In which I know nothing at all

On By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized

amnesia2

Today’s Daily Prompt:

You’re 12 years old. It’s your birthday. Write for ten minutes on that memory. GO.

I can only do this if I type very slowly, because I  r e m e m b e r   n o t h i n g.  Nothing at all.  Zip.  Zilch.  I found out in one of my grad school classes that some non-trivial percentage of adults can remember little more from, say, 10 to 14 than they can from birth to 5.  I have more clear memories from elementary school than I do from seventh and eighth grade, although I guess if I was turning 12 I’d have been in between sixth and seventh, since I was young for my grade.  At any rate, I’ve got nothing at all and even filibustering for a few sentences I’ve only been writing for a minute or so.

(Man.  I’ve been sitting here for several more minutes and I can’t come up with a birthday party story in general worth telling.  Let’s turn this one on you guys: what do you think my twelfth birthday party must have been like?  ENTERTAIN ME WITH YOUR LIES.)

(Real post later; I’ve got a meeting this afternoon so I’m killing an hour at home for lunch.)

More answers to this question after the jump:

  1. Care to Dare | Rima Hassan
  2. BFF | Perspectives on life, universe and everything
  3. Tinkerbell’s home | Perspectives on life, universe and everything
  4. Daily Prompt: Shake It Up- Family | Journeyman
  5. Brent’s Ten Dollar Idea And The Daily Prompt | The Jittery Goat
  6. Daily Prompt: Shake It Up | Incidents of a Dysfunctional Spraffer
  7. Daily Prompt: Shake it Up | tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice
  8. Prayer for Faith | Daily Prompt: Shake it Up | likereadingontrains
  9. Happy Birthday to Me | Knowledge Addiction
  10. Daily Prompt: Ten Minutes of Nothing | Under the Monkey Tree
  11. Twelve | I’m a Writer, Yes I Am
  12. Twelve: Daily Prompt | alienorajt
  13. Daily Prompt – Reckless – Broken |
  14. My Day. | Crossroads
  15. [M.M.X.I.V. 55] Snowball fight (Fiction) | Never A Worry
  16. Daily Prompt: Shake it Up | seikaiha’s blah-blah-blah
  17. DP Daily Prompt: Shake it Up | Sabethville
  18. Birthdays | Sinister Pacifism
  19. Twelfth birthday | Sue’s Trifles
  20. Birthday cake | dandelionsinwind
  21. Daily Prompt: Shake it Up | littlegirlstory
  22. Childhood Birthday Bashes | Anecdotes | WANGSGARD.COM
  23. Reckless: Daily Post | Destino
  24. Shake It Up: Twelve | A Patchwork Life
  25. thoughtsofrkh
  26. Never having had a birthday party I worry about how to throw one for my son « psychologistmimi
  27. The amazing recollections of a nothing birthday for your reviewing pleasure. | thoughtsofrkh
  28. Wendy Karasin – Musings of a Boomer
  29. Daily Prompt: Shake It Up-Reckless | My Father’s Garden
  30. A Gloomy Birthday. | Asta’s Space
  31. Daily Prompt: Shake It Up! « Mama Bear Musings
  32. 54/365 reckless | @vannilla
  33. A blown-out candle | MC’s Whispers
  34. Daily Prompt: Shake It Up | Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss
  35. In my pink B’day dress | Tale of Two Tomatoes
  36. Swinging in the Air | Flowers and Breezes
  37. BIRTHDAYS AND OTHER DAYS OF JOY | SERENDIPITY
  38. Too Dull To ‘Shake It Up’ | Cats, Coffee, And Life At Random
  39. Daily Prompt: Shake it Up | Of Glass & Paper
  40. Shake It Up! My Brain Has No Memories Of My Twelve Birthday. | Lisa’s Kansa Muse
  41. Daily Prompt: Being Twelve! | All Things Cute and Beautiful
  42. Happy Birthday Chump! | Views Splash!
  43. Daily Prompt: Shake it Up | Sued51’s Blog

18 thoughts on “In which I know nothing at all”

  1. Deborah the Closet Monster

    I’m with you on this one. But then. If I asked my just-younger sister, I’m sure she’d remember in great detail. I’m glad someone does!

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  8. Twelve is a random age, anyway. What is that seventh grade? I do have some elementary or junior high birthday memories, but don’t ask me WHICH birthday they’re for. Not sure.

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  9. Pingback: [M.M.X.I.V. 55] Snowball fight (Fiction) | Never A Worry

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  17. Twelve. 1986. The year we moved from Denver to Houston. We’d only been in Denver a year, and I didn’t have a lot of friends. I think maybe Darshi had already moved away. Maybe. If I had a party it would have been just the neighbor kids. Haley, a year younger; Bree, a year older; Bree’s younger sister whose name I forget. Melissa? I have no recollection of such a party. I wonder if that was the year my grandfather mailed birthday cakes. No, couldn’t be; he died in 1986. December. Right after I got braces. Our birthdays are all in the summer, so it could have been. Mailed birthday cakes are awesome, gigantic, squished messes of smeared icing and crumbled cake, and oh so delicious. At least those were.
    I don’t think I had a party. It’s possible that’s the year I got my first ten-speed, which is also the time Haley and I (I think) camped out in the back yard, peeking through the windows because we suspected my father was up to something. I might have gotten the bike for Christmas; that year in Denver was the year all the kids made fun of my pink and white Huffy with the banana seat, and I craved that grown-up bike like nothing else ever. But I don’t think it was a Christmas present. I don’t think I ever rode that bike to that school. Not that it would have made a difference; I wouldn’t have fit in with those kids no matter what I did.
    Sometime after my twelfth birthday – possibly also sometime after my brother’s tenth, but probably before my sister’s second – we piled all our things into my parents’ two cars – the station wagon and the Subaru, which was technically also a station wagon but not so long and flat as the station wagons I was used to – and drove south. The cat was in the station wagon with me and Mom. She did not want to go, and scratched me rather badly. Then she huddled on the floor panting. It was too hot for all that fur. We discovered she liked Cheerios. We stopped on the way to see the Cadillac Ranch. Eleven fancy cars upended in dirt, evidence that too much money makes people insane. Welcome to Texas.

    Fun prompt, thank you! 🙂

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  18. your brain was pruning itself…science explains your memory loss…don’t panic. Until you forget what you did yesterday…then you can panic…

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