This is one of those things I'd love to blame on law school, and perhaps I can, though not with full believability...

And it isn't working at a comic shop that makes this come to light, exactly, though in some ways it is, as strange as it sounds, because so much comics and anime and sf in general pulls from mythic or classical or literary themes...

Put succinctly, it's this: my memory sucks. I was once the posterchild for undergraduate overspecialization. I could never have told you anything about what happened in, say, the 19th century in Europe, but once I could have quoted passages of Beowulf or Chaucer and explained their historical and sociological significance. I could have explained fully the different artistic styles of the Classical Era, I could have quoted with relish commentary which Caesar used to describe the horrid Celtic brutes he was fighting. I could have told you the most likely sources (such as, say, Plutarch) of the information in Shakespeare's plays, or explained the significance of a blind cupid etched over a door in 1600's England.

I already know my memory is travelling on to better places. Junior high and high school are faded in my mind, like photographs left out in the desert, beaten by the sun and the sand. I can still see lots of pieces, but the context is ever more and more unclear. And it is all the more odd and disturbing for the people around me who will say "Oh yeah, remember when..." and I often don't, not really...

And as it begins to happen to my undergraduate days too it makes me feel as though I'm getting stupider (to coin a term). These bits of literary and historical trivia which once I knew now slip oh so slowly and inexorably through my fingers. Frustration is certainly an aspect, but stronger than this is a feeling of near-shame, wanting to duck my head and avoid the conversation where I say "Oh yeah, Beowulf, what was that now? I remember something about Cotton. Where did that come from?"

I suppose some things in life it would be comforting to forget, but those are the things somehow I know I never will. Talk about frustration. Instead, I get to feel lazy for not pulling out all my old books and starting to recreate this knowledge I've lost to time...

I suppose it's too bad I don't like pot. At least then I'd have an excuse.