FYI

A sure sign of a white-footed mouse infestation: Textbook mouse hole (almost a cartoon mouse hole) overflowing with empty chewed acorns.

3:00 snapshot #763

Can you believe that we aren't totally out of our old place yet? Last night we dragged out a bunch of furniture to the sidewalk for today's yard sale (the whole street has a big yard sale once a year). I can't fully express how painful the experience of moving is for me. Here we are months later, and I still go into this place every couple of weeks and shuffle boxes around, find papers and objects that are heavy with sentiment and meaning, maybe throw out a bag of stuff, and leave feeling sad and depressed. It's a mental illness I'm sure, to be so attached to material things, but without them how would we know that we lived a life? How can I remember that people love me without notes written on paper? How can I prove what I was doing ten, fifteen, twenty years ago--that I was expressive and engaged, that my personality is what I pretend it is? Part of me wants to dispose of it all without even looking at it, to be purely who I am now and prove to myself that I'm worthwhile without piles of dusty papers and once beloved trinkets. But part of me wants to preserve it all as a museum of who I was, and the time and place where I lived, in case that ever becomes important.

3:00 snapshot #764

Another fun Vet Student! I'm going to miss them over the summer. It's so nice to have people around who are novel and full of expectations for the future.