On my home planet we recognize the fundamental oneness of all beings and therefore don’t get too exercised over names. This of course causes problems for my fellow planetarians and me while here on Earth, where people say things like “Hi, Mig,” when they meet you and sort of expect you to say their name, too, when you issue your countergreeting, or at least react more positively to that if not actually a little disappointed when you just say, “Hi,” back or at best, “Hi, beautiful” because who, face it, who doesn’t like to be called beautiful?
Except there’s no way to say that in German that doesn’t sound even more stupid than it already does in English. So yesterday evening, when I went to this meeting after getting a haircut at a place where everyone was dropping things — first the customer next to me dropped her cigarettes, then some insert fell out of the magazine I was reading, where I read the coolest Plutarch quote: “Der Geist ist kein Schiff, das man beladen kann, sondern ein Feuer, das man entfachen muss,” (which really got me thinking (it translates as “The spirit (or intellect (or mind)) is not a boat that you can load, but rather a fire you have to set”) because I had always sort of seen the intellect, the mind, as this big warehouse, or maybe this big gigantic library to which you are adding books upon books during your education; and now I realize, it’s a pyre, or the books are not just books, they’re fuel and not worth a damn until you light them on fire, it’s the conflagration that counts, not the pile of wood (give me a second to get my puncuation straight here…) and then the hair stylist’s apprentice (Goethe version, not Walt Disney) dropped a stack of towels — everyone was all, you know, “Hi, Mig,” and I was all, “Hi, hi, hi, how you doing, hi, what’s new” wondering if my name problem was a sign of senility and convincing myself I’d had it all my life, which I have and in addition to feeling stupid about that, I also felt stupid because I had sauce from the kebab sandwich (kebab bits in a toasted pita bread, with lettuce and tomato bits, with a big squirt of kebab sandwich sauce) I had gone and bought after my haircut to kill time becasue I was still early for the meeting all down the leg of my suit because I had stupidly tried eating it on the go and by the time I thought, “I’d better be careful with this, it’s pretty juicy,” I already had the sauce down my leg and the sauce was white of course and the girl had only given me one little dinky napkin with the sandwich, and it quickly transformed itself from a napkin into a little ball of cellulose saturated with white sauce and was more painting the sauce around the leg of my suit than wiping it off, and there I was at the meeting hoping the sauce will dry invisibly and it did go pretty far in that direction, leaving just these suspicious-looking grey traces which I tried to scratch off surreptitiously but unfortunately the stains just turned vivid white where scratched so I had to darken them, again surreptitiously, with a bit of saliva, which probably made an even odder impression than my inability to remember names. Stupid humans.
A different view of that pile of books:
“When my father died we put him in the ground. When my father died it was like a whole library had burned down.” -Laurie Anderson
You would do fine in Sweden, where people don’t greet each other by name, but with a simple “hi” of one sort or another. They’re both impressed and find it slightly ridiculous that Americans always call people by name. Then again, they think “how are you” is also slightly ridiculous, and even more, disingenuous, and have difficulty comprehending that it’s a nicety and that people aren’t being false by asking that question.
Laurie Anderson is so hot.
Also, I get depressed alot, so I think I’d fit in well in Sweden. Although blondes tend to frighten me. Are there really so many blondes there?
There are indeed many blondes, although most of it comes from the bottle. Still, the Swedes are a handsome people on the whole, if you like blond and nordic. I’ve always preferred darker types myself.
I’m okay on names–as long as I recognize the face. Worst time was when I walked right by with whom I’d had a blind date the night before.
I never forget a face, ever; just names. Also, you’re especially hard to forget, Jessica (Gamma keeps asking when she can see you again).