it's all about me. ME!

[jrtom]

(or, rather, meme. I always get those confused.)

Stolen from red_frog:

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really we know too much about each other.

I want you to tell me something you think I should know about myself. Something that should be true, but probably isn't.

Comment away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people think should be true about you.

Go ahead. I dare you. Make your day.

Comments

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

You harbor secret ambitions to be the VP of Sales and Marketing for Mattel.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

You think this should be true about me? *shudder* Marketing? SALES?

(I'd ask what I ever did to you, but I'd be afraid that you'd have an answer. :> )

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

I had to do it for a while. It'll be good for you--teach you the value of antiacids and deep breathing. (Whatever anyone else ever tells you, they're wrong: those people really are aliens. Or we are.)

My other idea was to suggest that you and Megan had switched identities and were in fact each other, only in very clever disguises.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I've already quit a job because I refused to put Blatant Lies in the documentation I was writing; technically this was by request of the CEO, but it was clearly for reasons of marketing. (The last straw: Feature X was on the list of features that we wanted to have for our about-to-be-released product, but our main hardware engineer had never managed to implement it, and we all knew that it wouldn't be done soon, if ever. Nevertheless I was told to put it in the documentation. On top of the incorrect specs that we were already publishing, this was too much; eventually I refused, and gave my notice--and told them exactly why.)

I keep telling people that either Megan or I is pregnant, and in about 2.5 months we're going to find out who...and people keep interpreting it as an allegory, or something. :)

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

I never understand why people think that that's a good idea. I mean, it's easily verified. All it does is make life difficult for people like me who have to answer why, even though a particular KB article says something, it is in fact not true.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

In this case I think that it was fairly straightforward: our CEO believed that whether the feature was there or not, making the claim that it was would increase our sales. Also, he wasn't the one that was going to have to answer the phone when people asked why they couldn't do X; I was.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

See, this is why they're aliens. I look at that and think, "Yeah, but if the feature isn't there and people talk to each other and find out that it's a LIE"--as they will--"then that's going to hurt sales.

Then again, this would be why you're no longer working for them.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

What is your earliest memory?

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I can only assume that this is a prefatory question, as it doesn't really fit the specified rubric.

Nevertheless...the back yard of our house in Alaska, in the summer, which means I would have been probably about 3. (We left the following summer, and I don't think this would have been from when I was 2.) I was up on our back porch, which was on the second floor, holding up a purple refrigerator "U" magnet to Mom, who was out in the garden, and saying something like "U, Mommy, it's a U!" (I'm told that I already knew at least part of the alphabet when I was 2, and Mom at least didn't act like my declaration was worthy of much notice.)

I'm curious to see where you go with this. :)

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Ooops. I misread the question, since there's another one that's been going around where you ask a question. I mistook this for one of those. Mea Culpa and disreguard.

I do think it says something interesting about you that your first memory involves showing how clever you were.

Weirdly, my first memory involves a red magnetic "U," but I was much younger. I use mine to illustrate the difference in thought between babies and older people.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I don't actually remember feeling like I was showing how clever I was. More like I was sharing this Cool Thing...although my memories of the attendant emotions are dim at best (and subject to accidental reconstruction as I try to examine them).

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

I can't remember: do you recall The Tomato Incident, or just what we told you about it?

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I remember the Cherry Tomato Incident, in some detail. (It's very important that it was a *cherry* tomato, after all.) But that happened after the "U" thing, I'm virtually certain.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

I don't know--I don't think I was present for The U Incident. I just wondered if you remembered the other one.

The other commenter's observation about what you first remembered struck me a bit, though. My first memory is of reaching up to open a door--the handle is within reach, but above me. (Based on the dress I was wearing, Mom says that I'd have to be about 18 months old for that one.) What if there is pattern to the first thing that you remember, that the first thing I remember was an incident when I was showing independence?

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I don't think you were there, either. Or at least I don't remember you being there. (On reflection, I find it interesting that we have to go forward a few years in order for me to dredge up a specific memory that involves a member of our family that isn't Mom.)

As to your hypothesis...that's an interesting thought. I could easily imagine it going both ways, though (that is, that one would find it easier to remember things that are consonant with one's current view of oneself, or that one's future character is visible--in part, at least--in one's earliest remembered actions).

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to imply you were showing off. The sharing of a cool thing I still enjoy,