Ultrick

Moving. It’s that time of year again. I love living in new places with new people, but the idea of packing and unpacking everything I own makes me want to escape to Belize where no one can find me. Or at least El Paso. I have a bunch of stuff. And when I say stuff, I mean crap. The inventory includes a bundle of buttons, coloring books from high school, and a dress-up wardrobe that rivals the size of my everyday-wear. I’ve hoarded old workbooks, an unopened quill, and a recently purchased sandwich toaster. The interminable multiplication of junk makes me feel like Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes, my favorite comic) battling his meal:

I don’t know where it begins or ends, what’s up or down. But unlike Calvin, I don’t know how I could part with any piece of it. Upon pulling out any item from my hoarded horde, I initiate a sequence that is both unhealthy and unbelievably predictable: I keep everything. Let’s say I decide to “go through” some of my old boxes. For most, that process includes sifting through old items, and tossing unneeded/unused fluff. For me, that means I pull out each worthless gem, turn it over, and find an excuse to put it right back where it was. That t-shirt I haven’t worn in 2 years but takes me back to that one time I wore it at camp during that hilarious skit? Keep it. How about this birthday card dated 1998 from our 3 week resident Japanese exchange student? I’ll treasure it always. Are these the legs of pants from those jorts I cut last summer? Of course! I’ll use those for a craft someday. You can see how persuasive I can be.

Something I hate about packing and unpacking is how time consuming it is. It will take me anywhere from 20 seconds to 2 hours to pack/unpack a single box. A box of kitchen stuff goes pretty quickly (unless I’m unpacking salt and vinegar chips, in which case it’s anybody’s guess). A box of school papers from 4th grade, on the other hand, is quicksand. I pull out a notebook, flip through it, and find a drawing of my best friend whom I decided needed to sport an Old Navy tech vest. I remember I still have an Old Navy tech vest. I go find it in my closet to see if it still fits, and find something in the pocket — an old safety pin. Right, that safety pin I used on that road trip to open a bottle of glue. I decide to put the safety pin in my desk. I start sifting through the papers in my desk, find old awards or thank you letters from Christmas ‘09. As I’m looking through the papers, I decide to sit down. After I look through the papers (none of which I discard), I realize I’m right back to my 4th grade binders and gel pens. This cycle is virtually endless until I decide to just close all the boxes and leave it to future Liz, who will be much more grumpy.

Moving also means I accumulate others’ refuse. “Hey, I don’t want any of this anymore. If you want something, take it.” Those words spell danger. I’ll think to myself, “You know, I might not always need this life jacket, but one day I might, and I’ll be glad I have it.” Or the classic, “That can totally go in the dress up bin.” Dress up stuff and just-in-case stuff account for approximately 90% of my possessions. Tie dye makes up the next 8.4%, and the rest is what I actually live on. All I know is, I am mighty popular once Halloween rolls around.

I haven’t written about my return flight from Spain, and it is certainly worth mentioning. I used my airline miles to pay for the flight, and being such a valued American Airlines member, they rewarded this little piggy with first class flights all the way home. I have never been part of anything so extravagant. As soon as I sat down, a flight attendant glided over with a tray of orange juice and champagne to refresh my weary brow from priority boarding. She introduced herself as Jeannie, which fitted her better than I expected. I have since dreamt of Jeannie. I took a glass of orange juice because it was closest and I wanted to be on my best manners, but then felt the rush of first class entitlement and called her back. I drank that champagne like it had my name on it. Then the flight attendant made her way around the cabin, asking everyone’s name and taking down orders for the meal. I answered her query with “Elizabeth” because it sounds more sophisticated, but needed more time to look over the menu while I munched on warm mixed nuts and a veggie plate. I landed on an exquisite beef dish with mashed potatoes, a spinach salad with assorted veggies, and green beans. The list of alcohol was no less exquisite, and I tried to map out how to get a little of everything without being distasteful. I started with sherry because I had never tried it (but I would never tell Jeannie that). I tried to ration my sips, but as Jeannie made her way through the cabin several times with a bottle in each hand, I realized that I needed to stop thinking so economically. The first time she offered to fetch me a glass of wine after the sherry, I declined thinking I would appear self-controlled and regal, but that all went out the window when she caught me licking the plate (it wouldn’t have been as embarrassing if it had been my own plate). I switched to wine and never looked back, accepting anything and everything she offered me. I even helped myself to an extra “Amenity Pack” that touched my feet (which in my mind is qualifies as property rights). When I was seated on the plane, each seat in first class had a zippered pack stuffed to the brim with goodies: Burt’s Bees chapstick (which I still use), Burt’s Bees lotion (which I still use), a tiny ounce tube of toothpaste (which I still use… not really), a toothbrush, a sleeping mask, socks, and Tylenol. I could live off one of those packs for weeks (but again, I would never let on to Jeannie that that was true). As I settled into my second movie with the Bose headphones Jeannie handed me during the warm nuts phase of the flight, I looked around to see if anyone of the the other passengers were as giddy as I. Everyone else’s feet touched the ground, and if they didn’t, they weren’t twitching and kicking in flurries like mine. That sobered me a bit, but not enough to lower my seat enough for my boots to touch the carpeted floor. In the middle of Inception, Jeannie dropped by to see how I was doing and ask whether I would care for a cold meat plate. I wasn’t hungry, but accepted it all the same. As soon as I feasted my eyes on that plate, however, I knew that Jeannie truly lived up to her name. She knew me better than I knew myself. I didn’t even know I wanted beef cutlets, slices of mozzarella and tomato, a grape atop a heap of couscous, a warm cookie and a Coke, but Jeannie did. So there I sat, wiggling and giggling in my boots while Leo and the crew traversed consciousness. I’ll not soon forget Jeannie, nor the expectations she’s laid out to be disappointed by every flight for the rest of my life.

