the underwear drawer

because there may come a time when I might need that physics 101 textbook

I can think of several reasons why being a packrat could actually be adaptive--if you ever needed a shrink-wrapped Matisse calendar from 2004, for example, or an old Halloween costume last worn during your sophomore year in college. (The occasion could arise. Time travel, for instance.) However, there are two instances in which packrat-ism is disadvantageous. One is when you die, and they have to dig through the mounds of newspapers and clothes and old volumes of Encyclopedia Brittanicas from 1982 to find you. Two, when you actually have to move out of your house. The plus side is I'm sure that we'll find many things that we presumed were lost along the years. The downside is that we probably never missed most of these things in the first place.

Joe is the best at diuresing our posessions, and mercifully for everyone, he picked a time when I was actually sleeping to do something that was long overdue, which was to finally chuck all my notes from the second year of medical school. There was really no rational reason to keep them aside from sentimentality--given that they weren't indexed, anything that I really need to look up about nephrology or endocrinology or infectious disease I would first turn to one of my textbooks or Dr. Google anyway. But I just never had the heart to throw them out, if only for the reason that it was the only tangible proof I had left that I ever studied that hard. That, and the corpses of at least five different colors of highlighters that I'm sure I will get around to throwing out before the move as well. Memories, like the corners of my mind.




Anyway, we had a nice Mother's Day here. We met up with my family and went to the park, where we blew giant bubbles and flew some rocket balloons. In other words, it was more of a Children's Day than a Mother's Day, but that's what it's about anyway, isn't it?