Curator of Receipts and Ticket Stubs, Part I

I wrote this first part, mostly, on the last night of my Spring Break, which was 123 days ago. Also, there are now websites whose whole job it is to tell you how many days it's been since something. There might be a part II coming in nearer days, if we’re lucky. If we’re not… you can assume Part II = I moved on to more consequential activities. 

That said: this is not important. It's a thing that is just long-winded thoughts, not really a story or anything. It's not a philosophical reflection or exploration of privilege or discussion of hoarding. It's just... a phenomenon that tends to occur when I resolve to make a lot of decisions in a row about accumulated things. 

Spoiler alert: I kept the phone.

Every time I do a major “clean out” I hit this exact spot, which for quick reference, we’ll call The Bog, about 75% of the way through. It surprises me and dismays me every time. I don’t mean like cleaning out a drawer or weeding through the pantry. I mean a Reckoning. I’ve embarked on a few of these in my life. This spring break was supposed to be one of them. It was supposed to be a legendary one. I’d been foretelling of it for months, prophesying of its comprehensiveness and swearing that I would not rest until it was complete. And now spring break is a few hours from ending. Rudely. Once I enter regulation weekend territory, it’s not technically spring break anymore. It’s the weekend. So. We have a few hours. And I’m sitting in the Bog.

The Bog involves a lot of sitting in the middle of disheveled piles and a lot of thinking about how ridiculous and frustrating it is that I have piles and what they mean, etc. At my childhood house, before I left for college, I sat perched on a stool in the bullseye of the upheaval, twirling my hair for days. Perhaps the reflections got channeled into some blogging, if we’re talking circa 2004 or later. Otherwise it was an email to Rachelle, probably several chapters long.

My mindset in The Bog is still the same as it was going in to the Reckoning; pare down. Minimize so I can breathe again. And up until this point, it goes swimmingly. The donation piles grow rapidly. Boxes are brought to light for the first time in years and several moves, their contents efficiently and quickly reallocated to Trash or No Longer Keep. I scoff at my hoarding tendencies and grossly underestimate the remainder of the task.

Then suddenly there’s the telephone Papaw gave me. It’s not particularly special. He gave me several things he’d find around if he thought it might interest me. The phone is one of many and I haven't even seen it since 2011. But it’s from him. To me. Will I ever use a landline again? Unlikely. But I will also never sit on the floor in Papaw’s living room again and wait as he goes down to his workbench to grab the phones he found (where? a garage sale? an auction box of random things?), which he will distribute to my brother and me, and on which I will conduct a large percentage of my middle school/high school phone conversations. And all of the sudden, no matter how much I want to get rid of the majority of the stuff I don't use or need, I can't make a single decision. 

It’s not even that this phone is the most special or only remaining thing I have from him. Not at all. I have far more important artifacts from Papaw. But this phone has just become the snag in the entire process, and it’s sitting right next to me as I type. After the phone (or the initial Snag Object, whatever it may be), every following thing gets heavier, the choices more impossible. So many things become links to a person who has meant something to me. It doesn’t even matter if this person is living or not, or living at a great distance or right downstairs working on his computer. The importance of these links grows exponentially, once discovered in the Bog.

So then I sit in the Bog with the phone. And the camera bag. And the notebooks full of organic chemistry and a postcard from my brother. The figurine of a girl holding a duck I haven’t seen in 15 years. The _____ (solve for x).

x = relic from (person I love) ^ every memory/fondness I have of (person I love)

There’s also the evidence, which I usually don’t even mean to keep, but it’s the seaweed and detritus that comes with the flow of time and gets caught in the branches of the rest of it, and when I run across it, it catches me in my tracks and then here I am trying to figure out if I should throw out a crinkled bit of paper or a wrapper or something. The unimportant but tangible bits that serve as evidence of the days in between those that are documented or photographed. Not important but now very weighty.

Evidence like receipts for a hundred Roommate dates at Pei Wei or a bike run to Elephant Café, or for “cocaine chips” and from when I thought a can of Pringles = a good dinner. The cellphone, which reminds me that this is the phone I had when I called people to tell them Jeremy proposed, or the one I used before texting was really a thing. Books of checks from accounts that don’t exist anymore, for a name I don’t have anymore, for an address where I don’t live anymore.

