On Dopplegangers and Memory

The other day, I heard a loud honking outside. I went out and there were Mark and his car, Clive. Like a mother penguin recognizing her penguin babe's squawk in a sea of penguins, I'd recognized Clive's plaintive toot.

The fact that people can have such distinctly differing features, even though our range of features are limited, (eyes, nose, mouth, hair, skin color) baffles me. Only on rare occasion will I spot Mark's doppleganger. You'd think in large cities we'd run into each other's dopplegangers all the time.

Oliver Sacks wrote an excellent article in The New Yorker about a man with a severe case of amnesia. I'm surprised to find it online because the article was so intriguing and well-written.

Sacks' subject was 'Memento' personified. Every few minutes, his memory would reset, and he'd have no memory of what had just happened. You could come into the room, be introduced, and a moment later, he'd ask you who you were. He'd look at you as if he just woke up from a dream. (Interestingly, the amnesia patient was also named Clive. No relation).

Human Clive's diary entries were the most incredible things. Here's an excerpt from Sacks' article:

'His journal entries consisted, essentially, of the statements “I am awake” or “I am conscious,” entered again and again every few minutes. He would write: “2:10 P.M: This time properly awake. . . . 2:14 P.M: this time finally awake. . . . 2:35 P.M: this time completely awake,” along with negations of these statements: “At 9:40 P.M. I awoke for the first time, despite my previous claims.” This in turn was crossed out, followed by “I was fully conscious at 10:35 P.M., and awake for the first time in many, many weeks.” This in turn was cancelled out by the next entry.'


Even though Clive forgot pretty much everything - the present moments, and gradually, his long term memory, he retained a deep emotional memory. He remained married to his wife of twenty years, although they eventually lived apart. She'd walk into the room and he'd light up. When she was away, he felt blue.

In was inexplicable why Clive would light up around his wife, even though he'd forget things like repeated trips they took to Europe, their years together and whatever she'd tell him five minutes before. Sacks determined there was a deeper emotional memory that transcended facts, figures, even faces.

I thought about all this after racing out of the subway tonight and seeing Mini Cooper Clive parked across the street. I crossed at the light, opened the door and without a thought, plopped into the passenger's seat.

Clive could have easily been his doppleganger, another green Mini Cooper with certain rims and a certain antenna and certain side view mirrors. There aren't that many distinguishing features to choose from. I could easily have opened the door and plopped into the seat beside a completely different person than Mark. And then what?

It would've been an awkward moment. Unless Mark's doppleganger were driving Clive's doppleganger.


Photo by myself in Union Square.

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Car Goes Boom Boom

Clive died today.

I was playing hooky from work, so Mark and I drove out to Lawn Guyland to lunch with his mum. It was cold out but I was dressed for an indoor experience - tee shirt, jeans jacket, thin pants and sneakers. It was just supposed to be lunch and a walk around a mawl. That's it.

What happened was this - we had a filling lunch of corned beef sandwiches, fries, slaw and pickles. And then Clive was found dead in the parking lot, refusing to wake up.

Mark waited for the tow truck, while his mum and I walked the mile down the icy sidewalk to her place. The wind was blowing. Traffic whizzed by. We held hands to steady ourselves. We laughed at how much closer the restaurant seemed by car and how much worse it could have been (if it were raining, if we'd been in the middle of nowhere, if we were in New Jersey).

The flat soles of my sneakers skidded along. She'd fallen and broken her hip exactly one year before. We finally got to her place, then drove back for Mark and then to the Mini Cooper place nearby.

Clive was there, held helplessly aloft on the back of a truck, held steady with two cables. He looked smaller than usual, and a little apologetic. Later, Mark and I navigated his mum's car through traffic, back to Brooklyn.



One day next summer, I'll have to take a photo around dusk, showing the view of New York from the LIE with whole skyline lit up. There's the classic spire of the Empire State Building (tonight its lights were white), the tiered top of Chrysler Building, the jaunty slope of the Citicorp tower. It is a wall of lights and billboards that make New York look like a vast, indomitable monster.

I could see how impossibly big the city could look to someone who doesn't have a foothold already there. It's scary. And it looked bigger tonight without our dear Clive.


Photo by myself of Clive in Lawn Guyland.

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Good News

Part One
It turns out my request at work for two more people for my team had been misunderstood. And a deadline was unexpectedly extended by a couple weeks. Woohoo!! When does that ever happen? I'm relieved. I can't do the late nights and weekends anymore. Nope.

The other night I went to the gym for the first time in many months. I went with a coworker to a gym a block from the office, on a free pass. She took classes (kickboxing and circuit training), while I dashed to the cardio room.

It was great - I used the elliptical machine for 45 minutes, then I lifted weights. I am sadly, pathetically, out of shape. It was tough to do my weight routine and see how tiny my arm muscles have become. I was doing red-faced repetitions with 12-pound weights, while big sweaty guys were heaving 65-pound weights all around me. I ended the evening sitting in the sauna, breathing in the hot air and just sweating. It was wonderful.

Friday found me tired and achy, but I'm keen on getting back into the routine. Later today, I'll be visiting the gym in my neighborhood. I'm hoping the exercise will help me with the work stress and tone me up. We shall see. I'm not counting chickens quite yet.

Part Two
Saturday, to unwind, Mark and I ventured to an Indian restuarant in Park Slope, part of our Expanding our Brooklyn Restaurant List Quest. En route, we saw beautiful Brooklyn brownstones, like the one above, that make this city so picturesque. There were leaves everywhere, some carved pumpkins on doorsteps and the occasional stoop sale.

