Keep the books, because they always look classy and stuff on bookshelves.
If you can remember, keep one (or two?) from each year. Give to Punch and Pokey.
Oh, and never move them again, because they are as heavy as hell.
An old Sega Gamegear that was actually my brothers' contraband, which they gave me when they left for college, and which I never played because video games are boring, but it's one of the very few gifts from my brothers so I treasured it nonetheless?
(This one has an answer already.)
Keep the books, because they always look classy and stuff on bookshelves.
Even paperbacks, in pastels, with bubble-gum font on the spine saying something like "The Banana Split Affair"? After a critical mass accumulates, these start to look like YA books from the late 80s.
Oh jesus christ, my old creative writing, tapped out on my parent's old typewriter.
first,
the nurse
cursed,
the wren
again
and again
got, alone
pot, stoned
and the hen
spent
christmas alone, again
my old creative writing, tapped out on my parent's old typewriter.
Post! Post! Post! Post!
defend
yourself
pretend [big horiz space] to others
recieve [sic]
yourself
decieve [big horiz space] others
destine
yourself
questions [big horiz space] others
waste
yourself
great [big horiz space] fun
the light shown through and made a pattern
that looked sort of like the planet saturn
but when I showed someone, he laughed like a buffoon
and told me it was definitely, definitely neptune.
I sorted through about 6 big boxes/bins of books during our most recent visit to my parents' house. Ended up purging about 1/3. Barely tapped the vast store of YA cheeseball, though. That'll be for next time. It's been fun to re-read the old picture books with our kids, frequently having some very strong nostalgic associations with the illustrations.
Nevermind. It's no fun if they aren't embarrassing.
There is plenty of stuff that is not coming anywhere close to Unfogged. Also apparently I thought "Frankie Smith" would be the most awesome pen name ever.
I'm generally on team purge everything, but if you have space in the kids area for a bookshelf keep the books, the kids will enjoy leafing through the weird archaic 1980s books later. If they're just gonna sit in storage for 20 years throw them out. Throw out the Sega immediately.
Nevermind. It's no fun if they aren't embarrassing.
These aren't embarrassing?!
20: Sorry, but they happen to be AWESOME. :(
Purge. The kids probably won't read the 80s stuff, and they'll need bookshelf space for their own book collections.
I was stupid and lost some poems a guy wrote to me when he was trying to court me. One was in the style of a Spenserian sonnet comparing me to the moon etc. The other was basically a marriage proposal. I had lunch with him in the cafeteria once. They were so bad. I think my Dad had them and lost them.
A series of homemade Far Side style cartoons:
1. "The Emerald City of Cloz" (Dorothy: well, dang it! Toto, this ain't the place.)
2. "T-shirts for stick figures" (Stick figure whose shirt is made out of the letter T.)
3. "Light Switches" (Burglar breaking in and swapping out the light switch fixture.)
4. "Cow Stools" (Cow on stool.)
Books: keep, until the spawn have matured enough that either they look back on them as beloved/embarrassing relics of their own childhood, or never will.
Game machine: purge.
Writings: scan, then purge.
(I am in the process of purging the 27 boxes of books my mother drove up from DC in November, but most of those are from college or grad school, and anyway I have no kids to inflict them on.)
I should add that there are multiple drafts of each of the above, in order to perfect the hilarity.
Not embarrassing at all: a diary with a giant "YO" that I wrote on the cover, and signed every entry with "Yo, Qwerty U Iop", the pen name I adopted in...1989, apparently.
28: Oh god, I'm sure I have the same, somewhere.
I approve of 28.2–4 and don't get 28.1.
I've got a box of all the paper letters I got from high school through the Peace Corps that I haven't looked through in fifteen years. I should do that one of these days. Or put it off for another decade or so -- they're not doing anyone any harm in the box.
"I gotta go to bed. Bum deal, isn't it? (By the way, Bum deal is my favorite phrase when I don't like something. You might want to get used to it.) YO, Qwerty U Iop."
