pattrice tagged me with a meme, and I guess it is about time I get it done. The rules, which include posting the rules:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
Okay, now the 8 true things, which I have a feeling will be quite boring! pattrice is a hard act to follow.
1. My first dog’s name was Blaze. She (yes, she) was named after a dog in a book I read. The dog in the book was named….Blaze! The title of the book was also Blaze. I could tell you in excruciating detail what this book was about, and most of the story line, but I can’t find a link to this book no matter how hard I search. I was about 8 when I read the book, maybe 7, and my best friend read the book as well. We promised each other that the next animal either of us got would be named Blaze. She didn’t keep that promise, and everyone thought I was crazy for wanting to name a little girl dog Blaze, but I insisted. Blaze eventually grew to be a whopping 12 lbs, but the day we brought her home she dug up two garden snakes, and I think the name suited her better than anyone could have expected. (She never dug up another garden snake, oddly enough. Just that first day. I thought my dad was going to flip out.)
2. I think visually much of the time, which is both good and bad. Despite that, I seem to be able to talk endlessly, though there are things I absolutely can’t put into words if I think about it visually first. It is like having two languages inside me that don’t translate into each other. For some reason this reminds me of a book I read called “Train Go Sorry“.
3. I have a mild version of face blindness. (aka prosopagnosia) I’d never realized this until someone, who also has a mild version of this, pointed it out to me just one year ago. It was very strange to realize that not only was it more than just a result of having bad vision as a child, but that other people had this as well. I say that I have a mild version of it, but I have never seen a doctor about this or anything; actually, I’m not sure it would be diagnosed by a doctor or if it would matter if it had been. It makes me nervous in certain social situations, but overall it makes no difference in my life. I’ve always recognized people by their movements, voices, certain other patterns in their behavior or something else I can’t define, and it makes sense to me, so learning about face blindness is somewhat fascinating but isn’t something that I think about often.
4. I played oboe in high school.
5. One of my favorite cd’s to listen to growing up was of Mozart’s clarinet concertos. Mozart’s music always seemed very warm to me, and Beethoven’s rather clinical. I remember being surprised by a conversation with a friend in college who felt the opposite. He said that most people felt the opposite as me. He wasn’t saying it in a judgemental way, just as an interesting observation. I have no idea if he is right. Mozart’s music still seems warm to me, and Beethoven’s cold.
6. I fell in love with Tango before I realized that it was Tango I was listening to. I picked up a cd of Astor Piazzolla’s music a few years back and loved it. Someone remarked later that it was Tango music, which I hadn’t realized. For some reason I also didn’t connect Piazzolla with Argentina, though I knew of the connection between Tango and Argentina. I was surprised when I was in Argentina and was asked what kind of music I liked that they had not only heard of Piazzolla, they were thrilled that I said he was my favorite composer. (I often miss the ridiculously obvious connections.)
7. I hate TV.
8. I procrastinate all the time, and I hate that about myself, but I figure I’ll try to change it later.
Okay, I’m tagging, in no special order: colin, ryan, luke, ida, eric, ariix, mary, and kenneth.
Invisible Voices 
Who’s that cute dog?
The first one is your own sweet arlo, of course! The second is Sammy at Peaceful Prairie. 🙂
Hopefully I got all the names right. I’m pretty bad with names!
Funny, Angie Reed Garner has prosopagnosia as well and she and I discussed it because I mentioned that I can’t tell movie stars and actors apart. When it’s people I see daily I can tell them apart by their faces but for people I haven’t seen in while I really can’t recognize them… But I don’t know if it’s face blindness or just the fact that I don’t really look people in the face much due to shyness.
The first link I gave for the face blindness has this one article the woman wrote that I thought described things really well. She uses rocks to show that we have special software in our brains (my description) to recognize faces as opposed to rocks (her example). And then she does all these things to show why we have a hard time (with faulty face-recognition software) with recognizing people when they’re not in situations we’d expect them or their hair changes, etc.
I’ll never forget an old boyfriend showing me a picture of himself when he didn’t have longish hair and didn’t have the facial hair. “That’s not you!” was my reaction, and then I was sort of embarrassed. It was his old ID. It was clearly him, I just couldn’t see the resemblance. Sort of weird. I’ve almost not recognized my own mother as well. Once people move or speak or something it is easy.
I probably won’t recognize people if I’ve only seen their photograph and then meet them in person. Almost never in fact. But once I’ve met them in person I usually think their picture looks exactly like them. Strange, no?
