December, 2003:
excess baggage

My shoulder bag, which accompanies me pretty much wherever I go, seems to be constantly expanding. Something new always seems to be going in, with almost nothing old ever coming out. Of course the vast majority of what's there is paper, but there's always room for a few objects that for some reason or another seemed, at one point in the past, to have a place in the bag. That reason may have been forgotten by now, but the objects are still in the bag.

People who, for one reason or another, have the opportunity to lift my bag always exclaim that they can't figure out what I've got in it, or why. And of course there's much more there than I need. But though I admit that it's heavy, I don't really carry it that much - mostly from home to the car, and from where I park the car to where I work. Yes, sometimes there are meetings in places that demand that I park at least a five minute walk away from where I'm going, but even then the distance isn't too far, nor the bag too heavy. And I like having all sorts of things in the bag - just in case.