Partly Sunny Mind

I sometimes think I would be a happier person if my memory wasn’t that good. I love that I can recall certain events so clearly, but the down side is that not all of the events remembered are happy ones. I watched “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” the other day and it made me think. The focus of the movie was a company that provided a service that allowed you to isolate and erase the memories of an entire relationship with someone. The customer would take all of the physical reminders of that person, place them in a box and go to the company offering this service to have his or her memory wiped. Obviously this can only go so far—I can’t imagine this working if you have had kids with this person or you wanted to erase a parent or a sibling, but what if you could erase someone from your past? You could do away with the entire moping/dwelling period and move on, just as innocent and optimistic as you were before you met the asshole erased. Given a couple of recent stories from people I know who dated someone who clearly screwed up things in a spectacular fashion, that sounds pretty good idea to me.
I liked the movie, which is a great thing because it means I was able to get over Jim Carrey’s obnoxiousness. If you haven’t seen it, he’s not too obnoxious in this one, I promise. I actually think he does fine when he’s not making a concentrated effort to be annoyingly over the top, and someone must have liked that over the topness, because it’s what made him famous—it wasn’t me. I will never forgive him or Dr. Seuss’s widow for allowing the travesty known as the live action full feature film Grinch.

The next six words are rarely uttered from me so pay close attention: My favorite Jim Carrey movies are--

(in no particular order)

Dumb and Dumber—

(pauses to let that sink in)
Okay I know, I know, this one is over the top, yet for some unknown reason, I’m compelled to watch it whenever I catch it on TBS. Come on, she says “Austria” and he goes “Well put another shrimp on the barbie!” E? How is that not funny? No? Not even a little?

--The Truman Show

annnnnd (wait for ittttt)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (and how can anyone not love Kate Winslet? If you don’t then please leave now). Now, if you hate Jim Carrey and wish to never read this blog again, that’s fine. My feelings won’t be hurt, too much. Actually that’s a lie. Seeing as there are probably three regular readers, it actually would hurt me some, but I would eventually get over it. Or, I know, I will just have the memory of you leaving my blog erased and continue writing as if I hadn’t been outcast by a Jim Carrey hater.

Anyway, what if this were a real service? I can think of a few things taking up space in my mind that I could probably function more effectively without. It’s not like I’d be wiping out years of my life, just a few days here and there would suffice. I guess I’ve been pretty lucky that there’s not to dispose. Most of it is good, and some of the not so good stuff has been live and learn, sure it sucks donkey balls but it’s character-building sort of material. Given some stories I have heard from the dating side, it’s evident that I am still pretty wide eyed about many things. I wouldn’t say I have “eternal sunshine” but maybe it’s “partly sunny” most of the time.

Now what if the business expanded beyond the relationship erasing services? Perhaps we could just get into deleting some of the more minor memories. The ability to unsee, unknow, unsmell, untaste, unhear, and unremember brief moments—mere seconds, really--would be priceless. With YouTube and people sending out messages to such “You’ll be sorry you clicked the link, but go on ahead, I triple dog dare you” items popping into our lives on a daily basis, erasing those seconds or minutes could be pretty lucrative, and I imagine not quite as messy and drastic as erasing entire memories of other people. Even if some of these things aren’t real, you still store them away. Now at least, can rest assured that the memory of the image/smell/taste/other brain searing negative item will no longer pop into your head at random moments.

So what about you? Would you erase something or someone from your memory or do you have more of a “Facts of Life”* philosophy?
*(You take the good,
you take the bad, 

you take them both and there you have
The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.)

Charmed Life

One of my co-workers mentioned that other people in our office have approached him and stated that our team comes off as antisocial. To me, this is not a surprise, in fact, it’s more of a “no, duh” type revelation. My last office included going out to eat lunch when it wasn’t someone’s birthday and occasionally taking breaks from work to talk about our lives. That kind of thing is unheard of here. And that’s fine--but also--I don’t take it as an insult.

“I’m not the outgoing type” I admitted as we discussed this. “Yes, you are!” insisted the newest member of our team. I wanted to laugh. Why is it that you’re never supposed to admit that you’re not outgoing, or more specifically, that it’s a bad thing to not be outgoing. I will talk to someone else, sure, but I am unlikely to strike up the conversation and if I do, I assure you, it’s not coming to me naturally. It’s an effort.

I feel drained if I am around too many people for too long. I really, really have to consider whether I want to go to a social outing if there are a lot of people I won’t know. I have never been the type to work a crowd and I don’t like being the center of attention. While I find all of these things to be fun in their own right, I also find them terribly exhausting.

The problem with being this way is that there’s no reward for being an introvert. There’s nothing for you if you’re not outgoing. You don’t attract anyone if you don’t turn on the smile and engage in conversation. Like those gifted with the snappy comeback, I envy people who can charm with ease. These people can network, schmooze and rub elbows with anyone from the homeless guy on the street to the CEO of a major corporation. Barack Obama has charm. McCain (like me) struggled with it. What is it about them that draws our attention?

Here’s what I think—

1) They make you feel special. It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? They bother to learn a little about your life and the next time they see you, they ask. They compliment. They even flirt—hell with some of them, if they’re talking, they’re flirting. There’s one person I run into on the elevator from time to time. We have conversations, but every time we talk it’s as if there is more going on than just two people sharing the elevator. “I hope to see you again” he said the first time around. “Oh, hey” the second time around. “Your hair is so cute.” And so on. The last time I witnessed another woman step on and he switched channels to focus on her. I smiled. “Of course,” I thought, “He’s that way with everyone. I’m not actually special.” Not special! Oh well. The key is that they seem to want to be around you which makes you look forward to being around them. People in sales are experts on this. How much is genuine? Who knows. How much feels genuine? If the person is really good at this, all of it does.

2) They are funny. This goes without saying. Humor and charm seem to be linked. Humor is disarming if used the right way and who doesn’t enjoy a good laugh? You can be funny without charm, but I’m willing to bet that most charming people are also funny.

3) They know things—I’m willing to bet these people have just enough knowledge about most things that they can pick up on a conversation about a song, or a book, or a news article and run with it. They can insert themselves into a conversation and it seems as if they were always there. They can use what they already know to their advantage, and what they don’t know, they’ll pull from you by using skill #1 in this list.

I’m willing to accept that none of this charm stuff comes to me naturally. The harder thing to accept is that if you don’t got it, getting what you want from this world becomes much, much harder.