I don’t know if it is the same thing as what you experience. I think that whatever it is can be different for every person, and to varying degrees. The wiki article talks about a woman who thinks her long-term lover is a stranger when she wakes up in the morning to see him in her bed. Compared to that, I consider myself to have a mild version of it.
Was Angie diagnosed by someone? I don’t even know how it would be diagnosed or who does the diagnosing. I haven’t actually done much research on it, even though I find it fascinating. I like understanding better what is going on in my brain, but …. ::shrug:: overall it is just a side note for me.
Hmmm, I don’t know if she’s been diagnosed, but she said she needs some help from her husband at art openings because people expect her to recognize them but often she can’t.
This is interesting to me because now I’m remembering a time when my mother said she didn’t know who I was and in fact did seem really lost and confused. So finally I was like “It’s me. It’s Neva.” Then she said “Oh, you plucked your eyebrows. I didn’t recognize you.” At the time I thought this was impossible. I had in fact plucked them but nobody else even noticed. But maybe it would actually be confusing to someone.
But for me movie stars with similar features and hair are tough for me. Sean makes fun of me, saying that to me every blonde actor is Matt Damon and every actress is some blonde actress. But sometimes he tries to trick me and says “hey it’s Gweneth Paltrow.” and sometimes I actually do know the difference.
From the little I’ve read, it is common in families. As far as I know, no one else in my family has this, but it is also something I haven’t really talked about. I had imperfect distance vision for much of my life – first because I didn’t want glasses, and then later because my vision seemed to change so much really fast after I’d gotten a new prescription, so it wouldn’t have been possible for me to see clearly enough until people were closer anyway, and by then i’d have a chance to recognize them by their movement or voice or something. So it wasn’t until after my vision had stabilized that i started to realize it wasn’t just a distance vision thing. I assumed it was because of that, though, until someone from a forum I was part of saw some random comment i made about this (I thought it was just a quirk of mine) and told me about face blindness.
So…who knows, maybe others in my family have this, and we just have all assumed it was one of our little quirks!
When my mom has drastically changed her hair (drastic to me anyway) I’ve had a hard time recognizing her.
I can see the movie star thing too. I think some actresses have such distinctive…something about them. Facial structure or movements or the combination that they are really recognizable across roles. Gweneth Paltrow is one for me, and … oh shoot, i’m really bad with names too. The tall redhead with curly hair? I feel like an idiot. And then there are others who, with relatively slight changes to their hair, completely confuse me!
I don’t think I’d be able to tell Matt Damon from a few of the others. Johnny Depp on the other hand…
😉
I was just telling a friend how odd it is. A year ago I’d never heard of this, and the only person I “knew” who also had it was the online acquaintance who also had it. And now you too, and one of your friends! I wonder if it is more common than we’d have thought? I somehow doubt it gets diagnosed very often, because we learn to adapt and might not even realize it isn’t normal.
I see that you tagged me. Thanks. Guess I have to see how this works and get to reciprocate when I have the time 😉 I hope I will find time to do it by this week.
Kenneth
Just one question: I presume that the person who tagged me (you) would not be one of the persons I select myself…I just mention that you tagged me at the start of my blog post. Is this correct?
I don’t even think I read 8 people’s blogs on a regular basis! I’ll do the best I can. BTW, I have played a few of Mozart’s clarinet concertos before. Ohh… I should put that as a random fact. 😀
Kenneth, you have it right – mention that I tagged you, but don’t tag me back! 🙂
Ida, I had a hard time with the 8 blogs part too. I know not everyone participates in memes, and might not appreciate being tagged, and I tried to tag people I hadn’t tagged before. Eh, do the best you can, have fun with it!
I look forward to learning more about you both! 🙂
I normally do not do more than one blog post per day, so I have already prepared a draft. If I have no news to comment on, I might post it today…if not, later this week. In any case, I’ll let you know. Thanks again.
Ida and Deb…in the draft I have prepared (which I may post today or later this week) I included a line saying that tagged people do not have to reciprocate if they do not wish to. I think that’s only fair. Of course, I hope they do, but I can understand that not everyone likes to participate in these things.
Ok…I decided to post it today: http://animalrightsmalta.blogspot.com/2007/07/memed-8-true-things.html
Pingback: 8 True Things (Meme) « Lacking Value
Thanks for posting Kenneth and Luke! 🙂
I finally did mine.
http://www.animalperson.net/animal_person/2007/07/memed-8-true-th.html
Done and done!
http://vegandinners.blogspot.com/2007/07/8-true-things-meme.html
I only tagged 3 people though.
Thanks Mary and Ida!