Jill Price: The Woman Who Can’t Forget

The three UC Irvine scientists who studied her decided that her case deserved its own name—hyperthymestic syndrome, academic Greek for "exceptional memory"—and it’s not hard to see why.

I come prepared with a stack of questionnaires, and when we return to her house, Price is kind enough to let me administer my tests, easily blowing through the first few. I ask, for example, if she can tell me some dates of famous accidents and airline crashes; she’s all but unstoppable. She instantly retrieves from memory the exact dates of the explosions of space shuttle Challenger and Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. She remembers not just that September 25, 1978, was when a PSA flight crashed in San Diego but also that the jet collided with a Cessna. She can go in either direction, disaster to date or date to disaster. When I say "January 13, 1982," Price has no trouble recalling the Air Florida flight that plummeted into the Potomac.

According to McGaugh’s Neurocase article, Price is even more astounding on the events of her own life. At the scientists’ behest, for example, she recalled—without warning and in just 10 minutes—what she’d done on every Easter since 1980. "April 6, 1980: 9th grade, Easter vacation ends. April 19, 1981: 10th grade, new boyfriend, H. April 11, 1982: 11th grade, grandparents visiting for Passover ..

x-post with tommy. That feels better, having gotten that out of the way.

Congrats, sara!

Yay, Sara! Someone is anxious to get this off his hands and done with.

Americans call jelly, we call jam, and what we call jelly, they call jell-o.

We use both jelly and jam. There are essentially the same thing except jam has seeds and jelly is clear. So a strawberry PB&J is almost always jam, and something like grape is usually jelly.

Jell-o is a whole 'nother beast entirely.

We use both jelly and jam. There are essentially the same thing except jam has seeds and jelly is clear.

Jam is made with crushed fruit, jelly with fruit juice.

Wow, I think I want all my dinners at Cashmere's house! Nomnomnom...

I just ate brussels sprouts, which were not nearly as good as they should've been, but were OK with lots of parmesan on top.

Sara, eeek! But sounds very exciting!

I'm having flashbacks to my first visit to the little grab-a-quick-bite sandwich bar at the University of East Anglia student centre the first week of my junior year abroad, and the unspeakable horror that was the peanut butter and cucumber sandwich.

Hooray sara!

Also, from way way waaay upthread, I vote no on all fruit-flavored candy except these things and the occasional lemonhead. Everything else, bleah. If I want fruit I'll eat fruit and if I want candy it damn well better have chocolate, caramel or nougat involved somewhere. And chocolate covered gummy bears are an abomination unto God.

I don't care for jelly, because I like the sensation of eating something that actually tastes like it's derived from something real. Jelly just tastes like sugar to me.

PB&Js are okay as long as you don't confuse them with something nutritious. I always feel like I am sitting down to eat a giant candybar. Too sweet to be real food! Which is not to say that I don't love wheat toast with jam, 'cause I do. I just know it's essentially junk food.

Sara, it's very exciting! I am living vicariously through you now; glad the counteroffer went through!

Jelly is too squoogy for me. I like the spreadable fruit stuff/jam. Preferably seedless black raspberry. With store-brand creamy PB (although I'm fine with crunchy), on wheat bread with a tall glass of milk.

Nom.

ION, if the "Steve Buscemi" on Twitter really is him and not someone pretending, I have new love for him: [link]

I like homemade strawberry jam with creamy peanut butter on toast. Mom used to make freezer jam, which didn't need as much sugar as the stuff that's shelf-stable. So it was more strawberry-flavored and less overwhelmingly sweet.