A comic I drew, called Flowers That Fuck:
Panel 1: boy flower, girl flower eyeing each other. Mutual thought bubble "DATE". (They're tulips)
Panel 2: flowers dancing at a disco.
Panel 3: "LATER..." Flowers post-coital, in bed.
Panel 4: Flowers in a frenzy.
Panel 5: Flowers standing around with little baby flowers. Inscrutable expression.
Panel 6. THE END.
At the bottom, away from the comic strip, is Girl Tulip looking about 9 months pregnant.
You might want to get used to it.
Done.
The memories of my family outings are still a source of strength to me. I remember we'd all pile into the car - I forget what kind it was - and drive and drive, I'm not sure where we'd go, But I think there were some trees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called "Dad". We'd eat some stuff, or not, and then I think we went home. I guess some things never leave you.
40 was from high school, so definitely intentionally ironic.
"When I look at others,
I see the stars. At you,
the sun."
My original "kewl" signature line for signing girl's HS yearbooks. It was great, until the girls compared notes, and saw that I wrote that for every girl.
But hey, I meant it.
You were right about the stars. Each one is a setting sun.
My pseudonym, before the awesome Tripp Davenport, which I stole fro the writer Alan Ball, was Otto Pootle. I liked the sound of it.
+m. Steal from writers, that's what I have learned.
43: Yeah, aging balls of hot gases, but that line gets a boy nowhere.
Oh, yearbook signatures. I love how they're a mix of thoughtful, interesting notes and wince-inducing sophomoric humor. I'm not sure where my old yearbooks are now that my parents renovated my old bedroom.
14: "Rhyming planets isn't easy."
Yeah, that "U" one always tries to budge in.
My pumpkins this year were a solar system. Yes, you know what Uranus looks like. I had to do it.
Oh, yearbook signatures.
Thanks to Facebook, it turns out that "I'm sure we'll keep in touch no matter how far away we go" wasn't an empty threat.
51: "To a real fart smeller - I mean smart fellar." You mean like that?
Box of old trophies. Soccer and piano. Keep or purge?
Participation in recitals. Yearly festivals where you had to do different various events in front of judges.
An old plastic cylinder which had held a bunch of Crystal Light powder packets, which I filled with water, closed, and then mummified with duct tape. On the duct tape I wrote:
10/4/1989 ∞ ∞ OLD WATER ∞ ∞ and decorated it with stars and asterisks.
We Suzuki Method children don't believe in competition.
58 -- sounds like Urple has a new beverage to try on his coffee break today.
58: Does it still have water in it?
I think I was contemplating what old water meant, because all water is as old as the oceans, and yet this water is brand new, because it just came out of the tap, so wouldn't it be wild if my grandchildren found some tap water labelled with a really old year?
Box of old trophies. Soccer and piano. Keep or purge?
If they're real gold, silver or even bronze, save them. If they're plastic replicas, purge.
all water is as old as the oceans
Only if you count evaporated water, which seems like cheating.
Trophies - keep! If you really must purge them, consider donating them to a local theater to be used as set dressing. But, really, why not keep them, and display them somewhere? I'm serious.
When Old Water gets rabies and has to be put down, it's so sad.
If they're real gold, silver or even bronze, save them. If they're plastic replicas, purge.
All plastic, with marble bases, and possibly bronze engraved plates, some of which were never engraved so I'd flipped them over and written my name and the year in pencil on the cardboard backing.
Box of old trophies. Soccer and piano. Keep or purge?
Way to come up with a game in which you can backhandedly brag about your precocious childhood. Well done.
70: Trust me, they were all for participation. Maybe even a perfect attendance thrown in there for good measure.
I don't really think about it much, but I live 10 minutes from my parents, and they converted my old bedroom into a sitting area and threw roughly 99% of my childhood stuff into the trash. Meanwhile my sister's room remains a pristine shrine, with a full collection of mementos through grade 12. Should I be concerned?
Kudos on your airtight duct-taping, young heebie.
Yeah seriously how is that water not evaporated? I'm starting to suspect this whole game. HOW CAN WE KNOW THE TRUTH.
