(no subject)

[jfb]

Tonight I went through a colossal manila envelope I haven't opened since I moved from New Jersey. Here are some things I threw away:

• Records from the move--shipping contracts, utility cancellations and signups.
  
• Records from different frequent flyer programs. I used to fly frequently.
  
• Numerous academic papers on MUDs, innovative user interfaces, computing for people with disabilities, UI lessons from games, and hypertext, an idea that has since conquered the world.
  
• Transparencies from my AT&T presentations on TWin and VEmacs, an attempt at a voice-control-enhanced text editor for programmers with repetitive stress injuries.
  

Here are a few things I didn't throw away:

• Unmailed postcard reproductions of art (Lichtenstein, Magritte, Holzer, Stella (Frank), Johns, Mondrian, Munch... and others) and of World War I and prohibition posters. Most people I knew put posters on their walls. I used postcards.
  
• Mailed postcards from talking_sock: Mexico, Cardiff, an island resort.
  
• Three photographs, the best of which depicts my sisters at Stonehenge in 1993. Stonehenge looks okay but my sisters are great.
  
• An unusually artful Sunday Doonesbury (October 6, 1996).
  
• A photocopy of a humorous flowchart of "all" science-fiction plots, author and date unknown.
  
• A Boston Globe article (March 20, 1995) about Eric Ostrom--possibly this Eric Ostrom--and his new ice detection technology for airplane wings.
  

[Looking over this post in the morning, I find this question: What matters?]

Comments

what photo?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't have any picture of us at Stonehenge--now I'm all curious.

-B

Re: what photo?

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Well, you know... you and Kate... at Stonehenge.

I had no memory of you having gone there, so when I found the photo I just stared at it going "Is that...?"

Re: what photo?

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, the summer you were in Austria. 1993. Good grief, 12 years ago.

Re: what photo?

[jfb.livejournal.com]

My sentiments exactly.

[(Anonymous)]

Me again. I dreamed I saw that photo last night--except in the photo, Kate and I were running along a beach, arms spread out like we were about to fly, delighted faces. I thought (in my dream), "hmm... Stonehenge must be just to the left of this photo--still, I wouldn't consider it a picture of us at Stonehenge."

My dreams have never been normal.