Losing the plot!

It was in the last couple of years that I started using a diary. Back in the days when filofax was all the rage, I never had one. I wasn't particularly organized or disorganized; I just never had that much going on. Life as a perpectual student had pretty much pre-empted any need for remembering to be anywhere at any particular time. You just kind of show up, or not, for whatever there is that is happening, or not.

But now I'm finding it hard to keep track of what I'm supposed to be doing each day. Where I'm supposed to be. Who I'm supposed to see. Not that I have a particularly busy professional or social life; I just can't bloody remember.

I was tempted to get a PDA last year and was glad that I didn't. I would have spent much time griefing over where the hell I put that damn thing and why the hell did I not remember to charge it up. Now I have a little notebook themed with pictures of Dali's paintings. It's pretty low-tech but even so I've managed to not remember where I'd put it too many times.

I guess this is an indirect way manner in which I mourn for the loss of my youth. Which I associate, rightly or not, with the loss of my ability to remember. It is really quite staggering. Like this lecture on Rawls I gave today, I wrote the lecture notes myself and have been using the same stuff for three, four years. Today when I got to criticisms of his theory, I looked at the notes and I'd forgotten what they mean. I looked at them and I did not know what those words were saying.

Luckily I'm still suffering from my cold so a fair amount of coughing and nose blowing bought me some time. I felt like improvising but nothing came up so I spinned a couple of borderline sick jokes instead. It was frightening. This means I might have to actually re-read stuff I'd read and re-prepare lectures I'd already prepared. Every year! Dementia cannot be far away.