Out of the stuff from my childhood, I think I'd only be upset if my parents threw out my Lego robots. Those were awesome.
I was mildly upset that they sent me so much stuff, because I wanted it to stay happily intact at their house and never have to think about it because my parents are obviously immortal.
Other parts of me think that this is a relatively painless way of diminishing the horrible task of dealing with my parents' house when they die or become incapacitated. Which they won't because they're immortal.
I think steam is water, but there are an awful lot of chemical processes that take water in or put water out, which destroys or creates water, I say. I don't feel like I have any way of guessing how much water is as old as the oceans.
Isotopes, all y'all. Sealed samples can be useful, though not all plastics will do.
Also: H2O from metabolism, new.
I wish I still had my childhood trophies, but I think that if I did still have them I wouldn't realize that I would wish I still had them if I didn't, so I would inevitably just throw them away. So the only way that I could successfully hold onto them without throwing them away would be to throw them away first, realize later that I missed them and then discover with surprise that someone had salvaged them from the garage when I tried to throw them out. Which is an unlikely sequence of events.
Hmmm, it takes energy to separate the H from the O, so my guess is that most water is old water, but that's only a speculation.
My boyfriend's parents have all of the Legos. They've got the original packaging too. There are a lot of sets too. They must be worth a decent chunk of change.
Plastic attendance trophies - purge. Also, good point about the metabolism water. I hadn't thought of that. Do you have any idea how much an average person creates?
My trophy case was a very sad display.
Must grade, cannot disport at length. Nb: that water-splitting energy runs photosynthesis...-This would be a great _Cylindrical Cow_ problem.
85: Yeah, my teams were losing teams.
One thing I liked about track was that a person could win an individual award, and at the bigger meets they'd give something down to fifth place or so. It was easier to get recognized for an accomplishment.
A solitary issue of Rolling Stone from September 1990, featuring MC Hammer mid-Hammer-dance, in black sequined Hammer Pants, also advertising David Lynch, Living Colour (their bold new album), and Faith No More (Most unlikely to succeed)?
Hang on. There was certainly microbial action occuring in heebie's bottle, so the water might not be as old as we thought. Purge.
My research finds that you can get anywhere from $7.25 to $10.99 for that beauty.
Yeah but I'll be rid of it without the vague guilt of discarding something that someone else might want.
If the question is freecycle vs. discard: yes, freecycle. Although if you read 91 and 92 you'll see that you could probably get between $7.25 and $11 for it on ebay.
I wish I still had my childhood trophies, but I think that if I did still have them I wouldn't realize that I would wish I still had them if I didn't, so I would inevitably just throw them away. So the only way that I could successfully hold onto them without throwing them away would be to throw them away first, realize later that I missed them and then discover with surprise that someone had salvaged them from the garage when I tried to throw them out.
Pathetically, for me this phenomenon takes the form of sometimes being glad for unpleasant experiences. Like I'm glad to be at a really bad party because if I hadn't gone I might have thought I'd missed something good. Of course, I did miss something good, to wit, staying home with a book and a bottle of wine.
I suppose this was much more the case when I was younger, but it still happens sometimes.
Either take pictures of the trophies and purge the rest, or keep one from each major activity and purge the rest. Definitely keep the YA books--your kids will get a huge kick out of them.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
PURGEPURGEPURGEPURGEPURGEPURGEPURGEPURGEPURGE.
Although I suppose if adolescents who, by definition, take themselves too seriously, are going to read philosophical crap, better that than Ayn Rand.
99: I mentioned that the author has lost his mind, and now writes serious novels for adults about ferrets who pilot planes in the RAF?
Ferret values captivated me: their love of action and adventure, their choice to decline the idea of evil, to live each of them to their highest sense of right, without malice or crime or war. Ferrets, in short, were animals who make choices that any of us can make, at any time: they choose every day to become the best creatures they know how to be.
How does a ferret work the pedals?
Randy Newman v Richard Bach cage fight.
Q: Each book features at the front a fable in Ferrune, the language of ferrets; an English translation follows. What can you tell us about Ferrune?
