Fears and phobias

I've managed to make it for today, eh?

This post was supposed to go up a few weeks ago, when it was more relevant to the topic at hand (moving).
While I was sitting in the garage, sorting out 5+ years of junk (tossing out about 6 boxes worth of trash), I realized why I became such a pack rat, and why I kept (worthless) things dating back 10+ years. Of course, it was far worse in middle school, when every single thing had 'sentimental value', but it was still hard to throw away some of my trinkets that I held on to. It felt as if every item thrown in the junk pile was a memory lost, that I would never again have a retrieval cue to that particular memory.
Then, of course, I'd realize that the memory in question didn't have any significance in relation to anything (like that fish keychain I got as a party favor at a birthday party in a store where we painted ceramics. I can't, for the life of me, remember whose birthday it was, or what grade I was in, or who my friends were at that time) and then I'd toss the offending item in the junk bin. It felt like my brain was some sort of large shrubbery that needed pruning so that new branches could grow and flourish.

The metaphor, however, becomes invalid once you realize that the human brain is nearly limitless in its storage capacity, and that memories can persist for years and years if you retain the proper retrieval cues. These days, however, it feels like every day goes by without being recorded in my brain. Perhaps it's the monotony, or maybe I'm just not making the effort to remember things, but frankly it scares me not to be able to remember what happened the day before yesterday, or the week before, or what I did last winter break. Part of it is turning into such a space case that my grasp on reality seems tenuous at best, and it feels like my default setting is auto-pilot.

Cutting loose from reality and living in the present are all well and good, but every time I do so, it always scares me just a little bit more that I remember just a little bit less.

And this is why I take lots of inane pictures of things and write stuff down whenever I can.

(Made it within 3 minutes of the deadline)

My plans have contracted a slight case of the hiccups

It seems that all of my posts have to start with an apology for being missing these days, and this one is no exception.

Now that the apology has been touched on, a justification now appears!
My parents thought it a good idea to start trying to sell the house now, so Quail returned from Japan to find the house partially deconstructed and most things box-sized or smaller stashed in the garage. Needless to say, this threw a small wrench in most of my plans including (but not limited to) t-shirt making, art, sewing, other similarly craft-y plans, and the like.

Quail's room is still bare-bones, but at least the computer and interwebs are functional, which means that life is good.
Quail has also stopped working at her job (but will probably still go next week), which leaves more time to pack and blog.
This leads me to my next resolution:
Starting with today, I will post every day this week (ending next Friday). We'll see how the post schedule continues after that.

Quail out.