Something 4 The Weekend # 224

Grant Hart: Intolerance: "2541" [mp3]

The memories crowd in on one another, and as I get older, it becomes more difficult to discern how old any of them are. Lunch last Wednesday seems as long ago as that night I fucked a girl who's actual, given name was Bunny.

All those summers spent driving around the western states merge into one seemingly endless road trip, and so it doesn't seem to matter whether or not I traveled with Ike in '96 or '87 or '88 or maybe he was with Biff and me in '93, or Katie and Amy and Rachel and Dave in '85. I do remember he recorded a frame drum part for a Sufi dude in Sonoma because that was some of the best hash I ever smoked in my life. I think Frank was there that year. Frank was definitely along for the ride in '88 because that was the year of all the forest fires.

I had a Moons Over My Hammy sandwich, fries and a Coke at Denny's last Wednesday.

They say time seems to move faster the older you get, and at 45, that seems to be true, which might explain why the memories crowd together and lose some of their context and chronology, like home movies that aren't date-stamped. They also say that near death, your life flashes before your eyes, and of course that makes perfect sense, that at the end of our lives, all those accumulated memories are piled thick and endless, depthless, on top of one another.

And then we die.

If there is an afterlife, and we get to keep all those memories, perhaps eternity means that time ceases to exist or have meaning, and so our memories have a chance to spread out, slow down, so that we can take our leisure with them. Relive any moment of our lives with a clarity and understanding that even exceeds the moments themselves. To reunite with old friends, long forgotten, and family we lost. Reliving afternoons with my grandpa at the Milwaukee Public Museum, or Schlizt brewery. That slow and steamy encounter with Bunny. Our family's vacation to Florida in '76, or all those long weekends camping up in Plymouth.

Which I guess suggests we try our best to make the memories good ones.

Of course, I tend to believe that when our body dies, so does our consciousness. Nevertheless, we should still try to make the memories worthwhile.

Hotcha! Hank