Tyrant of Memory.

Tyrant of Memory I'm sorry, what was that I was just saying? Getting old has its advantages, no denying that. You get more leeway when it comes to yelling at the kids in your yard, for one thing. But for the most part, getting old's a bitch. The body begins to break down. Everything becomes more difficult. Even at 38, the effects are making themselves painfully clear. Hangovers don't stop at noon anymore?they go on all day. And the weather? The weather now has an unreasonably profound effect on me. I can feel fronts moving in, my knees get creaky, my mood rises and falls with the barometer. Even the wind fucks with my equilibrium. If I can afford to get 12 hours of sleep at a stretch, I'll grab it?and with anything less than eight, I'll be useless all the next day.

More and more often these days, I'm reminded of that Twilight Zone about the fortune-telling mirror. When a woman demands that it read her future, it tells her bluntly (in part): "You will think no new thoughts, and you will forget what little you have known. Older you will become, but not wiser. Stiffer, but not more dignified."

That came to mind again the other night while Morgan and I were sitting at the end of the bar, the way we always do. In front of us was a music box, a clown figurine poised atop it. We'd never seen it there before. Or at least I hadn't. Morgan told me that the clown held two matches like drumsticks, and his face had been repainted.

"It's KISS' drummer," she said. "I forget his name."

"Peter Criss," I said. Then I paused. "Jesus Christ, I can't believe I know that."

In the days prior, I'd been struggling in vain to recall things. They weren't life or death matters, but they were basic things nevertheless. Simple historical facts. What years did the Civil War and World War I span, for instance? Who was president after Hoover? What did John Wilkes Booth yell after he shot Lincoln? What's the deal with the Teapot Dome scandal? I used to know all those things, could pull them up like that, but in recent years?and for perhaps obvious reasons?they've been slipping away from me. It's frustrating as hell. I have a piss-poor working knowledge of contemporary geography, but I can quote The Simpsons at length. And I can still name KISS' drummer without missing a beat. That's just sad.

I used to be such a bright kid. Even annoyingly so. A grating little smarty-pants. In fact, if I were to see myself at, say, age 11 nowadays, I'd just want to slap me. Annoying or not, I knew my history, philosophy, literature, math, oceanography, geology, astronomy, physics?I read everything I could get my hands on and most of it stuck.

Nowadays I can name character actors in bad movies, and that's about it. I have to write little notes to remind myself to change the cat box, or go to the bank, or pay the rent. I've always had trouble with names, but now it's way beyond that. Forget historical dates?I have trouble with remembering words, period. And if I'm this way at 38, I don't even want to think about what sort of drooling, mumbling, inchoate amoeba I'll be by the time I'm 50.

There was a report recently in which researchers found that you could increase the actual mass of your brain if you learned how to juggle. Juggling, it seems, is very good brain exercise. It might well be just the way to combat what my neurologist diagnosed in me last year as a case of "premature brain atrophy." But to be honest, I'm not really sure I'm all that up to the task of learning how to juggle right now.

There are plenty of other ways, too?simple means of exercise that will increase neural activity, open up new pathways, improve memory and the like. Things like reading and word puzzles. But after that fourth or fifth pint, well, there's not much of anything else to do but have another.

There's this thing I do when I walk. At least when I'm walking one of my regular paths?to the bank, or to the office, some route so familiar and ingrained that I don't have to pay careful attention to where I'm going. What I do, see, is give myself lectures. Not scoldings?that would be really sad?but I'll pick a subject and try to explain to myself in clear and logical terms everything I know about it. (Is that weird? I think it's a hangover from my teaching days.)

This morning's lecture, for instance, was "Orson Welles' Early Career." Beginning with his return to the U.S. after building his reputation in Ireland, through his work in theater and on radio, and ending with the RKO contract to make Citizen Kane. I think I had Orson Welles on my mind after recently seeing some drunken outtakes from his Paul Masson days.

The lecture went well, I thought. I was pleased with the way things turned out. But even then I was thinking, "So what? So you know what this movie director did. You still can't remember what John Wilkes Booth yelled or what years Julius Caesar was in power."

Perhaps I'm being a snob in thinking that one's more important than the others. Maybe the education industry conned me into thinking that way?or maybe the celebrity culture we live in has conned me into thinking that Orson Welles is more important than Julius Caesar.

Whatever the case, I was still frustrated. The thing is, it's not even the simple facts, regardless of their value. I've lost entire years of my own life, and I'm losing more and more as time goes on. I can remember scenes and random incidents?most of which come back to me in flashes while I'm talking to Morgan?but I have real trouble putting them in context or chronological order. My time in Minneapolis and Philly is the worst. Most of those days are simply gone. At least in Philly, I kept a journal of sorts by way of the column. I could always go back and read those 16-year-old stories to see what I was doing, if I so chose. I get the feeling, though, that it would make me very sad.

I get lost in the apartment. I forget what I'm doing while I'm doing it. (I'm guessing I should break down and see Memento one of these days, from what I've been told.)

While riding the elevator this afternoon, I heard a man say to the woman he was with, "Then I find out that yes, there is diabetes in my family. Can you believe it? You can have these seizures where all of a sudden, boom, you lose five minutes of your life."

Well, I have those. Plus I have a history of diabetes in my family.

Immediately I began to draw connections, but then I stopped myself. It was pointless, and I wasn't a hypochondriac. A lot of other things, maybe, but not a hypochondriac. Besides, there were too many other things I could point at already, without dragging diabetes into the mix (yet). Brain damage and shrinkage, years of regular drunkenness, creeping dementia, general stupidity.

Aww, Christ?what the hell was I talking about again? Doesn't much matter. As they say, Sic Semper Tyranis.