THE LAST FIVE ...

Closing up shop
- Wednesday, Aug. 02, 2006

It may be time for a change
- Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Entry in the air
- Friday, April 21, 2006

Still here
- Thursday, April 20, 2006

Music of the moment
- Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Or ... BE RANDOM!


GOOD READS

101 in 1001
American Road Trip, 1998


OTHER PEOPLE

Chupatintas
Dancing Brave
Fugging It Up
Kitty Sandwich
Mister Zero
Sideways Rain
Ultratart
Velcrometer


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2001-07-08 - 7:18 p.m.

Man working

Much of this weekend was spent inside. Much of this weekend was spent cleaning my room.

It's an ongoing project, kind of like construction on the Cross-Westchester "Expressway" in New York, which I wouldn't recognize without flourescent orange road work signs. My room is the size of a closet � in fact, some closets are bigger than my room. I've seen them. And the fact that I hold onto soooooo much stuff doesn't help. So every few months, I go through and organize.

I found today that the stacks of newspapers get a LOT smaller when I actually cut out the articles I've written and store them in a box. All those copies of The Observer from college fit in a smaller space when I realize I don't really need to know all that went on on April 14, 1997, when all I really needed was that Inside Column I wrote on e-mail flirting. Part of the reason I keep these things is because I look at them and reminisce. I see that while I was analyzing how people type certain things and place certain emoticons ;) this was happening in Washington and that was going on in South Bend. Looking back at the papers, I remembered certain football games and various late nights working at the paper. But I don't need them forever. Sure, they'd probably still evoke the same feelings in another 10 years, but by then I'll have new memories to look back on that will be better. In effect, there are certain memories that will become obsolete.

But I find it interesting that on a humid July Saturday in 2001, I suddenly realize that I no longer need the 1993 Sports Illustrated baseball preview issue. Or I'm not really ever going to go back and look that closely at the 1992 Olympics. Or that I'm now tired of all those New York Times issues from Mickey Mantle's death and the Yankees' 1996 world championship. (Though the ones from Mantle's death reminded me about driving back out to South Bend with my parents for my sophomore year.)

The fact of the matter is that my photos are taking up more and more room, as are the newspapers. So now I need to decide which is more important. The photos, naturally, because they can show me more and mean more to me than stacks of newsprint about all that happened around the world on one day.

There are still some I've kept. I'm holding onto all those issues of the Asbury Park Press from the Devils Stanley Cup wins in 1995 and 2000. That Jan. 1, 2000 issue? Keeper. I'll toss all the 50 Most Beautiful people issues of People going back to 1992, but I'll continue to save each copy of Outside. I already tear up my photography magazines, keeping the articles that interest me, since those are so full of advertisements anyway.

And there was one other notable event to the weekend. (This is the part where I can't get "I Did It" out of my head.) I caved. I bought a cell phone.

I haven't really needed one. I probably still don't need one, but I've found myself in enough situations recently where one would've been useful. So with Jamie Lee Curtis watching over me at the counter at The Wiz, I signed up for Voicestream service and bought a tiny little phone with the antenna inside that will fit in my pocket. It's got all kinds of features � voice recognition, messaging, free headset � and I got that plan with all the minutes in the bucket. Part of the reason I gave in is that we've reached the last straw here in central New Jersey � starting later this year, all local calls will require the area code. They're overlaying a new area code into our 732 (and a few others around the state). So to call up the street, it will be 10 digits. To call the new neighbors across the street with the new area code, it will be 11 digits. That annoys me. I still remember the days when I'd visit my uncle in Maine and to call the neighbors, all you had to do was dial the last five digits. Kind of like intra-campus dialing in college. So the two small things about my phone that make me happy are my 732 area code and my 277 prefix. I was hoping I wouldn't get a lame prefix, and although the 277 is not normal in the 732 area code (naturally, since it's a cell number), that's the prefix I had senior year in my apartment off campus. So I think that's pretty cool. I'm just a little sad my last four digits have a 1 � I can't spell anything with it. Sometimes little things annoy me.

Now I just hope people call me to make it all worthwhile.

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