DesMoines

Never been there. Never been to Iowa. (It is in Iowa, right? I always get Idaho and Iowa confused, being that I've never been to either of them, they're both short words that start with I, and they're both way the hell out west somewhere. Have I mentioned my geography is terrible? My geography is HORRIBLE.)

DesMoines is important in the Graceless lexicon because it was code between my old boss and me. He and I worked together for nine years. Sometimes, he said, he'd feel like we were having a normal conversation and then all of a sudden he found himself in DesMoines and he didn't know how he got there. (Usually, I would back up and trace my thoughts for him -- "Well, we were talking about X which made me think of Y and then you said Z which brought me to G in my head and that's why I said H just now." Most times, things would make more sense then. Sometimes, not so much. My brain is a strange and scary place, even for me.)

So, anytime I lost him, he'd say, "We're in DesMoines."

Here's the thing: I am all about context.

This same former boss used to get a little annoyed with me, because any time he would mention a year, I would say, "I was X years-old." He thought this was me rubbing in the fact that he was basically old enough to be my father. It wasn't. Really, not even a little. It's just how my brain works.

For example, my mom died just over nine months ago. What do I keep thinking? If I had gotten myself pregnant right around the time she died, I'd be having a baby right around now. Does this mean my biological clock is ticking out of control? No. It's just that that's the most obvious thing to link to that amount of time.

Here's how I translate other blocks of time:
8 hours = a work day
6.5-7.5 hours = about how long it takes to drive home to NY
3 hours = a derby practice
2 hours = a movie
1 hour = an episode of most tv shows, or the time it takes to get to Portland
1/2 an hour to 45 minutes = time to travel to various places (depending on the amount of time)
7 minutes = the time it takes to microwave a Stouffer's macaroni and cheese dinner

Two years is how long I spent in grad school, or how long I played roller derby -- depends on the situation which one I think about. Two and a half years is the amount of time my mom was really sick. Four years is the span of college (or high school, but since college was more recent, it usually wins).

As my old boss figured out, I do it with years, too. Anything from 1943-1953, I think about how old my dad would've been. Anything from 1953-1975, I think about how old my mom was. Anything from 1975-1979, I think how old my sister was, or how many years it was before I was born. Anything after 1979, I calculate my own age at the time or what grade I was in. If it's around 1982, I might think about how old my little sister was. With some years, I think about significant things that happened then (graduations, deaths, major world events, etc.).

I'm kind of random, I admit that, but not as much as you might think. Inside the creepy, dark recesses of my brain, there are all these fine little webs that tie things together.

And maybe that's what happened to my grandpa in those last years before he died: The webs got untied. He couldn't link things together anymore, and that's why he forgot. For that last little bit, he pretty much lived in DesMoines.