Wrong & Wronger (Memory: F, Comprehension: D-)

Close readers of this blog might notice that in a dialogue below, Bobby has been mysteriously replaced by Mickey. I made this change to reflect what, apparently, actually happened.

It turns out it was Mickey who questioned the use of the k in Spanish, not Bobby, as I had recalled. Now, we're not talking about trying to remember a conversation from 1994 here. It happened maybe a week before I wrote that entry. Somehow in that time, my memory converted Mickey into Bobby. So much for my reportial plausability, eh?

I figure it like this: at the time, I thought it was an amusing exchange, but I didn't know I'd be returning to it. Later, as I was blogging, I decided I'd write about it, so I went back to the brain bits that stored the memory. But those bits were already on the conveyor belt to oblivion. I hauled them back, but some were already fried. But the brain doesn't like to admit it doesn't know what it's talking about. So instead of just telling me it didn't have part of the memory, my brain panicked, looked around and found a Bobby bit nearby (after 24 years together, there are lots of those lying around up there) and attached it to the now-exhumed memory.

So, my memory gets an F for the day. I really thought it was Bobby.

Alas, my Spanish comprehension gets a D-. I'm doing quite well here lately, and understand a lot of what's going on. But my brain fills in a lot of gaps by constructing, on the fly, what seem to be reasonable assumptions about what people said.

So, on Saturday, I met Martha and Mickey to see their fabulous home being renovated in San Telmo. As we were walking to lunch, Martha told me that she showed Mickey the blog. She said that he asked what its purpose was, she said it didn't have one, and he joked that in that case he wasn't going to read it any more because it was pointless. I laughed, implicitly agreeing that it is, in fact, pretty pointless.

Except no. That's not what Martha said at all. After lunch, the topic of my blog came up again and something stupid I said made it clear that I'd not understood Martha the first time around. Here's what she really said: She showed Mickey my blog, and when they got to the dialogue, Mickey was insulted because he had actually said the line that I claimed Bobby had said. Mock-offended, he said he wasn't going to read my blog any more.

Rather different, no?

Now here I get points for effort. Enough to pull me to a D-. Although I was 100% wrong, my brain did come up with a sort-of plausible (ok, less so with hindsight) interpretation of a conversation that it knew it wasn't understanding completely. One of the keys here is humor. Martha was telling me something amusing, and that's death to my comprehension. Almost everyone speeds up a little when they're telling a joke or an amusing anecdote. I never noticed this in English, but it's painfully obvious in Spanish. Punchlines are the worst, because they're not only fast, they also often have some sort of wordplay or slang. I always get nervous when I hear someone gearing up to tell something funny. But my cloaking skills are impressive. I am truly expert at finding exactly the right spot to laugh as if I had actually had a clue.

On a going forward basis, I think we should all assume that anything I say in this blog is about as truth-based as any random page from the writings of James Frey.