Friday, July 21, 2006

The Mysteries of Stuff

I'm continuing to pack all of my worldly belongings in preparation for my move at the end of the month. Moving is a great opportunity to assess one's belongings, most of which, presumably, cost some amount of money to obtain. I've packed pretty much all of my books. Many of those were free, due to my profession, but despite that, I'm sure I've spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on books.
Now I've gotten to the point where I am starting to pack all of my old notebooks. These have been a bit of an obsession over the years-- I've always kept notebooks, dozens, even hundreds of them, with various lists and jottings. These too probably represent spending approaching 4 figures. I still cart them around in shoeboxes, which have been sitting on the top shelf of my closet as long as I've lived in my current apartment. It's funny to look at them now and sometimes have no memory whatsoever of what I was writing about:

L 4x35
R 3x95
L 2x50
R -> stop

Sue still doesn't have carrots-- just do the thing without them?

To Do
Total Up Visa Debts-- pay off reg. Visa
Order tape deck?
Deposit checks
Paint signboard
Wash blankets
Find another job
Pay A. $115.62
Pay phone bill
Ask D. to tape Martha and the Vandellas for me
Even in 1991, money issues played a significant role in my little scribbles: I was totalling up my Visa debts while planning to buy a tape deck, and trying to find another job to pay for it all... I'm glad those days are gone.

My movers are going to charge me 30 cents per cubic foot per month for storage. I'd estimate one shoebox to be about 1/4 cubic foot. Each shoebox is maybe 20-25 small notebooks. So each notebook costs me less than 1/3 of a cent per month to store.

Of course, not all my notes are so dry and cryptic:
N. explicitly said something about having a crush on me, so the question is really just how much of a crush... I wonder if N. actually was staring at me all those times two years ago... A. thought N. had a cute butt. I agree.

Reading that still set me a-flutter. I think it's worth it to hang onto all these little scraps of memories.

5 comments:

Matt said...

Hahaha, that is a great post. It makes me want to clean out my room and see what kind of stuff I have hidden away.

Kudos,
Matt

mapgirl said...

I wrote a blog post once raving about some cute boy. 2 years later, I could not remember who it was I was writing about. It's all very funny to reminisce when packing up. Just don't let it distract you too much! :-)

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, what do people think about hanging on to artifacts of prior relationships since they are part of your history? How about just the "significant" ones? How about after you are married? I have two scrap boxes that contain stuff ranging from concert tickets from high school to notes from ex-girlfriends. Some of which might trigger a smile, but I feel somewhat guilty hanging on to some of that stuff now that I am married - happily and for many years.

Dawn said...

Soooo
Do you still run into N or A?
thanks for sharing your cryptic stash with us, that was fun.

Madame X said...

Actually, I had a long talk with A just last night-- she and I are still good friends, but I have no idea where N has ended up... the magic wore off fairly quickly after my long-standing crush became mutual!