I have a problem. It’s a book buying kind of problem. It’s been around for ages. I own lots of books. I own lots of books I haven’t even read yet. I also buy lots of books, thus aggrandizing the problem. This past semester, I started to chip away at the mound of books I own but haven’t read yet, as I’ve listed before. I started Last of the Mohicans a couple days ago with the same objective in mind. Things went downhill on Christmas. My sister Rebecca got me 7 short stories by Roald Dahl (which I had asked for), so I dropped LOTM like it was hott and adopted Roald as my mistress until I could crawl back to James Fenimore and beg for forgiveness. That plan had been smoothed out in my mind, and I had guiltlessly reached the 3rd short story (Mildenhall Treasure) when my sisters and I went to Borders to blow our Christmas gift cards. I tried to stay away, I really did. I perused the dwindling music section and shook my head at Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits as if to say, “You don’t belong here.” Then I thought about the kind of people that still buy CDs at Borders, and it made his smirk look rather smug as I realized which of us didn’t actually belong. I groaned at the outrageous prices, and thought about how many more aisles iTunes could make with all its music than Borders’s measly two (I mean at this point, why bother?). In the end, I caved and walked over to the literature section. I mean, who was I kidding, anyway? I always did the same thing in high school at that very Borders. I belong in the corner next to poetry across from the sci-fi section. Sort of embarrassing confession: in high school I would sometimes just go to Borders to hang out. I would try to finish books in one sitting (once, I almost finished The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath). Plus of Borders being my Friday night hangout: my vocabulary was kickin’ back in those days. Downside of Borders being my Friday night hangout: the only cool high school stories to tell my grandkids about when I start with “Back in my day…” will be about the layout of Borders or their electronic searching system. Anyway, I always have an ever-growing list of books I want to read or think I should have read at some point (Catch-22 [which I have owned since my junior year of high school] and Catcher in the Rye [which I do not own… yet] being good examples), so trips to Borders in recent years have become complicated and emotional, as I always want to buy 6 books that I shouldn’t add to my collection of ‘unreads’ when I can either afford none of them, or only have a limited gift card allowance. More often than not, I just end up using the gift card and my own money to add to the collection. The selection process is just as pained. I’ll sit cross-legged on the floor looking from one book to the other, consider one author then the other, read the summary of one book then the other, decide on one, get up and start walking toward the cash register, stop, turn around, turn around again, groan, then go back, sit down, and start the process again. It can be heart-wrenching to leave a good book behind. I always look back longingly at the one I’ve rejected before I turn the corner as if to say, “I’ll come back for you.” I believe it at the time, but reality usually hits pretty hard when I look at the armload of books I think I’ll somehow finish in one vacation or even within the next 6 months. Yesterday was no different. I left Borders with David Sedaris’s (author of one of my favorite books, Me Talk Pretty One Day) When You Are Engulfed In Flames and Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. I’ve never read any Kurt Vonnegut, so I figured now is the time. I left behind (with the longing glance, of course) Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children. Someday, Rushdie, I’ll be back for you, but don’t wait up. 

1. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
2. Alice in Wonderland
3. Tangible Kingdom
   
4. The Silmarillion (only crossed out halfway because I only finished half before giving up)
   
5. In Cold Blood
6. Cyrano de Bergurac 

And now for the latest list:

1. Last of the Mohicans
2. Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
3. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
4. Deathly Hallows

one of the better decisions I’ve made lately is to follow whenparentstext.com.

1. I will miss the smell of roasting chestnuts as I walk around or near the plaza. They smell incredible and the stands are warm as I walk past.

This one is split into two because I’m running out of days to fill with things I’ll miss. I will miss Spanish expressions, both verbal and nonverbal:

    2. a) Spanish people love to infuse their conversations with phrases like, “Hombre,” and “Tío/Tía.” The way they emphasize it when they talk make them sound awesome. I’ve been trying for months to slip it into casual conversation, but the one time I tried, I just sounded like a kid trying out a cuss word and just sounding forced and out of place in the end.

        b) Spaniards’ facial expressions and the way they move their hands is really entertaining to watch. I will miss the way they use their eyes and eyebrows. They have really distinctive gestures that go along with their expressions that make the ‘Merican tude look stoic.