amoebic memoirs

I never thought this would come out my mouth this week:

1)Are you the fella who hung his ballbag out the top of his jean pant?

2)Next time Ned Flanders is in town, zyphe his Jesus Christ sandals. They're all the rage.

That's all.

Oh and ranbulate is to dry hump something. More common in nature, and as seen at the Colony Arms. Rhinos do it to trees; drunk people do it to walls.

It's like wanking and polar bears. Completely different.

I was chatting to someone the other day on how we remember people. People that are no longer in our lives for whatever reasons. If we could choose only one memory, one vivid memory to remember someone by, what would it be?

Do you have to involuntarily choose that specific memory, or has it stuck in your brain and is the first thing that comes up, whether you like it or not?

I suppose it differs from scenario to scenario. And each memory is very significant on how you choose to see the person for the rest of time.

That's pretty powerful.

Of course, we remember people by swarms of things – and so many things jog the memory banks to begin with. Music, smells, places. But let's say for argument's sake we have the brain capacity of an amoeba. One cell. Each person gets one brief flash.

And so? For example:

My French boyfriend: Following me to Italy wearing a backpack with two things inside it: his toothbrush, and a newspaper with le footbol results.

My father: An image of him 'sharpening his teeth' on a windowsill in front of my Grandmother and all her book club ladies when he was 12. I wasn't there – I wasn't even a gamete - but that sums him up in one vivid flash. Eccentric and off-beat, to be diplomatic.
Perhaps the knobbly-kneed little dude in his Clifton uniform, the black and white picture I have of him at school.

My mother: Tottering around Bangkok, fully taking the Thai culture by the horns when she lived there. At one stage she was wearing a Vietnamese rice paddy triangle hat out on the sky train, to the market, and on the back of motorcycle scooters.

Just one flash. It can be pretty commanding.
In moving on from bad experiences, and for keeping things in perspective when it comes to the people that weren't or aren't so special.

It can also concrete the amazing people in your life in one memory montage, and make you realise why you love them so much. Like family and amazing friends.

PS: Oh and late on the uptake, but guess whose coming to town? Lionel VoiceGod Richie. I have to go. Somehow.