And you are...?

All my life, I've had an obnoxious knack for faces, and my memory of names actually seems to be improving with age. When I meet people, I tend to remember not only when and where we met, I can clearly recount the conversation topic and my initial opinion of that person. I, on the other hand (as a cruel twist of fate would have it), make an apparently negative if not entirely forgettable first impression. A good friend of mine once confessed that he barely remembered our first encounter except for the vague perception that I had zero personality whatsoever. Another told me she thought I was incredibly arrogant before getting to know me. Most people don't recall meeting me for the first time at all.

This dichotomy does not cause problems for the frequent traveler, as he or she would be constantly switching up friends and locals; repeated introductions are rare and excused, and one who moves around sees fewer familiar faces. When one has an impeccable memory and stays close to home, however, one must learn to keep little discoveries to oneself. In my own experience, I do not always follow this rule of thumb because I'm generally delighted to see faces from my past in their present-day state, and I make the (often incorrect!) assumption that these people will be equally pleased to be reacquainted with me. I've become quite familiar with the different faces of one desperately trying to recollect where he or she knows me. People who try to be polite about it use vacantly birght expressions and a feigned enthusiasm as though they have missed me a great deal, using generic phrases like, "Hey...you!..." Less polite people get dismissive, weird-ed out or defensive, interpreting my recognition as either a mistake or an expectation for them to remember me with equal clarity. The most common reaction I've found, however, involves a squinting of the eyes and a slight furrowing of the brow, a head tilt, sometimes a biting of the lip or a slight extension of the neck. Sentences are preceded by searching noises, the "uhhhh" sound of reopening whatever dusty acquaintances-you-don't-need-to-remember box in which I was placed in his or her brain.

I'm not sure exactly when I first realized I was cursed with such an affliction, but I think I could safely point to my first day of middle school, as a lonely sixth grader who had just been transplanted from home school to public school. The teachers packed us into the cafeteria to give us time to mingle before introducing us to policies and things of that nature, a nightmare situation since I didn't know a single person in my grade. As I searched the sea of faces, I suddenly recognized Chris, a boy who had been in my kindergarten class for all of three days, and during that time had kissed me and declared me his girlfriend. It wasn't much, but I was desperate for contact, so I sat down at the same table and tried to make conversation out of the cute little memory.

"Chris? Wow, hey...Mallory Kimbrell...we were in the same kindergarten class for a little while, you were my first 'boyfriend'..."

Painfully long seconds passed before I realized he hadn't the slightest idea who the crazy girl talking about kindergarten was. He frowned in uninterested confusion and said, "Um...really? Yeah, I had a lot of 'girlfriends' in...kindergarten..." then promptly turned his back to me.

Retrospect has taught me since that most normal people forget things like that entirely, or at the very least, have the good sense not to think that a three day relationship at the age of six would be a lasting memory for both parties involved.

I have the memory of a creeper without the desire to be one. Facebook worsened the problem, as it provides a visual associated with a name and therefore makes memorization even easier, and thanks to time killed by flipping through "mutual friends" online, I could probably have identified half of my graduating class at Belmont before actually meeting them. Classes involving group work of any kind, especially language courses, tend to be my saving grace, as the average person consciously learns the identity of other group members out of necessity and a sense of camaraderie. In lecture classes, however, I've trained myself not to learn the names and faces of my classmates so as not to confuse them with people I've actually had conversations with when I'm walking across campus. When it comes to living situations, unless I am already friends with my neighbors, I rarely bother to introduce myself. My current downstairs neighbor introduced himself to me at least two or three days in a row and he still doesn't know my name.

During our three month relationship, an ex-boyfriend and I had a running joke; I accidentally called him "buddy" during a conversation, which he said was emasculating, so he, in turn, began referring to me as "champ" or "sport", saying it was only fair. A few weeks after our breakup, I passed him on campus and we stopped to talk. He paid me a compliment and I automatically responded with, "Thanks, buddy." He then proceeded to tell me, without a hint of irony in his voice, about this girl he knew who referred to him as "buddy" and it was a term he found emasculating...kind of like a guy calling a girl "champ" or "sport"...

