The College Board

Fig. 12: BreakAway stickerFig. 3: Norrell pinThe other night, while watching Clean Sweep (our current favorite home-improvement show), Al said to me, "What would be the one item of mine from the Keep pile that you'd like to see leave the house?" I replied that had he asked me the same question in Mountain View, I would have said his giant television—but since it fits better in our Philadelphia living room, it didn't bother me as much. I'd have to think about it.

Fig. 1: UGA bulldog sticker strip"What item of mine would you get rid of?" I asked. Without hesitation, Al said "Your bulletin board." Me: "The big one? Why?" Al: "Because it's huge and messy and looks like something you'd hang in a college dormroom." (Al isn't big on anything that reminds him of a college dorm room or a frat house; he likes clean lines and nearly-bare walls. I could have argued the "huge" point, given that the bulletin board is about the same size as his television, but I let it go.) I guess he's right that it's sort of messy, but until now I've never even considered getting rid of it. For me it always had too much history attached to it: It's a chronicle of my time in Washington, D.C., Connecticut, and California! It has irreplaceable stickers stuck to it! Where would I put those buttons if I couldn't hang them on the bulletin board?

Fig. 4: WETA Member stickerI thought about it for a few minutes, and then I said, "I can get rid of the bulletin board. I have a smaller one if I need a place to stick things, and I think I can let go of all the stuff that's attached to the big one." I meant that in the emotional sense as well as the physical sense.

Fig. 6: Parenting by CHOICE buttonThat brings us to this entry, which is all about letting go of the emotional attachments, so I can let go of the board and its physical attachments. It probably won't be of interest to anyone but me, but I've found it useful to blog about this stuff so I can get rid of clutter without jettisoning the associated memories. It's like a scrapbook for items that can't actually fit in a scrapbook.

Fig. 2: Nirvana sticker

The College Board, as I have come to think of this thing that my husband would like swept away, is home to the following items (in roughly chronological order):

Fig. 5: Anti-Bush/Pro-Choice stickerFig. 22: Ice Chalet sticker1.  A strip of UGA bulldog stickers, purchased while working at the UGA Bookstore in 1989 or 1990. I don't know what I'd intended to stick the bulldogs on, but I never got around to it. They ended up all together in the lower left corner of the cork board.

2.  A Nirvana sticker, front and center.

3.  A tiny Norrell pin, from my days as an office temp. I arrived in Washington, D.C. with $100 in my bank account, a $99 speeding ticket in my pocket, a B.A. in English, and the ability to type 80 wpm. I quickly learned that no one was willing to pay a just-out-of-college English major the $22,500 I'd figured it would cost me to live in D.C., so I started temping within days of my arrival. My cost-of-living estimates turned out to be frighteningly accurate; my first year of temping earned me $19,000. Can you say "credit card debt"?

4.  A sticker indicating that I contributed to WETA, one of Washington, D.C.'s several NPR stations. I also gave to WAMU, which I listened to more often; I'm keeping the coffee mug WAMU gave me as a thank-you gift.

Fig. 8: I was COUNTED! sticker5.  A sticker reading "Anti-Bush, Anti-Court, Pro-Choice." I believe I acquired this when I participated in a Pro-Choice march and rally in D.C. The Bush in question is George H. W., not his offspring; I couldn't have imagined in 1991 that it would still be relevant in 2004.

Fig. 7: Clinton/Gore campaign sticker6.  A button that reads "Parenting By CHOICE Not Chance", acquired at the NOW store in D.C. I love this button; maybe I should keep it.

7.  A Clinton/Gore sticker from when I volunteered for their campaign in 1992.

8.  A small, pink, round sticker that says "I was COUNTED! April 25th, 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation". I remember that the organizers told us to wear white (it shows up better on TV, apparently); I wore a long white skirt, a white blouse that looked kind of like a doilly, and my green 8-eye Doc Marten boots. I also wore 45 sunblock on my bare arms and face, but I forgot to apply the stuff to my ears. They fried like bacon, scabbed over, and fell off in pieces over the next two weeks.

Fig. 20a: Macromedia sticker  Fig. 20b: Shockrave sticker

Fig. 9: WWF sticker9.  A World Wildlife Fund sticker I got for contributing to the cause.

Fig. 10: UGA Alumni Society sticker10.  A University of Georgia Alumni Society sticker I kept even though I didn't contribute to the cause.

11.  An Apple Computer sticker I got from work, circa 1994.

12.  The BreakAway sticker that came in the box with my new Bell bicycle helmet. The bicyle I bought at the same time was stolen two weeks later when I accidentally missed the frame while fighting to close the Kryptonite lock. I kept the extra front tire (and the lock, which were all that remained) as a backup in case the replacement bike I bought the next day ever needed one. I finally gave it away in 1998, after the second bike was stolen from the garage of my apartment building in San Francisco. The shattered Kryptonite lock, which was all that remained this time, was unsalvageable. The Bell helmet was stolen with the bike.

