The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains

On this rainy day, which will be among several rainy days this week, I'm not thinking about My Fair Lady, but rather something I just realized I miss.

After a wet bike ride this morning, I came back to the apartment really craving a pale ale.

A bitter,

grassy,

frothy,

golden,

PALE ALE.

As many of you may already know, however, this country is not really known for its beers, but rather its wines. So the closest I can get to a PPA, is some kind of imported Belgian triple-ale. Sure it's high-gravity, but it just ain't the crisp and skunky I'm used to.

More like the beer in Spain stays mainly away from my brain...or something.

Packin' up, gettin' rid of stuff - Pt. 2

Although it felt really good to see the clean, empty house in Philadelphia, I still had to confront all of the shit I owned when I returned to my parent's house in Greensburg.

It's great, though, because my dad is a lot like me when it comes to throwing things away (or I guess I should say keeping things). As I was going through my tools, for example, I would find odd nuts, bolts, hooks, and screws.

I would ask, "What is this? Could you use this?"

And he would say, "Well, I don't know. But I'll take it."

So I feel better because I didn't have to throw it away; and he will feel better in the event that he actually uses the thing that he took.

I went through a second filtering process that allowed me to purge some more belongings that I don't need; and simultaneously another sorting process that forced me to decide what I might want to see or touch in the next year or so, and what I have to forget for a while.

It's very strange to plan for spontaneity. Strategically packing boxes and suitcases so that I can come and go, quickly and easily. Suddenly, decks of playing cards, bottle openers, and sturdy socks have become very essential.

Of course, I can still hoard. Finding spaces in drawers and cupboards at my parents' house is easy. But I keep seemingly useless things because I'm sentimental about them; I like to look at them.

So, inevitably, I'm giving stuff up. For a little while.

Art work from friends and family, bric-a-brac from my yellow bookcase, my yellow bookcase, a great glass carboy for wine-making, ceramic teapots, and a lot of books & movies I never want to revisit now but I certainly will when they're 3000 miles away.

This kind of planning doesn't really leave a lot of room for a home, which supposedly has all these things that I'm packing away. While I know there will be times when I'm grateful for living out of only a couple suitcases and a backpack, I'm sure there will be other times when I feel like a lonely ex-patriate.

(For those of you who read ex-pirate, please remember and write down your first image upon finishing that sentence)

Change is a given. My parent's house doesn't look at all like where I grew up. My neighborhood in Philly will have transformed a few times in the next 10 years. And my suitcases will probably evolve, too.


3712 Brandywine by Ashley Hayes (the Aussie couchsurfer)


PS. I hope y'all don't think I'm materialistic because I talk more about the stuff I have than the people I know. I'm not getting rid of anyone -- at least not on purpose. So you'll all get your weepy goodbye eventually, especially if you buy me enough beers.

Packin' up, gettin' rid of stuff - Pt. 1

When I was younger -- maybe seven or eight because I was old enough to take on some chores but too young to really see the point -- I would take a long time to clean my room. Once you couldn't see the floor anymore, my parents would give me the ultimatum: clean it up or we throw it away. Sometimes, to add dramatic effect, my dad would even come in with a large, black garbage bag and start rifling through my stuff. He used this tactic to speed up the process because I would take forever.

Mainly because I spent a lot of time looking at and playing with the things I was supposed to be putting away. I'd start in one corner of the room, find something I hadn't seen in a while, and then make a day of it. Maybe I'd rearrange my dollhouse, put all of my Polly Pockets in a row, or make a new city out of Legos.

When I got older -- maybe twelve or thirteen because I was young enough to still have to clean my room but too old to have many toys -- my procrastination was fueled by long-lost diary entries or old stories that I had to revisit and reflect upon. This would usually turn into me pulling more things out of the depths of my closet, rather than putting them away.

Thus, packing up my 22-year-old life proves no different. Plus I'm a pack-rat. So I still have those diaries and short stories. Only now they sit under new short stories,

poems,
research papers,
newspaper articles,
letters,
ticket stubs,
fortune cookie fortunes,
old cell phones,
class notes,
birthday cards,
pictures,
and even old, empty packets of birth control pills.

I like to think that everything has a memory attached to it. But most of this shit has just become something that invokes the same memory: "Oh, that happened."

So I'm trying to force myself to have higher standards regarding what I choose to keep. I'm also trying to let myself just have memories instead of evidence.

There are still going to be a lot of unnecessary things that I pack up and take with me when I leave Philly. But the number of boxes is getting smaller.

And looking at things while I pack them up is still fun. Here are some past-life pictures for y'all to enjoy:

That's me in 5th grade, eating my government-provided lunch. To my right is my best friend from elementary and middle school. She died last October; so I mourn moments like this.

That's me in 7th grade. Playin' ball.

I'm the 16-year-old sitting on the ground to the left. This was my first time ever on any coast -- Wildwood, NJ. We were there as a girl scout troop, part of a larger camping trip at the shore. My mom is the lady in the white sweatshirt behind me to my right. My troop leader is the woman on the right side of the picture wearing a fisherman's hat and a green t-shirt. She died last August; but I am glad that I got to tell her how much she meant to me years before.

Still at the shore -- this time in Cape May, NJ. For about a year, I really loved wearing this purple fedora.

Our first trip to Spain in high school. That's 18-year-old Elliot standing in front of a windmill in Castilla-La Mancha.

That's me, looking larger than life.

Note the bicycle tube belt.

I put up a few of these because I don't think I've seen them since we went to Spain in 2007. Makes me psyched to return in a few months.