When I quit my job as a server at Rafferty's, during which I worked eight hour shifts every night for two and a half months, my manager called out to the staff, "Hey, everyone, it's Mallory's last night, be sure you say goodbye!" to which two of my fellow servers responded with, "...Who?" I moved on to Starbucks, where employees were encouraged to learn the names and drinks of regulars. One such regular, let's call him Bill, came in at least five times a week, usually when I was closing. He was always polite and engaged in small talk as I took his order or fixed his drink. On one of my nights off, a guy I knew asked me to add backup vocals to a school project. Shortly after entering his house, I ran into his roommate, who just so happened to be Bill, and my acquaintance introduced us.

"Oh yeah," I said brightly, "I've seen you before, you come into Starbucks all the time when I'm working."

An all too familiar crease between the eyebrows, cock of the head and biting of the lip. "Mmmm...nope, don't really remember you, sorry."

No big deal, few customers recognized me out of uniform. We made the smallest of small talks before I continued upstairs to do the recording. The following morning, I was working at the regester when Bill walked in the door.

"Good morning!" I said, smiling with warm familiarity. "Did you get to listen to the recording when it was finished?"

"Sorry?"

"I said, did you get to listen..." and then realized I was receiving the same vacant head tilt and frown from the night before. "We met? ...Last night?"

"...Oh...yeah...um, haven't had coffee yet..."

People make a variety of excuses when they don't recognize me. Time passed, of course, is the easiest and oldest in the book ("Wow, sorry, it's just been forever"). Many blame a change in my hair color or length ("Wow, sorry, it's just that your hair is different every time I see you") which I don't find particularly valid, considering my face's tendency to look the same despite the appearance of my hair. Older individuals dismiss their blunder as a result of being older, as if the accumulation of years is reason enough to stop paying attention (of course, this may be one I become more sympathetic to later in life, if my elephant brain ever decides to go). Most of the time, the guilty party relies on their general forgetfulness as a legitimate excuse. According to these people, it is more awkward to forget than to be forgotten because they feel like a jerk when forced to recollect a name or face they didn't commit to memory. As one perpetually on the other side of that conversation, I think I would prefer feeling like a flighty jerk to feeling like a voyeur, some creepy girl you met once through a friend of a friend or who sat next to you in a gen ed class during the spring semester of eleventh grade. I think I would also prefer feeling like a jerk to feeling invisible.

When I fail to make a dazzling impression on someone (or any impression at all), it calls into question the flattering opinion I have of myself as an interesting person. Like most socially-inclined people, I aspire to be viewed as smart and witty and conversational, to be someone you think of later and say to yourself, My, what a delightful individual that Mallory girl is! Perhaps I should call her this week and invite her to my super fun party. She would fit right in with my exceptionally cool and attractive group of friends. Unfortunately, reality clashes heavily with this rosy self-perception as I tend to clam up when meeting new people, listening quietly and choosing to reveal the more personable facets of my personality only when I trust that they are as interested in me as I am in them. I don't like to volunteer information about myself, and this shyness often communicates a cold aloofness, if that much; more often than not, it fails to communicate anything at all. People forget me because I withhold anything worth remembering, using meekness as a means of discerning the fleeting acquaintances from potential friends. If you want to get to know me, I assume that you will ask. In the meantime, I'll sit patiently with my beer and enjoy hearing about you, laughing at all the appropriate moments in your story, asking all the right questions, and involuntarily remembering almost everything you say.

Olfactory System, Rejoice!

Give me a lungful of fall air and I'm never sorry to see summer come to a close. I draw autumn around me like an old soft sweater; as crunchy leaves litter the street, I can't help but feel a crisp sense of anticipation. New beginnings have a habit of creeping into my life around this season. I think it coincides with the blank slate of a commencing school year, when everything is new; new notebooks, new classes, new clothes, new faces. Most of my previous romantic relationships blossomed sometime between the first day of school and Thanksgiving. I make more resolutions in early September than I do in January. While I'm a far cry from the stereotypical nature-lover, I dare you to try keeping me contained when it cools off outside. Autumn's aroma makes my head swim; glaze it with bonfire, and I could easily give up exhaling altogether and simply explode from joy. It's a fresh, exciting scent I've never been able to describe accurately, full of mystery and silhouetted forest and pumpkin carving and hayrides and chunky handmade scarves. I have a theory it relates to the leaves. After all, leaves never reveal more beauty than in their last phase of life on the tree, transforming from a demure green to a shocking and most unladylike orange or scarlet. It would not surprise me if the caliber of oxygen produced during this time of emblazoned wild abandon was, at the very least, eight times the quality of ordinary air.