Granted, some of these things are obviously easy to part with, especially when I’m at the beginning of a Reckoning. I respond to them like a rational person and toss them and carry on.

But then I hit this point. And the piles surround me, physically, and I feel claustrophobic in the evidence. I am sitting in my empty workspace in the middle and I sit suspended in the years, getting nothing accomplished as an embarrassing amount of time passes, and I cannot make a single decision without shouldering a very long contemplation about one hundred different things. All spurred by a Sonic receipt Meredith probably stuck to my dashboard on our way to see Rent for the 4th (and not final) time.

That’s where I am now. Incapacitated. Exhausted from doing something I am terrible at even in the most benign situations; decision making has never been my forte. And 90% of the chaos that surrounds me is valueless trash, not even donatable. Things I haven’t missed, haven’t known I had. But now I have to think and reflect, ad nauseam. 

And if I donate the phone, it’s unlikely I’ll ever wish I hadn’t. My memory of Papaw won’t be diminished. But.

February

This isn't going to contain writing. About 23ish days through February I noticed I had taken at least one picture per day on my phone. So I got a genius, novel idea to collect all 28 and post them here. If you choose to scroll down, you'll quickly realize that there are not 28 pictures here. Some were too dull. But this is what's left of that venture. 

Or it might have been Minnesota, according to an unnamed source.

When I was out with the dog yesterday morning, I recovered a memory I had almost forgotten. It came back surprisingly abruptly, for how old and nearly lost it had become. I actually don’t remember when it was exactly, but it must have been in the early to mid-nineties. I’m fairly certain I was younger than ten, but I could be wrong.

Not from that era (maybe close?), but this one's between perms, so. Obvious choice. (Indiana, 1991)

We were in Branson, Missouri. Not our Surprise Branson trip, which is forever showcased in photographs outside my bedroom at my parents’ house, but an earlier trip I almost don’t even remember. I’m not even sure we were in Branson for the sake of being in Branson; it might have been a whim/passing-through ordeal.

Our main event of the trip was a boat ride, and the details are a little shifty, but I’m sure I have the main point of the story indisputably correct.

The boat was like a pontoon, or one of those riverboat tours they have in cities with riverwalks. I assume the ride took us up and down the river, or it might have been around a lake, and I also assume it was one of those guided tours where someone talks about the shoreline and history while you ride along. 

I remember it was a fairly small boat and that my brother and I were the only children on board. From my memory, there were less than twenty people on this boat ride.

SIDENOTE: I just called my brother to see if he has any further memory of these events, which was unlikely, since if my timeline is correct, he would have been younger than five at the time. Probably three-ish. He can corroborate the main ideas, but we’re still in talks on the details.

Anyway. Upon boarding, or embarking, the captain distributed little non-descript tied-off canvas bags to several (if not all) passengers. Corbin and I each got one (I think). We were all informed that each bag contained a divvied-up portion of someone’s stash of very important gold, and that we had to hide it and guard it carefully in case the dreaded pirates of Branson were to board at any point.

I remember all of the adults knowingly chuckling at this, as adults so often knowingly do, because it was likely in the brochure, and I remember being aware that the bag was filled with rocks that I assumed (hoped) were at least spray-painted gold. I’m sure, if I was then anything like I am now, I spent the majority of that boat ride fervently hoping that whatever alleged pirate might board would harass one of the adults for gold, instead of approaching me. I’m pretty sure I hid mine in my white hip-pack, with jaunty little hot-colored beach items all over it for decor. I remember being so sure that on the off-chance I was approached, I would keep my “gold” “safe”. I pre-thought of ways to tell off a pirate, should one “surprisingly” find us.

Anyway, brace yourself for this reveal: a pirate boarded. He was a lone, decked-out pirate who (I think) even put on a cockney accent for his pirating in Branson. He hopped off his little piratey boat (which might have even had a "cannon" to get our attention?) into ours and began putting on a show of searching for young maidens and gold. He approached a woman, and she held out very well and swore she had no gold, much to the entertainment of the other passengers. I remember being nervous, unsure of which sassy comeback I might use should he badger me as extensively as he had these other patrons.

Here’s the main point: the “pirate” didn’t even have to casually cast his glance in our direction, much less start accosting us, before Corbin and I both produced and surrendered our gold.

