Maybe not so observant after all.

So I had insomnia last night and could not fall back asleep at 3:30am. I was pretty upset because I have a fitness test this morning and wanted to be reasonably well rested. Anyway, I think that my biggest problem is that I suffer from what I call "Restless Brain Syndrome" this usually happens as I am either trying to fall asleep, or after I have woken up in the middle of the night and am attempting to drift off again. What happens is my brain will not stop running, I will make lists of things that I should do the next day, ideas for projects, plants to buy for the garden, books I want to read, and it never ends. It truly pisses me off. And then the next morning I cant remember half the things I was thinking about the night before. I refuse to turn on the light to write these things down, because then I know I would never get to sleep.

So ANYWAY, last night I was thinking about how almost daily I send my friend, let's call her "The Librarian" because, well, she's a librarian, an e-mail about some observation I have made, or a mini-rant about something that has struck me as stupid or annoying. I never thought about starting a Blog, because well, my life is just that boring, but this, a daily observation, well that I can do.

So my first observation, is that well, sometimes I'm just not that observant after all. I am horribly bad at remembering names and faces. If I meet you once in one setting, and then again in another, I wont have any idea who you are. And 2 minutes after hearing your name, I wont remember it either. Now maybe this is not an observation issue, and more of a memory one, but what the hell, it's the story in my head at this moment.

I was not always this bad at remembering people, when I was in school, it was not a problem, I was meeting new people all the time. Then when I was working (retail unfortunately) it was not a problem either. I think my troubles all began when I married my husband...we'll call him "Sarge". We met and dated, and he proposed to me after he was reassigned to a new base (he is in the military), unfortunately/fortunately this base was in a non-English speaking country in Europe, with only about 100 military personnel there. So I went from meeting and interacting with 100's of people a day to only about well, none. We pretty much kept to ourselves and avoided the drama that a small military community tends to churn. And we continue this self imposed isolation even after moving back to the US, and living in base housing for the past 5 years. Let me put it this way, when I sign my child("Piko de Gallo") up for pre-school the only person I will have to put down as an emergency contact is The Librarian, and she lives 2 hours away. This is bad. Though The Librarian tells me that this will all change when Piko de Gallo starts school and I am forced to interact with other parents. Oh the joy.

So getting back to my inter-personal observation issues. I have been noticing that this is a problem for me alot lately. I have been going to the gym regularly 5 days a week for about 5 months now, at the same time every day, for probably the same length of time each visit. So as you can imagine I see the same people all the time. But if I were ever to see any of these people outside the gym, I don't think that I would recognize them. Oh, I recognize them when I see them at the gym, I'm not that bad off. There's "The Lady Who Looks Like She Could Be My Aunty", "Dreadlocks Guy", "Friendly Old Guy #1", "Friendly Old Guy #2", "Tall Guy Who Looks Like Zidane", "Weightlifter With Vitiligo", "Hot But Stinky BMW Guy", "Friendly Blond Lady", etc. Do you see a pattern here? I can only remember you if there is something that makes you stand out. Very good looking? Very, well, *NOT* good looking? Smell very good, or very bad? Or look like someone famous, or someone I know? Talk to me on a regular basis? Ok, then I will remember you. But not really. Because, just the other day I saw the Zidane guy at the post office, well, I didn't realize it was him until 10 minutes later when we both walked into the Gym at the same time. People probably think I'm a stuck up bitch, but really I just cant remember you.

The same goes for the people Sarge works with. Fortunately for me everyone wears a nametag on their uniform. But if you're out of uniform at the Commissary, I'll blank you like there's no tomorrow.