Then there are the rest of us, who can't remember why we walked into rooms...

In the news lately has been a fascinating woman. Jill Price, a 43-year-old woman from L.A., has a perfect autobiographical memory.

When asked to name the date of a specific event, Price is able to not only recall the exact date, but also provide other details, such as the weather or what she ate or watched on t.v. that day.

In remembering dates, "I relate it to where I was and what was going on in my life," she told Diane Sawyer in an ABC News interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAbQvmf0YOQ). In the interview, Price astonishingly provided accurate dates to each of Sawyer's questions--from the date t.v. viewers learned who shot J.R., to what Price ate for lunch on May 27, 2006 ("a BLT and tomato soup").

Sawyer asked her to describe what's it's like to be inside her brain. "Right now I'm in the present moment talking to you," said Price, "but I have a split screen in my head, where I have a loop of memories just free flowing all the time."

Yet while Price's memory of her own personal history is "extraordinary," she only performs "a little above average" on standard memory tests, according to cognitive psychiatrist Gary Marcus. "Price remembers so much about herself because she thinks about herself--and her past--almost constantly," said Marcus, who wrote an article about his meetings with Price in the March 23 Wired ("Total Recall: The Woman Who Can't Forget.")

In the article, we learn that she has every stuffed animal she's ever received; over 2,000 videotapes and countless audiotapes; 50,000 pages of journals kept for every day of her life; and, until recently, every TV Guide since 1989 (she's an especially avid t.v. fan). Her detailed memories begin just after what was for her a painful childhood event--her family's move from South Orange, New Jersey to L.A. on June 29, 1974.

In L.A., she lived with her parents until 2003, when they decided to downsize. Price, 37 at the time, found it traumatizing to leave her home. She took out a razor blade and, against realtor protest, stripped off a special piece of wallpaper that contained nearly 30 years worth of personal notes. "I have OCD of my memories," she admitted to Marcus.

One of her biggest regrets, she told Marcus, is that no one followed her around with a microphone during her childhood.

I find her story mesmerizing, because I always love reading about people with extraordinary gifts and also those who are obsessively drawn to the past. I would wager that there are many others who are intrigued by Price's story. I know that I'm not the only one who has reclaimed their childhood toys via ebay!