tales from an ordinary world
2000-01-19
"and you may ask yourself 'how did I get here
?'"
Talking Heads
...The light from tiny dead stars that were bottled up and assembled in Hungary shines over my shoulder and make me feel slightly less alone. Why do I have so many things ? What do they all mean ? Cameras and discmen and walkmen and radios and speakers and CD jukeboxes and too many CDs and books and clothes and lava lamps and laser printers and video tapes I've never properly watched. What did I really want with all these things in the first place ? When will it end ?
Of course, even if I was to say "right, I'm going to get rid of some stuff", I wouldn't know where to start throwing things away. Each object has an imprint, an associated memory attached. 2 years ago, when I moved to my current place of residence, I took 2 days off to try and throw stuff out. I ended up starting a "memory" drawer in my desk (which overflowed into a second one), of Old Stuff :
Lots of letters and birthday cards from old friends. Sometimes when I'm feeling really intensely lonely I'll go back and read them and remind myself that people do (or did) appreciate me. Shamefully, I've been rather pitiful at keeping up with most of these people in recent times.
Old business cards from restaurants and cafes and shops and people. If I sat down and really concentrated, I'd probably be able to remember when I picked up some of these.
One of my first reasonably "real" pay cheques. To remind me that it did all happen.
My old notebooks (I think I mentioned these here sometime last year). These are a double-edged sword - they remind me of what I once was, but they also remind me of what I once was...
Old party invitations, mostly from one particular friend who always goes to a reasonable effort with his parties.
Lots of free postcards, with odd advertising on them. I always pick up a couple of each one I get, in case I ever decide to do something with them (whatever that might be...I'm unsure of the details).
Lurking on a shelf somewhere is my old filofax-like-thing that I used for a year or two somewhere back around my uni days.
Photos. I don't have too many photos, not having ever owned a camera until just recently. Most of them are from the Central Australia holiday back in mid-1996, when I borrowed a friend's camera for the trip.
Not being able to buy CDs is beginning to hurt. I'm flailing about on the 200-CD changer at home, putting it on random, and after hearing a track start I'll invariably hit "next" because I don't feel like hearing that track right now thank you very much. Still, it's picked a few tracks from an old Curve CD that I hadn't heard in a while, and that seems to have a fairly good balance of noise versus...well...something else. It's not quite the kind of night where I need to indulge in a Country Music fetish, yanking out the Hank Williams and Gram Parsons CDs for a good workout. I'm not even sure what kind of music really suits the current mood I'm in.
Lost lost lost. Waving my arms around in the darkness. Waiting for...well...something...lots of things...to happen. So many things at the moment seem unfinished, or otherwise Not Quite There Yet.
If all goes well, I'll be spending my birthday in New York this year, but I've no idea what I'll do on the day. Still, I don't feel required to do anything in particular. I'll make it up as I go along...
