Compartmentalizing

It’s a weird feeling to come home at least once a week and notice that something else is missing from my home.  That is to say, it’s not been removed but rather removed from its place.  It now exists in some bizarre, unreachable realm.  Most people call it a box, but Schrödinger’s Cat would beg to differ (and probably beg to be let out).

KB made a pact with herself that during the month of July she would pack one box per day, and she has far exceeded her goals.   We are building an ever increasing stack that will eventually get moved onto a truck with all of our other belongings and sent to our new house in Austin.  It’s a hard thing to watch, really.  She takes certain amount of delight in packing, perhaps because of a certain “Day of Bags” of which I dare not speak.  I take only an enabling role, bringing in more boxes (Thanks, Spec’s!).  It’s hard to watch all of the things that have built our surroundings for seven years get put into boxes, but it’s even tougher to realize that, wow, we sure do have a lot of books and CDs, two things that seem to be headed the way of the Evening Paper.  It’s a disconcerting feeling to see one’s life and interests neatly packed away.  Everything someone could want to know about me is being stacked neatly into a container, ready to be loaded onto a truck.  Favorite book?  Catch-22.  Someone that came into my house and saw that displayed might then understand my love of satire.  Favorite music?  The blues.  My CD collection is full of blues tunes, new and old.  All of these things are not me, but inform who I am.  Only a few people get the real details, but visitors can see glimpses from what is in our happy home. And now that’s in boxes.

The other aspect of boxing up everything around me is finding things.  Most telling, no less than three (3!) journals I’ve started and then just let fall off into the void.  At least one begins with a comment about how I lack the discipline to keep a regular journal.  Oh, Nick from 2003…you’re so right.  I mean heck, when was the last time I posted here?  I have to wonder why I seem to find the idea of keeping a journal so appealing, yet so difficult to maintain.  It just stuffing more of myself into boxes, but it’s such an fascinating thing.  Other than just the record of daily life, I suppose it has to do with keeping your inner thoughts on record so you can remember not only what you did, but how you felt, all in the hopes of exhibiting personal growth.

Of course in the case of this blog, it’s the hopes of getting one of those blog-to-book deals, becoming famous, and landing on the cover of Texas Monthly with the headline “The Next Kinky Friedman (But This One’s a Gentile)”.  I even play guitar…