Fig. 13: Bass Northwest sticker13.  A sticker from Bass Northwest, a super cool store devoted to bass guitars in Seattle, WA. I visited this place while on a train trip around the country in 1994; a matching sticker is on the cover of my journal from that trip.

Fig. 14: Baggage-claim sticker14.  A baggage-claim sticker from the return flight to IAD from LHR. I went on two business trips to London when I worked at the World Bank; I can't remember which one this was.

Fig. 15: Mecklermedia name tag15.  A Disney-quality Mecklermedia's iWorld name tag that I wore at one of the many Mecklermedia conferences I attended as an employee/speaker. I worked at Meckler for one year before leaving to join the company everyone thought I worked for.

Fig. 16: Kareem Campbell sticker16.  A Kareem Campbell sticker that I think came in the box with a pair of skateboarding sneakers I got on a trip to Maryland. I never did get a skateboard to go with them, and they weren't that comfortable to walk in, so they were long ago given to a friend's kid. Thus ended, at age 28, my dream of being a skate punk. I think the dream started at 28, as well.

Fig. 17: Ask Me About Dreamweaver button17.  An "ASK ME ABOUT DREAMWEAVER!" button. I can't remember if it was made for UCON in 1997 (where we announced that the product was coming) or Fall iWORLD 1997 (which coincided with the release of Dreamweaver 1), but I remember wearing it proudly.

Fig. 18: USGA membership sticker18.  A USGA membership sticker. I think my mom bought me the membership when I finally started to understand how she could find golf fun and signed up for 6 lessons.

Fig. 19: c|net sticker19.  A huge c|net logo sticker that I think I acquired at a builder.com conference in New Orleans in 1998.

20.  Two Macromedia stickers: One with the logo and web address of the company, and one with the logo and web address of the now-defunct shockrave.com.

Fig. 11: Apple Computer stickerFig. 21: SkateWorks sticker21.  A nifty Skate Works sticker I picked up on a visit to the Redwood City shop. I can't remember why I went.

22.  My Ice Chalet admission sticker for the 06/15/2000 Open Skate. I don't think this was the first time I used my brand-new hockey skates, but it was one of the open skate sessions I attended in an attempt to learn how to skate before buying hockey gear on June 20.

23.  A Switch sticker that commemorates Al's third gift to me, given in November 2000, two weeks after we started dating: a Burton snowboard with Switch bindings. I'm still speechless.

Fig. 23: Switch sticker

Posted by Lori in scrapbook at 12:41 AM on January 4, 2004

Comments (2)

hoche:

Maybe you can carefully peel off all the stickers and stash them away in a scrapbook somewhere. Some may not mean anything, but from your post, some definitely have worthwhile memories attached.


In a similar vein, I just unpacked the whiteboard from our old house, and was going over it, examining all the notes on it. Some have been up there for years, and include:

1) A note to myself that simply reads "fourks". We have a matched set of tableware, but the forks that came with the set are skinny and only have three tines. These "threeks" have been annoying me for years because they're too narrow to hold a good scooping of food - they're only good for stabbing a hunk of meat. I've been trying to find replacements for about five years.

2) Another note labelled "bdish", also from about five years ago. We *still* just carve off hunks of butter from cubes left in their wrapping paper in the fridge.

3) The telephone number of Glenn's ex-girlfriend's ex-roommate. She and we used to share taking care of Glenn's ex-girlfriend's cat when Glenn's ex-girlfriend was out of town. She doesn't live at that phone number any more and hasn't for several years as far as I know.

4) Our rent split. There was some complicated math used to derive those amounts, so we'd write them up on the board so we wouldn't forget who owed how much.

5) Our landlord's street address. Written in just after we first moved into the house in 1994. I think it's indelible now.

6) The names of our "new" neighbors, who moved in across the street in 1999.

7) A big swirly arrow pointing to the bottom with a smudged caption stating "RENT". The arrow has been there for eight years. The caption has changed over the years, varying from "rent" to "wrent checks" to "czechs" to "rent chicks" to "chicks rant" and so forth. Hey, we're bachelors, ok?

8) A note in my handwriting saying "Three stamps to CAN". I have no idea what this means.

9) Written very small, down in one corner, the statement "4:5::9". I believe this dates back to a certain album release in 1996.


I don't know what to do with this whiteboard. I'm determined not to let my nice new house become as cluttered as our old one, but whiteboards are sort of handy.

