Memory, all alone in the moonlight....

Don't you love it when your sleep schedule gets really and thoroughly screwed up?

Yeah, me too. It's always a good time.

Lately I've been shotgunning books like there's no tomorrow (I've read three to completion in the last twenty-four hours), and I'm not exactly sure why. It's true that I'm not in a show right now (even though I thought I was-- long story), but I haven't read this much volume wise since probably high school. I blame the excellent documentary I watched a few weeks ago about our memories. It was narrated by John Cleese, which is a good thing. Wait, no, strike that out. John Cleese narrated the other documentary that I watched, the one about the human face. That's an example of what I'm afraid of-- memory loss. This documentary said that memory loss begins as early as twenty-seven, and that's only six years away for me.

I can understand why our bodies decline, age, and generally start having problems. They are like vehicles which are to be worn out in living. But to think that my mind will also age and decay acutely terrifies me. I have always been a bookworm, a lover of trivia, someone who is generally excited by education and new ideas. To think that I may lose these traits and/or my grasp on reality.....I don't want to think about that.

I think that my recent craving to read everything I can get my hands on is me trying to deal with this. Maybe if I can just cram all these stories and knowledge into my head, I won't lose them. Finders, keepers, right? I logically know that this isn't true, but one must cope somehow. It's years and years from now that I'll actually have to worry about losing my memory, but my memories are what me, well, me. And books having always been a huge part of who I am.

So that's fun. Hopefully I get distracted by some other fear soon, one more immediate and easier to reassure myself about. Now where did I leave my purse.....?


Books I've read since the beginning of July:
-The Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)
-The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
-Murder on the Links (Agatha Christie)
-The Sundance Kid (Donna Ernst)
-The Whole Five Feet (Christopher Beha)
-John Brown's Spy (Steven Lubot)
-Never Have Your Dog Stuffed (Alan Alda)
-The Book of Happy Endings (Elise Valmorbida)
-Buyology (Martin Lindstrom)