Listography: Cherished Items

The Items I Cherish:

- A Moroccan dagger: My dad brought this back from a business trip and gave it to me when I was five (hey, let’s give an ADHD five year old a knife! Splendid idea!). I wore it around my neighborhood like a sword and pretended I was a pirate. Luckily, there were no casualties, though I did almost disembowel Peter Spalding during a mock duel.

- A 25 pound rubber band ball: Made this when I was 8 after I saw a kid who got on the news for a 12 pound rubber band ball. I was like, “pshar, 12 pounds, I can top that bud” so instead of playing with the other kids after school, I made this monstrosity. Got on the news too. Channel 12. The news reporter took me to a bowling alley and we rolled it down the isle. Every role I got a gutter ball (or the equivalent since my rubber band ball didn’t fit in the gutter), but they let me stand about 6 feet away and grandma role it into the pins. With a little editing magic, I became a pro-bowler.

- A New Zealand Fjordstone: During a little cruise of New Zealand‘s fjords, I jumped into the freezing water while the boat was anchored and swam to shore (expressly forbidden but far too tempting). There, I found a spot where there were hundreds of the most exotically colored stones I had ever seen. Black, white, orange, red, blue yellow; they all looked like someone had colored them with a sharpie set. I picked up the most vibrant one I could find, pocketed it, and swam back to the boat. One of these days I’m going to put a hole through it and wear it as a necklace.

- A Moleskin Notebook: Moleskin! So morbid in concept and wonderful in reality!

- My blue cotton robe: During freshman year of college I didn’t own a jacket. Whenever it was cold or raining, I wore my robe instead. It was quite comfy, and shielded the rain better than expected. Teachers always tried to veil their criticism in a compliment about my individuality. I feigned obliviousness. When I got a girlfriend, this robe was the first to go. I miss it dearly.

- Mongolian Boots: They’re like highly decorative elf cowboy boots. The toes curl up, but they are oh so comfortable. The toes are like that because the Mongolians believe that their land is sacred and they don’t want to leave scuff marks from sharp toes. My dad and I hopped over to Mongolia while I was working in Beijing. We bought these from a market that few foreigners had ever been to. I felt a pickpocket’s hands on my trousers three times that day (Mongolian for three is Gorro). Luckily, I was forewarned about this danger by a sweet local girl at the hotel named Ariuna. As a preventative measure, I secured my wallet to my belt loop with several cords of dental floss.

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