bedside_table DammitJanet I have this bad habit of coming home from everywhere and emptying my pockets on my bedside table. I've been doing this for years. Then when i need to clean, another bad habit. I open the drawer, and brush everything in. Tonite as i sat on my floor organizing my cd's i kept finding reciepts, so i grabbed an empty grocery bag and started filling. I looked up at that bedside table drawer and felt the need to be rid of the memories i had shoved inside. It was an interesting road of old jobs and old boyfriends. And old life. Their phone numbers written on repeated rips of paper when i had first started to date them and needed to write it down. Bits of information jotted down on anything around me, addresses on ripped cigarette packs, places and times to meet on napkins, birthdays or a first date remembered on a reciept. All had been shoved in my pocket and rested in the drawer. A post card from calgary with "I love you's!" written huge on the back. A Keiths beer bottle cap from a first dinner together. The bill from a lunch. A go train ticket from last July. Along with the ex's were ex's of jobs. My schedual written on a scrap piece of paper. Deposit slips tucked in the back, not all of them being mine. Pens from my smock. I even found some tiny broken pieces of clay once forming strings. (That was from the statue i picked up to clean underneath on a mothers bedside table. Her child made her a statue of herself, and some of the hair broke off. I shoved the evidence into those huge pockets.) And of course i found memories of our life. Grocery lists you had written down, phone numbers of your friends of places you'll be. Messages from phone calls, doctors appointments, and parents. I even found a dry erase marker i used in university. That was in '97. And i threw it all out. The pack rat in me is sobbing, but i have an overwhelming feeling of calm. My bedside tables drawer will soon be filled again. As much as i want it to stay empty, i can't seem to shake all my bad habits. I'm just setting myself up for a treasure hunt later on. Another big walk down memory lane. 040728 what's it to you? who go blather from