the motherload

rummaging... i do this quite often in my spare time. my family has
never been quick to throw things out, so we've got boxes of old
mementos to sift through. certain things remain simply because they've
been put away and forgotten, while the nostalgic and sentimental value
of others is more evident. i've been enjoying some good rummaging
today, and here are some of the little treasures and surprises i've
come across.

- my old sports walkman and a pile of tapes (rock on, bryan adams)
- rainbowed "amanda" stickers from grade 1 (i'm going to put one on my computer at work)
- a can of coke from russia, best before 11/96 (completely evaporated)
- 4 cans of NZ beer, circa 1996 (those can't be good)
- name tags, order pads and packs of matches from the olive garden
(along with completed comment cards saying what an excellent server i
was! why didn't i hand those in??)
- jurassic park trading cards, magazines, stickers, calendars and other merchandise (oy, so embarrassing)
- mr sketch smelly markers (mmm, cinnamon)
- a stack of Mad magazines (what, me packrat?)

but i've found what i was looking for. the good stuff. all my old
letters and postcards dating back over 15 years. remember that postcard
you sent me from your grade 9 trip to seaworld? i still have it. the
letters sent to me while i lived abroad? all safely filed away. but
there's more. i have the letters i
sent too. that's right, i'm a nerd and keep carbon copies or
photocopies of all of my outgoing letters. anything i've ever written
to you, whether mailed or hand-delivered, i have a copy of it. and then
of course there are the journals, going back to 1988.

i'm going to go read for a bit now. i'm sure i'll have some goodies to share as i go through!