A: Ferrune is not so much the language of ferrets as it is their ancient alphabet. It was given to the early Sumerians and Phoenicians and Druids by early ferrets coming to Earth -- readers familiar with those written languages will see the runic influences of the ferrets and through them, the shape of our own alphabet today.
96: Selling it on ebay and giving away some portion of the proceeds to an efficient charity strictly dominates freecycling, because you can jointly optimize the desire to help others and the desire to profit.
100, 101, 103: Good god, I had no idea.
I am deeply attached to someone who really liked Bach's new-agey writing generally, so I noticed the ferret books at Barnes and Nobel years ago, and was kind of stunned. It's got to be some kind of organic brain damage, don't you think?
Keep or purge? How about ignore. The "hliday season" is depressing enough without re-examining the detritus of a previous self. Leave it to a bright sunny spring day. Then find another reason to postpone it further.
Barnes and Nobel: where you go for a dynamite read.
The easiest part of writing the books* [Ferret Chronicles] has been to give up the ambition, once and for all, that I might one day become a sophisticated literary writer.
*Link is a .pdf.
Wait, why is it weirder to write about the thoughtful philosophical sophistication of ferrets than the thoughtful philosophical sophistication of seagulls? You're just prejudiced by ferret legging.
At the moment, as far as I know, I am the only human on Earth who can write and decipher Ferrune. After the Chronicles are published, I suspect that thousands of young readers will have taught themselves Ferrune, and will read and write it much faster than I.
I had forgotten that Richard Bach and Erich Segal were two different people.
If you forget to feed your ferrets for very long, they eat you.
113: Nuh-uh.
I couldn't have come this far in the interview without giving away my love and admiration for the character of the ferret in the universe parallel to ours, and to those ferrets who choose to be born here, risking their lives every day to share our universe with us, to teach us kindness and love.
Now we have to worry that the ferret RAF pilots will give us bird flu.
112. Common mistake. I was once entertained by the spectacle of Erich Segal having a screaming, top of their lungs, no holds barred fight with the Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University, whereas Richard Bach has never done anything to entertain me.
Seagulls are evil bastards. They strut around like they own the world. They can back it up, too, they're very muscular with vicious beaks.
With all the vegetarian-vegan crap, I haven't seen much movement away from carnivorous pets, totem animals, fantasy objects, etc. Think how tht cute little kitten seems to a songbird or a mouse.
our cat, though recently bested by other cats in fights for our yard, had twice successfully caught a bat. I am quite proud of her, as she must have waited ages for one to swoop low enough to nab. otoh, the screams of a bat being tortured to death are awful, and we had to relieve her of her prizes before she could present them to husband x, her true love. much to her annoyance. I don't mind watching her torture big bugs to death, but it certainly reminds you that all that playful batting is not for naught in kittens, and cats really just like to prolong the suffering of whatever they catch. she genuinely enjoys torturing things.
In India crocodile float in the water waiting for low-flying bats. You could probably organize a vacation excursion around that.
In India crocodile float in the water waiting for low-flying bats.
If they're the swarming type of bats, that wouldn't look that impressive. Like wrapping your mouth around a beef faucet.
The fruit is hanging lower than the bats.
122: just below the beef faucet, yes.
Captain Beef-faucet would be a good pseud.
My old cat, when young, once caught a rook/raven in the back garden. There was a moment of triumph -- 'Look at the big fucking bastard I just caught!' -- before the rook turned the evil eye on her, then gave a couple of swift beak jabs, right between the eyes, and flew off.
The cat was staggering about half-concussed for ages. Must have felt like being hit with a sledgehammer.
The second image result for me was more disturbing.
As per the whole toss/ save dilemma, I think about all of the crap I've hoarded and try to realize that those I love the most will have to dispose of this mountain of stuff if I do nothing. The very thought makes purging easier. Likewise, there was very little my own parents saved from childhood that could have had any value for me as a young pup. All I can think of was a recommendation from my father at an appropriate age that I might enjoy the adventures of James Oliver Curwood. They were to be found in the local library.
In effect, then, purge as you will.
