Exercise: What do you know by heart?

What do you know by heart?:

-My childhood best friend Carrie Warkentin's phone number and address.

-The day I had braces put on--2/14/06, around the time everyone else got them off and couldn't stop running their tongues across smooth, braceless front teeth. I insisted on "clear" braces that turned yellow the first time I ate tomato sauce.

-The day I almost got married--June 17, 2006.

-The pledge of allegiance, and one of my dad's favorite stories in which one of his students asks, "Who is Richard Stans?" As in, "To the country, for Richard Stans..."

-Mozart's Piano Sonata 11 in A Major, though I forgot most of it when I played it at a competition at St. Mary's College in 1998.

Things I can't remember:

-My boyfriend Erik's phone number. Last week, I had tags engraved for our pets. They now wear metal hearts around their necks that read 412-781-2902, which is bound to another Pittsburgher's number.

-My last 3 addresses. Even the house that I owned.

-My own lyrics. Even those I've been singing for years. I take a journal on stage. Last month, I forgot my lyric book at home. Thirty minutes before a show I begged to be let into the venue's basement that was stacked with oversize cans of chick peas and oil and to the ancient Mac they keep in the corner. I printed out what lyrics were saved in my email and spent the night playing only those songs. It has been suggested to me that I can't remember my lyrics because I always have them, that I use them as a crutch. But I feel that having lyrics on stage helps me lose myself in the song. If I don't have to worry about the next verse I can disappear into the chorus and look at my cue cards if I'm too lost to remember my next line.