When in doubt, use attractive people to illustrate your points.

8.     Use a deliberately vague yet provocative title to hook people in.

9.     Make your last point either unrelated to anything else, or else just really weird. Make sure your penultimate point really builds up to it in a way that makes your audience desperate for more, even though they know they are going to be confused and/or disappointed.

10.  

The new blog design is by Finbah Neill who also designed Adventures in TV-Land. See more of his stuff on tumblr and tweet him a compliment (eg. "Fin you have very nice hair").

Two Weeks with the Queen of Writers' Block

In what can only be described as an extraordinary feat of procrastination, this afternoon I picked up the copy of Two Weeks with the Queen by Morris Gleitzman that is sitting on the spare bed and started reading.

I have a lot of uni work to do. Possibly more uni work than anyone has ever had ever. That’s a pretty safe claim, I reckon. Sure, some people have multiple degrees in neuroscience but did you know I have to read 20 pages of boring readings and watch a recorded lecture and make three postings on an online forum? THREE. Anyway, despite all of this I thought it was a really good idea to pick up a children’s novel and read it instead of doing any of those things.

I finished it. I read the whole thing in about an hour I’d say. This is not an amazing act of reading prowess. It’s quite short. It’s called Two Weeks with the Queen after all; it’s only about 130 pages long. Boyfriend is teaching it to his grade 8 class, which is why it was on the bed in the first place.

I’m not here to talk to you about the story. It’s a good story. I’d completely forgotten almost all of it, but it’s good. And it has really good characters, and it makes you laugh and then tear up a bit. But it’s not what I’m blogging about.

I’m blogging about the introduction. In this new edition, Gleitzman has a little intro talking about how the book came to be and how he got it published and that sort of thing. He says he was trying to write something completely different, a story about fruit bats or something. He was a new writer, he’d planned it all out, started drafting it, had been working on it for weeks when suddenly, like a bolt of lightening, he had the idea for Two Weeks instead.

And then the bastard just wrote it.

In about a month, without any planning, Morris Gleitzman wrote an entire, internationally best selling novel about a boy who goes to England so he doesn’t have to watch his brother die of cancer. Morris you bastard, I hate you. (Dear Mr. Gleitzman I actually love you, you were one of my favourite authors as a child, please do not take this personally, thanks for reading my blog, love your work, Lizzy).

There are two schools of thought when it comes to writing. Well there’s heaps, probably, but lots of people either think that it’s magic – a burst of inspiration comes to you, or it’s dedication – you have to write every day even when you’re uninspired because it’s not magic, it’s hard work so stop your moaning and get writing.

It’s clearly both. Well I think it’s clear anyway, and Morris agrees with me it seems. He says in his introduction, “Much as we authors might think we’re special because we make up stories, there’s a mystery at the heart of what we do… So if we’re sensible, and fair, we share the credit with that mystery.”

Unfortunately for me, I can’t claim to practise the teachings of either school of thought. Much as I’d love to say that I’m a writer, the reality is that I haven’t written anything aside from these blogs in years. And even the blogs are now a weekly struggle for me. If I ever skip a Sunday you can bet your bum that I’m either very busy, very uninspired, or both. And I’ve just skipped two Sundays in a row. Two weeks. Two weeks, not with the Queen, not with inspiration or hard work, but with nothing. No desire to write, no ideas to write about and no inclination to care, really.

Except I do care. Whenever I have these lapses in blogging, I am also plagued by the feeling I should just give up. What’s the point, a small voice complains, why bother? You don’t write anything of substance anyway, no one cares if you stop entirely and never blog again. But what’s worse still is that blogging is what ties me to writing. If I were to give it up, I’d really have to acknowledge that I’m not a writer, that I am, in fact, a fraud, and I’m not quite ready to give that up yet.  

So once again I find myself struggling for a new blog direction, and secretly, in spite of all the uni work I have, I’m also still searching for inspiration to write other things too. Somewhere deep down I still feel I have a novel in me. Maybe I *should* stop moaning and start writing, but in reality I am still waiting for the lightening bolt.

Maybe I should try writing about fruit bats for a bit.

I spun on my chair and took about 20 photos. This was the best one. So creative.