I'm packing my stuff as I get ready to move and travel for the next year. I sit with my back to several boxes, piles of "Brazil," "long-term storage," and "Lebanon" stuff, wondering how I accumulated so much paper.

While I'd like to be able to toss my stuff into one box in a Thoreau-esque movement towards simplicity--I certainly don't need everything I have--I like looking back at trinkets from my past: a comic on my corkboard about chocolate Easter bunnies, a pencil from my conference in Turkey, a note from my dad in his scribbly print-writing, a piece of fluorite from the days I thought I'd be a world-reknowned geologist... these are the bits that remind me of various moments--really great moments--in my life and I don't want to give those up.

So while moving and preparing for all of these great adventures is daunting, it's kinda cool that I'm finding all this stuff I'd forgotten about. And uncovering a Garfield pez dispenser becomes more than just a cool discovery even though it's empty. It brings me back to L., a thousand years of friendship, and my past self.

By the way, I have the one with aviator goggles (second from the right, next to Odie).