Monday, April 4, 2011

#17 Flowery Express Skirt


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Originally uploaded by PackRatty McRatterson

In 1998, I stopped wearing pants. It made absolutely no sense. Up until then, my basic uniform was some sort of t-shirt and jeans. I didn't even want to wear a skirt for choir. I hated flowery things until I found this skirt for a couple bucks at Ragstock, and it changed my life.

I can't go back to bifurcation. I do dabble on rare occasions, but I get uneasy when my legs can't touch each other. It's hard to explain. I am always amused when people assume I am dressed up, or they ask me if I wear skirts for religious reasons. Nope. I am just not a pants person.

I loved this skirt and wore it to death. It's covered in cigarette burns, the hem has torn out of it and been repaired several times. In the early aughts, I was sitting on the sidewalk and didn't realize I had been sitting in a big gob of gum until it was much too late. I tried valiantly to save it, to no avail. I was devastated, because it was a huge symbol of the shift between what was and what is. I have never seen another one like it.

Friday, April 1, 2011

#16 Jennie's Misc Desk Stuff Box


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Originally uploaded by PackRatty McRatterson

Two weeks ago, my husband and I finally settled into our new place. All the things we need were finally unpacked, and it was time to banish empty boxes. In the process, I told him to break this box down, and then I started crying.

This was the last box of my things I packed when I moved out of my mom's house at eighteen. It is the perfect size for the two handfuls of tiny things I am always left with at the end of packing.

Today is my 28th birthday. Looking at the photo of that box, I'm getting all misty again. I am thinking of me at that age, how it felt to close that last, little box. I'm thinking of all the pain I didn't know was coming, at all the joy I didn't know I'd be rewarded with, in time. Ten years I traveled with this thing. Wow.

Next time we move, I will end up with a small pile of things with no home, small things I don't want to put in a huge box, and I know I will go looking for this one. I just know it. But it will be OK.