Weird headspace

We needed a new roof. As a result, I pulled a bunch of boxes down from the attic just in case there was rain or debris during the project. (Our attic has no floor, so it’s useless other than as an insulator, but there are a few places with boards where I store stuff we never ever need and I can’t bear to throw away.) And, of course, pulling down those boxes means opening them to see what’s inside. Old comic books, most of which I should get busy selling off because they don’t interest me any more; school papers, nearly all of which can be (and how have been) thrown away. (I mean, there was a copy of “Pascal for BASIC programmers.” Other than museum value, what am I doing keeping this?!) And letters, dozens and dozens of letters from back in the time when people wrote letters. Maybe they still do, though I doubt it, but from about age 16 to 20, I was a letter-writing machine. Then I transformed into a postcard-writing machine, and then I stopped communicating with people altogether. So, after all these years, I have become unsentimental (or practical) enough that these letters must go, but I have to read through them first in case some are truly special in some way. Some of the things in these letters I remember very well, and some have brought back things completely forgotten — like that I was once deeply into an album by a songwriter named Dean Friedman (he had a semi-novelty hit called “Ariel” — I played some clips at the Apple Music Store, and I can’t imagine what I heard there when I was 17). I couldn’t have told you that if you’d tortured me for the information. Of course, once I saw the name, I couldn’t remember any of the music, but immediately remembered how I came by the album — we used to do some work for the old radio station 3WD, and they’d give us bad promo records in return.

Also found a bunch of old photos I hadn’t seen in a while (including college ID photos — scary), notes from news stories I wrote more than 25 years ago (KA-TRASH!!!)

So this whole bizarre sort of nostalgia trip has now invaded my dreams — this morning I dreamed that I had to go back to work at the print shop I used to work at in college. They had updated (some), but a lot of the people were the same. I hate those “have to go back” dreams — old jobs, school, whatever. I have them all the time, and especially around this time of year.

The weekend has been pleasant. Friday I had lunch with Hannah in my favorite park behind City Hall. Saturday I took the girls up to the Peerless Pools at Saratoga State Park — in the hundreds of times I’ve been to the Park, I’ve never ever gone to any of the pools. Yesterday, friends and family hanging around eating on a dreary, chilly day, and a decent bike ride to the foot of the Helderberg Escarpment (I ran out of time to actually climb up it). Today, good chance of a ride — trying to decide if I want distance, or if I’m dying to tackle those vicious climbs of Blue Factory Road again.