I could go into great detail about how this is so stereotypical Jori, ducking an improv spotlight, or being too shy to humor the “captain” and protect the “gold”, or just doing my part in letting the action get itself over with so I could go back to quietly letting my thoughts drift, away from the crowd.

But the parallels are obvious and don't require much more introspection (not that I couldn't do it because... come on). 

Instead, let's land here: today I was supposed to start a new job, but due to some administrative oversights, as I’ll call them to spare another story, it didn’t work out. I thought of this story yesterday, when the story was in the context of Tomorrow Is My New Job. Not really a new job so much as a new course to teach for my current employer. And I pushed the story out of my mind because, frankly, it would remind me of how I act in the spotlight when forced to perform. And performing in the spotlight is a lot of what teaching feels like on the First Day, I've found.

So instead of gearing myself up for that first day that was not meant to be, I guess, I’m sitting here trying to untangle an old memory or two, which is a little like trying to separate a spider web, intact, from a snarl of necklaces and other spider webs and cords. Or something. But anyway. That main point. That’s for sure.

Are we sure this one’s a Tuesday? Because it’s handling more like a Thursday.

One month ago exactly, it was a Friday. I went in to the paleobiology lab at my school, thinking it would be my last time ever in there. It didn’t feel like it; it felt very usual. I worked on work that I didn’t finish, which didn’t worry me because I have connections in the department and even though it was my last day (as mandated by the expiration of my key card), I figured I’d be back plenty to finish the project.

I left and didn’t think any more about it- the past two and a half years have primarily been set on that campus for everything from socializing (I know) to learning to working to having a warm/quiet place to run/read in the winter. I assumed I’d be back often, and I have enough friends and acquaintances roaming the campus and it’s close enough to home, so why not?

Today I went back to pick up my diploma. I have been putting it off for weeks. Part of the reasoning there was sheer unintentional inconvenience; I just haven’t been up that way during business hours over the last month.

But another part of the reason was subconscious denial? Maybe? The diploma meant the end. It meant admitting my program wouldn’t have a grand finale, so it was up to me to transition voluntarily. It meant that it was very much time to shelve this one and move on. I wasn’t aware of this (denial, being a key word here). But today I had a window of free time and figured I’d stop by before picking up groceries.

So I drove to the school. As usual. I spaced out on the very, very well-worn drive there. As usual. As I approached the last stoplight before the driveway to the campus, I snapped back. I was getting a headache, because I was clenching my jaw. I took a deep breath and realized I was also white-knuckling the steering wheel for no apparent reason. I wasn’t even thinking about anything in particular. Weird, but dismissible.

I texted a friend I thought might be on campus, and the light turned green. I made the left turn, found a parking spot and took the long way in on the off chance I’d run into someone. There are some good people I left on that campus that reside among the People I Will Go Out Of My Way To Run Into.

But I didn’t. I saw no one on my way in, past the doors to the big lecture hall, past the lounge, past the mailboxes and coffee machine. They had started new construction since I’d been in (one month ago) because of course they had. That just added onto the very unsettling gray cloud that was growing, hovering, but still unacknowledged. 

I got up to the Registrar’s office, where I’d never been before.

“Can I help you?” A woman’s face in a square surrounded by cubicle wall.

“Uh, yeah, I’m here to pick up a diploma?” Of course I said it questioningly, like I had wandered in to a back-alley deal to covertly and confusedly procure someone else’s blackletter document. I immediately preoccupied myself with irritation. At myself. For that.

“Oh, okay. Do you have your ID?” She seemed jolly and unphased, even despite my now-over-analyzed entrance.

“Not my school ID, but I have other IDs.” I started to rustle through my satchel. The white tentacles of my headphones had done as they do and multiplied to engulf every single scrap of paper and pen and suddenly my keys within the depths of my bag, even though I’d just dropped them and my wallet in there on the elevator up. As I tried to casually untangle, she said something that I mistook for “I just need to know who you are.”

“JORI” I announced very loudly, because I usually over-annunciate my name whenever it’s perfectly unnecessary.

In the middle of borderline interrupting her to stuff my name into her face, I realized she was just telling me it was okay that I didn’t have my school ID, she just wanted to make sure the names matched. 

