A Crystal Ball On a Stick

I spent yesterday going through the closet in my old bedroom at my parents place. It felt like I spent the entire day wrapped up in memories of things forgotten. My goal was to get rid of all the stuff I no longer need, and I did, but I am glad I kept so much so that I could spend yesterday remembering. Like my mother, I tend to keep too much in an effort to preserve. Like my father, I am very organized about how I keep all this stuff. So I was faced with a very organized crap-load of stuff to wade through. At times, the stuff I came across was heart-warming, and at other times, the stuff just made me laugh. It's funny how we grow and change when we aren't paying attention:

1) Journals: I have kept journals most of my life. I am not the best at updating them regularly, but I always have one. Reading through the things that I thought journal-worthy is just funny. And I discovered many new ways in which I have grown up. Especially my printing. It used to be so neat and orderly! Now it is just much better for everyone if I only type. I blame technology for this.

2) School Work: I kept all the important school work I did for all my meaningful classes in high school and college. I was impressed with some of the papers I wrote. Not because they were so great but because when I read them now, I have no idea what I am talking about. Reading my old papers makes me sound so smart because I have forgotten almost everything specific thing I learned in school! Sure, I remember the major theories and concepts, the books that moved me and the topics I enjoyed, but I don't remember what the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis is, or how Cathexis plays a part in male-female gender dynamics. It's funny how the real world can make you so out of touch with the theoretical, academic one.

3) The Book CH, DS and JL sent me when I was in the UK: The year I was abroad, I remember being surprised at who kept in touch and who didn't. The friends I assumed would be emailing all the time, in fact, barely did at all. The friends who I didn't expect to hear from wrote all the time. Personally, I show appreciation towards friends by keeping in touch with them and doing things with them, so when some people did not do that with me, it made (makes) me feel sad and unappreciated. When some friends went above and beyond my expectations, it made (makes) me happy to have friends like them in my life. CH, DS and, their roommate at the time, JL were fantastic at keeping in touch with me while I was away. They sent letters and postcards all the time (which I kept!) and one day they even wrote a story (with pictures included) about how Hammy (their Hamster) made a run for freedom. It was hilarious and I love it. They even bound the pages with pretty lavender yarn. That is something I am going to keep. CH and DS, thanks! JL, wherever you are, I miss you!

4) Corsages: I was a sappy little high school girl who used to listen to love songs while falling asleep at night. So I guess it is not all that surprising that I also kept all my corsages from high school dances. I literally laughed out loud when I saw this:

It is a collection of my favorite corsages from my favorite dances, dried and organized by the name and date of the dance and includes the name of the lucky boy who got to take me. This didn't make it to the "keep" pile.

See what I mean about my printing though? Messy messy messy.

5) A Crystal Ball on a Stick: My parents bought me a little brass stick with a crystal ball on the end of it. It was like a wand. And when I was five I loved it. I thought it was magical and very valuable. So when burglers broke into our house when I was 7 (when we lived in Taipei). I remember running upstairs to my bedroom, retrieving it from the hiding place I kept it in, and giving an out-loud sigh of relief that the buglers had not found and taken this precious thing.

6) A Baby Tee: When I was a baby, my dad worked for a Tech Support team at a then cutting edge computer company. Their team made t-shirts that said "Ampex" on the front and had this message on the back: "Ampex Tech Support gets it up faster and keeps it up longer." This is in reference to computer systems, among other things. One of my dad's co-workers made a little baby t-shirt for me to wear. I was only 6 months old when a photo of me wearing the shirt appeared in the company newsletter, thereby making me a famous tech-support baby. This little tiny t-shirt was amongst the stuff I came across yesterday.

It's funny...a couple of years ago, my mom was cleaning out her room and came across the same t-shirt, adult sized. She gave it to me and it has since become one of my favorite sleep-shirts. So I now have a baby-sized and adult-sized version of the shirt, both of which I have worn.

5) Memoir Essays: After I graduated college I took several memoir writing classes. I came across all the things I wrote for them last night and it made me really miss that kind of writing. I guess this blog sort of taps into that same need for me, but this writing is still very different then that kind. Many of the essays focused on things I haven't forgotten, Reading them, however, made me recall details I had forgotten. And they made me feel, simultaneously, a great wave of nostalgia and a strong urge to write more.

Enough about the past....

Did anyone see last night's episode of "the best show on TV?" AKA Battlestar Gallactica? My God(s)*. Big things happened. It is actually making me sad today.

I sang two songs with my dad's band at a bar on Friday night! If you've known me long enough you know that I 1) love to sing, but 2) am very shy about doing so publicly. It was a big deal, personally, to face that fear. I didn't even want a lot of people to know about it. I did it though, and it went pretty well! Thanks HB and BD for the support!


*In BSG, there are many gods. Thus, they say, "My Gods!" when crazy things happen.