memorys_odd_work lycanthrope I search for the important things but recall strangely clearer the time I overran my flip flops and stubbed my big toe on a hot concrete pool deck than I do many dates I've been on The carmine dragon kite unfurling and racing down the mountain of my big toe and pooling with the divorcing syrup and water of the dropped popsicle and the pain and tears offered up to a blue sky in cloud lingerie  are accessible, in mint condition. Even of the dates I mostly remember the waiter's tepid laugh and the fuchsia press on nails more than the content of the conversations which I think involved project management and the health struggles of a childhood cat. I can taste the bottled cola and hear the pinball's multiball mode in a laundromat more than I can work out the precise last words of my father.   There is still space in me for the three letter top scorer, TED, whose identity we tried to triangulate by naming all Ted's we knew, and all those with the initials T-E-D, but I have no purchase on what we intended to do if we ever found him. The password I need to pay my mortgage which I've changed 10 times in the past year eludes me, but I remember a little old lady hunched with other little old ladies at some party for something thumbing through a rosary and fingering mahjong tiles at the same time.   I don't know what my story was or her story was, she was someone's cousin or aunt or both I'm sure, and she has probably passed. I can't imagine she ever considered that she would have a place to sit and laugh, click tiles, swear under her breath and hail mary for as long as my mind retains anything. for all I know these three memories may one day be all that's left to me all I can offer up feebly when someone looks at me their eyes beset with their own memories  searching me for the important things.   and they'll all laugh kindly when I suggest they name my grandchild either Ted or the taste of cola.   230106 what's it to you? who go blather from