I remember amazing my third grade teacher because not only was I able to name all fifty states and their capital cities, but I could further name all the U.S. presidents chronologically. I could also tell her the years they were in office, and what major events happened while they were serving, if any. By sixth grade, I was reading history books that would be considered college level.

I was a double major in biology and history at the University of Washington, and I graduated with high honors with a 3.8 GPA (out of a possible 4 at the time). I was always an excellent student from the time I was in grade school, have always been a voracious reader, and am a wizard at problem solving and figuring out puzzles.

That's probably why I excelled in my former capacity as senior policy analyst at the state legislature. I have a very analytical and logical mind. But honestly, I really can't explain why or how I remember the sort of stuff that most other people wouldn't give a second thought, except to offer that the part of my brain that controls long-term memory and recalls facts and figures is likely exceptionally well developed. The stuff is second nature to me.

I also tend to file things in my head chronologically, and can recall where I was and what I was doing at the time, often years after the date in question. My mother and siblings will sometimes ask me what year it was when we did something specific, such as our family road trip to Washington D.C. and Florida (June 1-27, 1972, and Hurricane Agnes struck Tampa while we were there.)

I also have an acute sense of direction, and when I'm outside I can almost always tell you where due north is, even when its cloudy. And if you dropped me someplace and gave me an unmarked map of the earth, I can point out with pretty good specificity exactly where I am on it. Again, that's just natural instinct to me.

Conversely, while most people think of me as an excellent writer, when it comes to math, I am merely adequate at best. Math was always my weakest subject in school and college, and it's something at which I always had to work hard in school, just to get a B.

And my short-term memory has never been anywhere nearly as good as most people who know me might otherwise assume. I'm rather notorious for asking people to repeat their name again, usually right after they tell me. I'm also very prone to misplacing things, especially stuff like my keys, wallet, checkbook and glasses, which I'll do repeatedly. And there is a message taped permanently to the back door by our car port, gently reminding me to please lock up when I leave the house.

Further, I have to constantly make lists of things I need to do and accomplish, and I keep a day-planner and calendar handy, because I otherwise have a nagging tendency to completely forget about pending appointments. I've also noticed that while I can focus like a laser beam on something I'm doing in the moment, I can also be easily distracted by stuff happening around me, and generally have trouble multitasking unless I first prompt myself with prepositioned hints.

When I was playing Pony League baseball at age 13, I embarrassed myself one time during a game when I was playing right field, because I was mesmerized by a hawk flying overhead (it was probably looking for lunch) and wasn't paying any attention to the batter at home plate, who then hit a fly ball that easily sailed over me and rolled to the outfield wall, much to my chagrin. We were already winning the game handily at the time, and so the coach just laughed at me, but I never forgot that he was amused because I had just made myself look like a fool out there. Thereafter, I always make sure to keep my head in the game, whatever that game might happen to be. I make mistakes once, and tend to not repeat them.

I'm very self-conscious of my "gift" for long-term memory and storytelling, even more so when people later question me about it as you have, asking how it is that I can remember all this stuff. I've long since learned to not take offense at such inquiries, but admittedly, there are such times when it's been very awkward.

Family members and friends won't play Trivial Pursuit with me because I absolutely kill in that game, and they won't invite me to play card games because I naturally count cards without even realizing it, which for obvious reasons places them at a distinct disadvantage.

I've actually had numerous people in my life tell me what you just have, that perhaps I'm in the wrong profession -- although I do like my present consulting work with nonprofits -- and should really consider becoming a history teacher or professor. My late former boss at the state legislature used to tell me that I was a natural at it, because I made it look so effortless and could easily command people's attention when relating a story about some historical event.

Since I've had my relapse of melanoma, I'm now very seriously considering what you and others have said, and I'd like to go for my Ph.D in the subject. I already have my master's in it from the University of Hawaii, and I made inquiries last week about getting my doctorate with the UCLA history department. A former professor of mine at UH, who was one of my advisors when I was working on my thesis, said I have more than enough knowledge in the field to probably attain my doctorate a lot faster than most other people.

Ask me who was elected president in 1848, and I'll tell you quickly that it's Zachary Taylor, and further that his vice president was Millard Fillmore. But ask me where I have to be at 4:00 p.m. this afternoon (it's 2:43 p.m. out here right now), and without first looking at my day-planner, I really couldn't begin to tell you.

In my opinion, De Palma accomplished something with "The Black Dahlia" that other directors such as Clint Eastwood proved themselves unable to do, which was to direct two-time Academy Award winner Hillary Swank to absolutely the worst performance of her entire career. Given that she played a spoiled rich lesbian brat who likes to sleep with men, no doubt hers was a role preprogrammed for spectacular failure.

For her part, co-star Scarlett Johannson looked luminous, but she was otherwise an entirely wasted presence in this film, and Aaron Eckhart as her intense LAPD detective-husband was his usual over-caffeinated self. (Will somebody please give that poor man a bottle of valium and a scholarship to the Actor's Studio?)

And poor Josh Hartnett as the lead was unbelievably miscast, and his performance was so wooden that it really should've been declared a fire trap. For all his pretensions at playing the grown-up, he has this earnest boyishness about him which screams "Lightweight!" He'll certainly never be mistaken as the second coming of Sir Laurence Olivier, that's for sure.

But that particular misfire aside, I'd say that De Palma's overall cumulative success as a filmmaker has been such that he really doesn't have to work any more, and probably chooses only those projects which tend to interest him.

After he brutally murdered his girls (my playmates in the summertimes) and had gone after my aunt who squeezed thru a tiny window and ran away, he was put in jail and my mother started her personal investigation. He was her big brother and like a loving father to her. She was the only family member (it was a large family) who saw something going horribly wrong, insisted that he get some kind of treatment, which turned out to be the latest psych treatment - electroshock. That last summer she inexplicably never let me play at their house alone and would not let me sleep over there.

I think her investigation was simply necessary for her. There was another family death that was pretty obviously his doing. Then there was another brother who had skipped town and was gone for 10 years. Those two brothers had shared an apartment in Chicago during the depression. She read every letter by both of them to anyone, and got ahold of their diaries and finally talked to the returned brother. She found letters the killer brother had written to his pastor that were shocking.

I grew up with her investigation and she would tell me about it. She found out about a string of mysterious deaths of prostitutes in Chicago and links to the oldest brother. He had an obsession with sex and 'green pastures' of women and how that should not be defiled - by the women's choices. One of his murdered daughters was found to be pregnant - and he never let her out of the house except for classes and it was commonly thought to be his.

She also found out that he was "thrown out of the house into the rain" as an infant by his own father. Throwing a baby can cause all sorts of trauma. His father was jealous of the first born and was rather brutal to him as a baby.

Of course she never published a book altho she could have being a developmental psychologist. And she did not work with any detectives or put anything on record (other than his obvious murders). Family would not have allowed that. I think the detective process finally, after a couple of decades, resolved some things in her mind. Whew, I have never told that story openly - only to shrinks.

And:

The potential use of the cross in the World Trade Center Memorial has been controversial. Many groups such as families of certain Christian victims want the cross to be included.[24] Other organizations disagree, notably the American Atheists (who have filed suit pertaining to this issue)[25] as well as the Coalition for Jewish Concerns.[26] Alternatively, the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement that it "fully supports the inclusion in the National September 11 Memorial & Museum of the metal beams in the shape of a cross found in the rubble at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the tragic attacks on 9/11."[27]