T - 41: "Memories, like the whatever whatever of my mind . . ."

This memory thing is starting to get to me.

Last night Sir Alan Sugar was TV. My mind went into hyperdrive. Alan Sugar, Alan Sugar. I know something about him, I thought, what is it? Then it hit me. "Alan Sugar! He's the guy who started Amstrad!" I blurted out to Linda.

She looked at me strangely - the way you might if your six-year-old child suddenly spoke fluent Greek. "Yes," she acknowledged, "that's right. They just said that when they introduced him on the show."

It seems I had remembered that Alan Sugar had founded Amstrad. I just forgot that I had heard it about three minutes earlier. So much for feeling like I had a great memory. It's a feeling I've become quite used to.

When I first noticed that my sharp edges were getting very fuzzy, I worried briefly that this not-remembering stuff may be something serious. Not Alzheimers, but some early sign that my wayward youth (and even more wayward adulthood) may have somehow damaged the little neurons that zip around the filing cabinet that is my brain. Or perhaps I had developed adult-onset attention deficit disorder. AADD, if you will.

But when I thought it about more, I realized that it was far more likely that I wasn't remembering lots of things because I was multi-tasking, which is a face-saving way to say I was not paying attention. When Alan Sugar was introduced on the show, I was reading a website while waiting for a good hand while playing poker online - and also listening to Linda talk about her day, as well.

Let me tell you, in the attention span sweepstakes, TV and the website would tie for the bronze medal. Poker - because it is for money - gets silver. Linda - because it is for things far scarier than losing money - wins gold. But to be fair, even getting first place doesn't stop her from complaining that I am selective in what I hear. Or at least I think that's what she said. I don't always pay attention.

The irony is that one of my early jobs was to be the memory guy for a politician I worked for. We'd go to a function or fundraiser, and it would be my job to spot someone heading toward us and say, "That's Mary Smith. She gave us $500 in the last campaign. Ask about her husband John, who just had minor surgery."

I could do this all night, my boss was considered a brilliant people-man who remembered everyone's name and knew a little bit about them. He was a pre-West Wing Martin Sheen in a very small pond.

Nonetheless, we lost the next election anyway. As I recall, memory isn't always as important as it's cracked up to be.