The smell of snow is another favorite of mine, although it is unfortunately rare in the south. Nashville winters consist of much wetter and clumsier precipitation, and the resulting bouquet reminds one much more of soggy backyards than garlands and goodwill to all men. When snow does grace us with her presence, however, I revert back to December of 1992, the only white Christmas I've ever experienced. Every clouded breath shrinks me further into my four-year-old self; shrill voice, giant eyes, bird legs and all. Even if it's only a suggestion of frost in the air, it stirs the dusty corners of my memory. While autumn smells of the future and possibility, winter smells distinctly of the past. It smells like ornaments and nostalgia and holidays that should never be celebrated alone. One might also detect a whiff of tension, though it is difficult to say why. There is an unexplained depth and stillness in the breath of winter that can be unsettling if paid close enough attention.

These, of course, are not to be confused with spring's essence, which smells like inexperienced photosynthesis performed by the brave green pubescent buds of April; that atmosphere is one of trial and error, and its gentle wind calls to mind images of heavy prom corsages and yearbook signing and wet grass and early morning exams taken while wearing pajamas. Spring air, to me, does not inspire audacity so much as sloth and an impatience for the freedom of summer (when sloth is entirely excusable, if not expected). Many of those previous relationships that began in the fall ended abruptly in the spring, killed by sheer lack of motivation. Once we unwrapped ourselves from the cozy, asleep sensation of winter, there were far too few reasons to stay together, and so we either went looking for spring in the eyes and arms of someone else or felt quite content to lounge in solitude amidst the baby soft pinkness of spring's breezes.

Summer air, especially in Nashville, is so rude that it is practically nonexistent. Humidity has an indelicate way of smothering the palate (or just smothering, in general), and it grieves me to no end that Nashville summers always overstay their welcome. I don't care for summer, really, and I care even less for the smells of summer unless I am particularly in the mood for a noseful of lake water or bug spray. True, there are the more pleasant, coconutty fragrances one associates with the ocean, like sunscreen and saltwater, but they are rarely the first to come to my mind. Almost every member of my extended family lives in some part of Florida, and as we visited relatives at different times throughout the year, I don't immediately think "summer" when I think "beach." My warm weather memories reek of camp; the hot plastic mattresses in cedar bunks, mildewed laundry bags, mowed grass, chlorine, and the sharp powdery stench of fireworks. Those smells flavor the otherwise drab, odorless void of summertime, the seasonal equivalent of tofu.

Perhaps my aversion to summer's lack of air is what truly makes the scents of fall so remarkable to my weary nostrils. My respiratory system grows so accustomed to settling for next to nothing, to swallowing the thickness of June, July and August...is it any wonder my cells sing with relief when temperatures lower to a breathable level? Is it really so surprising that my oxygen-deprived mind awakens suddenly, clear and ready to embark on any adventure presented? Air, friends, makes all the difference. The simple act of breathing in makes exciting possibilities possible.

Oh, refreshing taste of the October evening!
Allow me to drink this Tang-tinged dusk with thirsty exultation.

When Switters was less than a year old, his grandmother had stood before his highchair, her hands on her still glamorous hips. "You're starting to jabber like a damn disk jockey, " she said. "Pretty soon you'll be having a name for me, so I want to make this clear: you are not to insult me with one of those déclassé G words, like granny or grams or gramma or whatever, you understand; and if you ever call me nannie or nana or nonna--or moomaw or big mama or mawmaw--I'll bust your cute little chops. I'm aware that it's innate in the human infant to produce M sounds followed by soft vowels in response to maternalistic stimuli, so if you find it primally necessary to label me with something of that ilk, then let it be 'maestra.' Maestra. Okay? That's the feminine form of the Italian word for 'master' or 'teacher.' I don't know if I'll ever teach you anything worthwhile, and I sure as hell don't want to be anybody's master, but at least maestra has got some dignity. Try saying it."

Little more than a year later, when he was two, the child had marched up to his grandmother, pinned her with his already fierce, hypnotic green eyes, planted his hands on his hips, and commanded, "Call me Switters." Maestra had studied him for a while, had puzzled over his sudden identification with his none too illustrious surname, and finally nodded. "Very well," she said. "Fair enough."

--Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates by Tom Robbins