I have had jobs in which I had to do a lot of filing, but eventually it began to drive me crazy. There seemed to be no end to it: stacks of paper that seem to grow larger, no matter how much you chipped away at them. Perhaps it took me a long time to file. I can’t remember the rules, but I remember that my old boss had a much different logic for filing than I did. Eventually I, like Ignatius Reilly, began filing things (not everything, but the things I thought he wouldn’t notice) in the trash. My own filing system is more about standing the test of time than anything else. I make big piles and then every so often go through those files and throw away the things I can’t be bothered with. Eventually, if the pile is small enough, I put it in a folder and call it a file. Here are the partial contents of one, titled “Memorabilia” (not to be confused with another file, labelled “Miscellanious Memorabilia” or another file labelled “Miscellany”) The randomness is important to me. I feel like the fragmented nature of this collection helps me remember the full scope of my life to date. It is, in many ways, the “illogical record of lived experience” that Drucker and Noel talk about below. And of course, a “logical record of lived experience” would make no sense at all.
A poem sent to me by my aunt after my friend committed suicide when I was 16. It’s particularly notable that I kept this, since I’ve moved around so much and almost have nothing remaining from those years.My father wrote and drew books for us, in the hopes we would learn to read early. We did. “Powder Milk” was a song I loved from Prarie Home Companion. Later, I would go to high school with Garrison Keillor’s daughter. Very Minnesota.I’m trying to draw your attention to the “Read This,” which is a copy of one of the first poems I wrote (The first, “Fondue Party on my Head” is lost to eternity) but I suppose you might be drawn to the description of the doomsday cult. This was when “Just do it” had just come out and my friend made that “advertisement” surely at Kinkos, probably because he had a crush on some girl who worked there. (It says “just do it” in the corner.) I wonder whatever happened to that guy.
The poem in question. C. Hall, age 7.I was ordained online so I could officiate a friend’s wedding, but it was called off at the last minute. The (very long) story surrounding it is one of the worst I’ve ever been involved in, so I’m not really sure why I keep this memento.A letter from my niece, then 7 or so, now 17. For at least 8 years we wrote to each other as secret agents.From a Spanish comic book. Translates: “Maybe I’m no more tha a household appliance. The obscene extension of the products I represent. A design detail to excite the pocketbook. The sex appeal of objects! The f@#$ing c#$t for things! The necessary hole for the miserable consumers to stash their merchandise and discard their ejaculations of money!” The quote on top is from a play. I think it’s God talking.For Michelle, an unsent card of a show chicken. I liked him too much to send him away.
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