big & thick

got a new wallet for christmas. that means i need to clean out my current wallet and transfer what i might deem 'the essentials' to the new one. if you've seen my current wallet - a confabulation 3 plus inches thick of old receipts, phone numbers and email addresses written on the back of said receipts and accumulated business cards, rarely do i carry cash - you'll know what kind of task i've set before me.

i might be one of the weirder pack-rats in that i really don't have need nor do i have much desire for things. yet the stuff i do keep is the relatively useless detritus of quotidian life. the same goes for my backpack which is filled with books, mags, drafts of poems, newspapers, my moleskin, a pen, a packed lunch for the workdays. my backpack is also stuffed with evidence of my travels. i still have receipts and brochures from our trip to london in '02. in other words, it is a heavy affair that strains the back and demands a thorough cleaning too. i take my backpack nearly everywhere i go.

i suppose i need one of those iphones to organize my life in an orderly way. the way i keep phone numbers, addresses and email addresses is too slipshod a system for any practical purpose. and yet, it seems for me the messier it appears is also the biggest pleasure-giving aspect of living. call it a system of 'anti-organization'. anna calls it foolhardy. but certainly i have one helluva a task set to clean now.