Scrapebook

Growing up, I had a fascination with saving stuff. Up until 3 years ago, I saved everything as if it were some special memento of a time long gone.

In 1998, I went to the movies with my cousin and uncle to watch "Blade." At 16, it was the greatest movie I saw in my life. I saved the stub, and every subsequent stub thereafter.

My cousin and I were competitive all through our adolescence. It was playful and helped us push each other further. We'd try to see who could do more push-ups, who grew taller, who had bigger biceps, etc. We tallied everything and compared vigorously. It was important for us, especially for me, to have a record of all this.

I was a little embarrassed to remember today some other data storing that I partook in. A long long time ago, maybe back in junior high school, I went to my local discount store and bought several composition notebooks. The black and white one was used to record all the basketball games my cousin and I played, the score, and the winner. The green and white one was where I was writing a movie script that included all of the kids in my neighborhood. I came across my father's camcorder a few years ago, and loved making shirt videos [another form of record keeping]. The red and white one was something entirely different.

It was in this book that I would keep track of all the girls in my life. Listed chronologically, complete with their name and what they wore, I'd write down in extreme detail any kind of extra curricular physical activity that was had. Something as innocent as a kiss would be recorded. In my adolescent mind, a kiss was gold.

I don't remember getting past the first age in this book. I don't even remember when I threw it away. I wish I still had it today, though. Although the idea of it seems juvenile and chauvinistic, it could be something as awesome as reading an old personal diary.

Sometimes, out of nowhere, you remember making out with someone you completely forgot making out with. That ever happen to you? And you laugh to yourself, "Holy shit! I forgot about that!" How do we forget about these incidents? What causes us to remember?

If I could do it all over again, I would have keep better record of the small stuff in my life.