She still didn’t seem too bothered as she checked my driver’s license, which I had somehow produced, and walked back to an empty desk behind her. I could see a single purple diploma case sitting on its top, and was surprised they were giving me more than a manila envelope in which to carry her home.

The cubicle woman handed over the puffy purple folder, and I thanked her quickly and tried to smile pleasantly (which, as usual, came off as very fitting punctuation to the whole interaction), and she congratulated me and I thanked her again over my shoulder. I was trying to decide if I should go find my old library comrades in the next building or just get on to the grocery. The only thought I gave to the diploma was that I felt really conspicuous carrying it around.

I took the elevator back down, and tried to mentally move on the grocery list, but the gray cloud of Something was still hovering, still very unsettled. I took the short cut back to the parking lot, to my spot, and pulled my keys (and headphones and several pieces of paper and a green pen) out to unlock the doors.

And when I got in and started the engine to leave is when the gray cloud descended. Finally and fully.

I had tossed the folder onto the passenger seat, but I picked it back up and opened it for the first time.

A paper that equals two years of Work. Of tears and money and sweat and lost sleep and arguments, etc. etc., plus the preceding year(s) of indecision. I snapped a picture of it and sent it to a few people. It seemed bigger than the other ones I have. In a few obvious ways.

And then I sat, and felt things I had no idea I would even consider feeling. Especially at receiving a piece of paper.

They’d cancelled our graduation ceremony (because the non-clinical classes were too small, but we might still be invited to the 2015 ceremony?), and forced us to file Pick Up Diploma under Things To Do, along with get groceries and go to the bank and count preserved cats. So that’s what I did, without much thought to the weight of it, but for a few jokes about maybe wearing my college cap and gown to go pick it up.

That gray cloud ended up being pretty weighty.

It made me feel and think some things, out of nowhere, that I very much was not expecting. Some seriousness at closure. Some bewilderment that I forgot to realize another transition. 

And because it’s one of my top skills, I filed the gray cloud away, as I’m wont to do, to be dealt with at a later time. Filing doesn’t always work immediately (or eventually, I guess), but it’s how I do.

I had other Things To Do today. So I moved on and did them.

What did I do today: a very short picture essay

All that pecan shelling down the drain. When they burn, they burn fast. 

I am still not tired of working on bones. This one was graciously given by a moose.

Our dog-food-buying trip turned into bookstore tour.

Our bookstore tour turned into let's draw this afternoon out.

Let's draw this afternoon out turned into let's call out our friends and make it an evening. And include their busy cat. And then go home and fall asleep to House, as usual. 

An escalating cycle of shame

With each cycle, each step is dramatically emphasized.

Things like this have been discussed (or even drawn out) before. With Rachelle. Maybe by Hyperbole? Not sure. But I couldn't find (i.e. didn't search for) a graphic that already existed for it. So I worked really, really hard on this world-class infographic, which I should probably copyright for Pulitzer reasons.

Long story short, I have a terrible, terrible stay-in-contact problem that leads to computers bogged down with image files, email draft folders bursting with very old news, and actual physical items that need to be mailed via real-live post but the post office is literally over 1.1 miles from my house and there are hills and the parking lot there is mildly confusing.

Someday I may overcome. I am not hopeful.

(This problem manifests very visually in this very website, obviously.)

Now that I am truly, truly done with graduate school (save for some lingering work here and there, but the degree has been fully earned; the extra stuff is strictly for-fun and for-dollars), I am feeling the weight that has built up on my delayed correspondence. Grad school is a wonderful disguise for the TOO MUCH TIME PASSES step, as illustrated above.

So if, for some reason, you are reading this, and I have not communicated well with you lately or if I owe you some form of communication or photographs (I could list people but I'd feel too awful), I'm sorry. This is my weak excuse.

As a consolation, here is an introduction to how Tiberiuses ride in cars:

I'm still here

I am now existing in limbo. I am waiting to hear if I legitimately earned my master's degree or if I have to endure more testing. It's a weird place to be. No celebrating yet. Very tentative and pretty guilt-laden resting. Very, very weird.

I intend to be a bit more writey in the nearish future. But for now, just a note. Still here. In an unfamiliar state, not yet daring to look forward to the very unknown.