Yesterday I talked about my data hoarding and what I want to do with a lot of my traditional media. I also alluded slightly to a few things I use for the bajillions of pieces of information that I gather online and want to preserver for posterity. I figured I’d highlight them here too because I know a lot of these were inspired by posts I’d read on other blogs. I figure you don’t have to go the extent I do but you might be able to take a few pointers and use them at a not so crazy level.
Clutter is one of main enemies in my house. I hate it so much that at least once or twice a year, I make it a point to go through every nook and cranny in my home and purge it of things I don’t need or haven’t used. This includes clothes, kitchen utensils and gadgets, shoes, beauty things, books, linens, etc. I am pretty ruthless when it comes to what I get rid of. As a matter of fact, I hate it so much that for the most part, my house has been devoid of any trinkets or tchotchkes and I don’t store anything on my kitchen counters except for the bread box, knife block, paper towel holder and wine rack (the essentials).
So one would think this extends to all areas of my life and for the most part, it does. I’m relentlessly organized and clean at work. My car sometimes teeters on the edge of being bad but once it gets overwhelming I have to stop what I’m doing and clean it out too otherwise I start to panic a bit.
I’m still here with an almost thirty item list of post ideas (not including the general post ideas I’ve accumulated in a rather long archive in my Evernote files) but I’ve been a bit distracted.
My birthday present came in the mail on Tuesday …. and yea …
I’ve always felt to be a bit of a fraud when discussing the events of 9/11 with people because most of the time, they very clearly remember hearing the news, stopping everything they were doing and being glued to the TV.
I, on the other hand, had decided to skip my morning classes and slept right through it. And, to top it all off, managed to get myself out of bed and ready to go without hearing a word of what was going on (this was of course, before Twitter, Facebook, etc.). It wasn’t until I was in the car, on the way to work and heard the radio DJs discussing how everything was closing and how basically the entire city of Phiadelphia was shutting down. I actually called my mom and she told me what happened and told me not to go into the city.
I remember calling Steve to make sure everything was ok there. I knew it was, of course, but I think I just wanted to hear his voice. I remember being so mad that Temple didn’t close and that one of my professors was expecting us to come to our evening class (of which I was not going to go regardless – you weren’t going to catch me within million of feet of the closest metropolitan area to New York that day). I remember all of us gathered somberly in the break room still watching long after the initial attacks, dumbfounded, saddened, terrified.
So I have memories but this unfortunately it is just one of those events that I missed right as it was happening and I think I will always be ok with that in some way. My emotions from that day and the subsequent days are just as raw and valid as anyone else’s but somehow, I’ll always feel a bit disconnected.