We also noticed that there were bajillions of Mini Coopers. Well, maybe not bajillions, but eight or ten, which is twice as many as there were at the Mini Cooper Rally the other week.




There were a couple red ones, a silver one, a black one, a white one. On the side street where we parked, Clive was one of three Mini Coopers, each wedged into a wee, Mini Cooper-sized spot. They are such trusty urban cars.

It was nice to leave Clive on the street, while we had our delicious Indian meal, knowing he'd be happy with his buddies.





Photos by myself in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

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Clive

I have to admit that Clive, Mark's car, makes our New York experience highly abnormal. Unless you do pretty well, you can't own a car easily in Manhattan. Parking garages are expensive, and spaces on the street are hard to find. It's much easier to keep a car in Brooklyn, but moving your car twice a week to avoid street cleaning is a &^#$* pain.

Clive's name refers to his British roots. Mini Coopers are engineered by BMW and assembled in Britain. A Mini Cooper S, Clive has a 1.6 liter, 4-cylinder supercharged, 214 horsepower engine. Whatever that means. He's got a six-speed manual transmission, sunroof and all sorts of other doodads.

Clive travels like a little roadster (meaning, not a cushy luxury ride). He zips merrily along country roads but suffers a bit on the bumpy BQE, where some potholes just about swallow him up.



Instead of staying around during the marathon today, we journeyed to a Mini Rally of sorts in upstate New York. I say 'of sorts' because there were five Mini Coopers total. So...a Mini Mini Cooper Rally.

The idea was to tour around the scenic roads a couple hours north of the city to admire the foliage. I didn't realize til too late that this meant getting up at 7am on a Sunday and coping with a troubled tummy. It was a little rough at first, but in the end, I was glad to have gone.

We met the other drivers, many for the first time. Mini owners are 'enthusiasts' (a complete lie. They are nuts). These people love to congregate online and in real life to talk Minis. They love their cars.




Today began with the initial comparing of cars (2002 models versus 2004, versus 2006), tailpipes, rims (black, silver, the number of spokes), and gearshift knobs. Then there was a photo shoot. Someone brought a nice HD video camera. Finally, we launched onto the hilly roads in single formation, careening through the hairpin turns at top speed and stopping a couple times to admire the view.

The leaves were in full color and while we parked on the side of a mountain, we could see paragliders circling above, alongside the red-tailed hawks. It was a peaceful moment.

By the time we got home, it was only 2 pm. There were still some runners out, barricaded streets and policemen shepherding traffic. We got found a nice spot on the street without too much trouble.




For more on Mini Coopers, check out their very cool site here.
Top photo by Mark of Clive last fall in Long Island.
Other photos by myself today in upstate New York.

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Mmmm...Cheesesteaks....

This was the perfect weekend to drive to Philadelphia - the leaves were changing, the weather was beautiful. Our weekend began Saturday night. Mark and I decided to join a Mini Cooper rally for a late drive to Philadelphia for cheesesteaks.

Sounded fun, but just about everything went wrong. We missed the rest stop where we'd planned to meet some other New York Mini Cooper owners. No one had anyone's cell phone number. Mark had his Apple phone, so as we sat in a parking lot, he browsed online, emailing people, getting a couple numbers and leaving phone messages.

Meanwhile, I scanned the highway for a battalion of Mini Coopers. Of course, it was nighttime, so I couldn't see a thing. I thought I could tell whether a car was a Mini by the distance between the headlights and tail lights, but I was truly kidding myself. We had a walkie talkie with a ten-mile range, and every few minutes, Mark would broadcast an SOS.

After sitting for an hour in the parking lot and getting questioned by a cruising police car, we set off to Philadelphia by ourselves. The plan was to meet at Tony Luke's around 10:30 pm for their famous cheesesteaks.

The place was unglamorous but distinctive. Everything that could be aluminum, was. There was a window to place your order, a window to pick up, and several picnic tables under heat lamps. The cheesesteaks, on the other hand, were astounding. Juicy, littered with slightly crunchy onions, and doused in gorgeously melted American Cheese...I can see why Philadelphians call it their signature dish. In honor of my diet, I had two Texas style hot dogs (beef frankfurter, hot dog bun, chopped onions, and a spicy, curried sauce). They were good, but they weren't cheesesteaks.

Most interesting was the demographic that night. We sat among men in white shirts and ties, older people, younger people, couples on dates, people binging after the hockey game and a couple Harley riders. The couple next to us had driven from New Jersey. After meeting them, late night cheesesteak runs seemed almost sensible.

Just as we'd gotten up from our picnic table, the walkie talkie squawked from my purse. 'There's another Mini Cooper here'.

Happily, it was the other other Mini drivers from New York. It wound up being a rather small rally (just four cars), but the feelings were generally the same - excited to be there, amazed by the food, and happy that delicious cheesesteaks were just a short drive from home.

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Parking

Yesterday, Mark found 'the perfect Mini Cooper parking spot' across the street from this apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

He backed in, then worked his way back and forth and back and forth, knocking against the neighboring bumpers and laughing maniacally, until he was wedged in between two cars. When he was finished, there were only a couple inches behind us and in front. I felt like I'd watched someone lying on the floor, struggling into a pair of jeans just out of the dryer.

I got out and surveyed the situation. The car behind us was hemmed in, with only a couple inches of breathing room on each end. I shook my head. 'Yknow, if I owned that car, I'd be kind of pissed. How's he supposed to get out?'

We went upstairs. Mark sat looking out the window at his car, and I could see him thinking about it. Finally he went downstairs and again inched himself back and forth and back and forth, until he was out of the space.

Bad karma avoided.

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