Getting Down to the Wire

Well, as of Thursday, July 3oth, I am no longer a resident of Baton Rouge. It's pretty sad, actually. Some of the best memories I've ever made were in good old BR. For what it's worth, I'm going to miss it.

For the next nine days I'm back at my parents' house. I don't mind it because my parents aren't so bad now that I've been out of high school for half a decade; in fact I might go as far as to say that I appreciate and enjoy their company. Getting older is weird. But, it's only temporary because pretty soon I'll no longer be a resident of Louisiana, which is even weirder. Even though I was born in Massachusetts, I really feel like Louisiana is my home. Probably because I hardly remember Massachusetts.

Anyhoo, I only have a little over a week here. In the mean time, my stuff has taken over my parents dining room:

Another excellent view:

And still:

It's a little hard to tell, but the perimeter of my parents dining room is my stuff. And the sad part? This isn't even all of it, because John had yet to deliver the last of it which was being stored in his car, as The Little Civic That Could was filled to capacity on move out day. Also, the little bit of furniture I have to my name is in my room, which is currently a disaster area and not conducive to photo sessions.

So, I ask of you: How does one person accumulate so much crap? (And I promise you, a lot of it is crap, at least in the eyes of the general population. I own nothing of worth.) In four years at LSU, I have lived (officially) in four places (if we're factoring places I lived between leases or during hurricanes the number goes up). When I started at LSU, I had around two boxes of belongings, plus a mini-fridge. That's reasonable for a college freshman. When I left the dorm, I had around four or five boxes. Ok, not so bad, my stuff doubled. But, figuring that each time I moved (and the summer in between my sophomore and junior years I moved four times, which explains my loathing for the packing/moving process) my stuff doubled...well, I guess that explains how I got so much stuff. I'm beginning to worry that it won't all fit in the U-Haul. Oh well, if it doesn't fit, it isn't going to Boston.

Keep in mind that when I was packing up my apartment, I threw out at least twenty bags of stuff that really was worthless that I had held on to (when I cleaned out my dresser at home, I found the schedule I filled out in eighth grade for what I wanted to take in ninth grade, as well as notes from sixth grade and up, which was, oh, about ten years ago; I am a pack rat to the extreme) as well as gave away something like 15 bags (it may have been more, I'm estimating; I stopped counting at nine or ten) of clothes/shoes/accessories that I have not worn in four years, that I basically hauled around to different residences for four years. Most of my packing process was like this, "OH MY GOD WHY DID I KEEP THIS?!" Yet I still brought home 20 boxes/bins of stuff, plus three duffel bags, one suit case and three garment bags of clothes, two lamps, two TVS and an end table.

It's like a really retarded version of "12 Days of Christmas." And looking at it with numbers makes me want to go purge something.