I like you a lot, but what's your name again?

Some of you who were regular readers of my newspaper column may remember this issue, but it seems to have gotten worse -- and funnier at the same time.

I used to pooh-pooh the concept of "visual learner" and whatever other kinds there are (oral? aural? tactile? unwilling?) because I didn't know what the heck it meant. Until the novelty of calling people by the wrong name wore off.

I'd been mixing up the names of two reporters I'd hired within a week of one another. Even though only Jim had started, I was already calling him Mike. So, I decided to post Jim's name on my door frame, which I saw every time I looked up from my desk. It got a bit of harmless attention, but it worked. SO, then I did the same with "Mike" when he started work two weeks later. Problem solved.

But it has cropped up again, under more precarious circumstances. Over the weekend, my son brought home his girlfriend, Shannon, for the second time. We like her, she likes us, and everything is right with the world.

Except, I keep wanting to call her Amanda.

Apparently, my subconscious thinks she looks like an Amanda. I'm blaming my subconscious, because I don't know any Amandas that she looks like; and, at the moment, I can't think of an Amanda that I know well enough to have lurking anywhere in my gray matter. (TV addicts from the 1960s may be figuring this out for themselves, but the first time I heard the name Amanda was on Dr. Bellows' wife on "I Dream of Jeannie." And she wasn't anyone you wanted lurking anywhere, as I recall.)

When the name Samantha almost fell out of my mouth ("Bewitched" anyone?) last weekend, I knew I needed a good dose of self-help. I had to put an end to those moments where I've sat gape-mouthed looking at ... um ... Shannon, fearful of what name would come out if I spoke.

So, this morning I reverted to my tried-and-true "visual learner's" trick.

In Shannon's case, a single doorway won't do it, because I'm home and moving from room to room. So, there are six copies of "Shannon" hanging around: on the peg board above the stove; from the shelf above the TV; from the top of my desk; below the dining room mirror; above the bathroom mirror; and ... um ... let me go look. Oh, yeah, at the top of the kitchen door.

I'm optimistic this will work.

If it does, I'll move on to my kids. My subconscious lately has me calling them by my younger brother and sister's names. I realize when I do it (thank heavens); and it may happen because my kids are adults now, so my mind is connecting them with the younger adults in the family I grew up in.

I hope that's it. I hope it's not that I'm going nuts.