Lori:

You're so right about some of the stickers meaning a lot to me, and others... not so much. It took me at least an hour to even remember where the heck the Kareem Campbell one came from. :) Unfortunately the ones that mean the most would be destroyed in the removal process, so they'll have to go with the board.

Your whiteboard sounds (perhaps unintentionally) similar to the posterboards I used to keep in my dorm room and three post-dorm apartments. I put each one up as a spot to collect funny things (kind of like those cryptic quotes people write in yearbooks). The idea was that I could look at them when I was feeling angry or depressed or just needed a laugh. My friend Josie and I were the most prolific contributors to the boards, and in the years since we've pulled them out and laughed over various quotes, remembering the incidents that precipitated them (and I regularly get Christmas and birthday cards from her with "Cheese + Tomato" scribbled inside a heart). I tried to throw the boards out before we packed for the move, but Al wouldn't let me do it -- he said they were too unique and full of memories to let go of. I argued that they were in really poor shape (ragged edges, faded text), and that Josie and I had had plenty of opportunities to re-read the boards since college. I thought about transcribing the quotes, but part of remembering the context is seeing the color, position, and handwriting of each item. Photographing them is probably out because (a) they won't lay flat anymore, and (b) the ink is quite faded. Of course, now that I've written this I have the urge to find the boards and see if photographing them is *really* out of the question...

Regarding number 8 from your list: You weren't by any chance sending Christmas cards to Canada one year, were you? :)

Comments

Maybe you can carefully peel off all the stickers and stash them away in a scrapbook somewhere. Some may not mean anything, but from your post, some definitely have worthwhile memories attached.


In a similar vein, I just unpacked the whiteboard from our old house, and was going over it, examining all the notes on it. Some have been up there for years, and include:

1) A note to myself that simply reads "fourks". We have a matched set of tableware, but the forks that came with the set are skinny and only have three tines. These "threeks" have been annoying me for years because they're too narrow to hold a good scooping of food - they're only good for stabbing a hunk of meat. I've been trying to find replacements for about five years.

2) Another note labelled "bdish", also from about five years ago. We *still* just carve off hunks of butter from cubes left in their wrapping paper in the fridge.

3) The telephone number of Glenn's ex-girlfriend's ex-roommate. She and we used to share taking care of Glenn's ex-girlfriend's cat when Glenn's ex-girlfriend was out of town. She doesn't live at that phone number any more and hasn't for several years as far as I know.

4) Our rent split. There was some complicated math used to derive those amounts, so we'd write them up on the board so we wouldn't forget who owed how much.

5) Our landlord's street address. Written in just after we first moved into the house in 1994. I think it's indelible now.

6) The names of our "new" neighbors, who moved in across the street in 1999.

7) A big swirly arrow pointing to the bottom with a smudged caption stating "RENT". The arrow has been there for eight years. The caption has changed over the years, varying from "rent" to "wrent checks" to "czechs" to "rent chicks" to "chicks rant" and so forth. Hey, we're bachelors, ok?

8) A note in my handwriting saying "Three stamps to CAN". I have no idea what this means.

9) Written very small, down in one corner, the statement "4:5::9". I believe this dates back to a certain album release in 1996.


I don't know what to do with this whiteboard. I'm determined not to let my nice new house become as cluttered as our old one, but whiteboards are sort of handy.

Posted by: hoche at January 9, 2004 5:22 AM

You're so right about some of the stickers meaning a lot to me, and others... not so much. It took me at least an hour to even remember where the heck the Kareem Campbell one came from. :) Unfortunately the ones that mean the most would be destroyed in the removal process, so they'll have to go with the board.

Your whiteboard sounds (perhaps unintentionally) similar to the posterboards I used to keep in my dorm room and three post-dorm apartments. I put each one up as a spot to collect funny things (kind of like those cryptic quotes people write in yearbooks). The idea was that I could look at them when I was feeling angry or depressed or just needed a laugh. My friend Josie and I were the most prolific contributors to the boards, and in the years since we've pulled them out and laughed over various quotes, remembering the incidents that precipitated them (and I regularly get Christmas and birthday cards from her with "Cheese + Tomato" scribbled inside a heart). I tried to throw the boards out before we packed for the move, but Al wouldn't let me do it -- he said they were too unique and full of memories to let go of. I argued that they were in really poor shape (ragged edges, faded text), and that Josie and I had had plenty of opportunities to re-read the boards since college. I thought about transcribing the quotes, but part of remembering the context is seeing the color, position, and handwriting of each item. Photographing them is probably out because (a) they won't lay flat anymore, and (b) the ink is quite faded. Of course, now that I've written this I have the urge to find the boards and see if photographing them is *really* out of the question...

Regarding number 8 from your list: You weren't by any chance sending Christmas cards to Canada one year, were you? :)

Posted by: Lori at January 9, 2004 9:40 AM

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