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

[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,