NationStates Jolt Archive

That's my term for that thing that you keep with you no matter where you move, despite the fact that it doesn't have any real intrinsic or emotional value. It's that thing that manages to follow you from dorm room to apartment to apartment to house, through divorce perhaps and even though it makes no sense, you'd probably run back into a burning house to get it.

For me, it's a can of blueberry pie filling. It was old when I inherited it, and I've had it for going on eight years now. It's gone from my first post-divorce apartment to grad school to the west coast, and now it's coming with me to the east coast. I can't explain why it made it out of that first apartment, but it's come with me this far that I can't seem to let it go, and when I get to Florida, it'll get the place it has held in every apartment since that first one--atop the refrigerator.

I've been packing for the last week, which is why it's on my mind. So who else has an amulet? Tell me about it. Convince me that I'm not out of my damn mind. :D

Sooo many I don't know where to start. I have a pulse tone Spiderman phone from childhood. I don't even know that it works, but I still have it. The chimney has a burn on the top because, as it turns out, plastic makes a lousy ashtray.

Though I'm sure most of us can understand keeping a Spiderman phone.

It used to be a stuffed walrus. Oddly enough, when I got the nickname walrus (not related to the stuffed animal at all) is when I lost it to a girlfriend. (I couldn't bring myself to have her ship back my stuffed animal.)

I have a briefcase that I was given when I was a kid. Not a clue why I drag that around, except maybe because it makes an easy box. There is a collection of boxes that I haven't opened really since I first moved out 15 years ago that for some dumbass reason I still move each time.

Oh yeah, got a ton.

Mine is a gas mask. Its a Soviet army officer's "bulldog", big ol goggles, two filters on each side of the face, complete with built in microphone, to ease the giving of orders. Its covered with the signatures of all the interesting people I've met in my life; grafitti, that is. I got it from a buddy who gave it to me as a present when he found out I dig things like that. He got it from his dad, who was planning on tossing it out. Not sure where his dad got it from, but if you know anything about Soviet militaria, you know that these things aren't easy to come by. All in all, the mask has an interesting history, I'm sure, and its been going wherever I go for seven, almost eight years now. Home is where the gas mask is. :D

At my parent's old place, there was a Robins nest that had been abandoned after yet another young Robin couple built their nest in the wrong place. I took it down, entirely whole and intact. For some reason its followed me through 3 moves.

I have a traffic pylon I stole from a film set in front of my college. Its got a great, catchy decal of the film companies name/logo: @bsolut!. I took it because it was there. (Lets give a round of applause for Anarchy as justification for being an arse!!)
I've taken everywhere with me since. I tried at first throw it away, but my Dad packed it by accident, then gave me shit for wanting to pack a stupid thing like a traffic cone. It took a while for me to fully absorb the absurdity of the situation. Ever since then I treat the traffic cone as a near sacred object, since it gives my dad and I something to bicker about.

I have a traffic pylon I stole from a film set in front of my college. Its got a great, catchy decal of the film companies name/logo: @bsolut!. I took it because it was there. (Lets give a round of applause for Anarchy as justification for being an arse!!)
I always kinda regret not nabing that Muzak company hard hat when I had the chance.

A buddy of mine's Amulet borders on albatross. He has the front right half of the fender of the works Porsche 911 GT-1 that he bribed a pit worker through a translater for after the GT-1 hit slower traffic at Laguna Seca. He even wired it so the headlight would work. That thing is huge and cumbersome. But kinda cool.

At my parent's old place, there was a Robins nest that had been abandoned after yet another young Robin couple built their nest in the wrong place. I took it down, entirely whole and intact. For some reason its followed me through 3 moves.

I have a traffic pylon I stole from a film set in front of my college. Its got a great, catchy decal of the film companies name/logo: @bsolut!. I took it because it was there. (Lets give a round of applause for Anarchy as justification for being an arse!!)
I've taken everywhere with me since. I tried at first throw it away, but my Dad packed it by accident, then gave me shit for wanting to pack a stupid thing like a traffic cone. It took a while for me to fully absorb the absurdity of the situation. Ever since then I treat the traffic cone as a near sacred object, since it gives my dad and I something to bicker about.
That's a beautiful story. Would you believe that when I was packing, I actually wrapped my can of blueberry pie filling in a towel to protect it? It's a decades old (from the looks of the packaging) can of pie filling--it'll survive a nuclear holocaust, and I wrapped it in a towel. :D

mine is a paint grenade that i carry with me everywhere i go even in school i get away with it, the paint grenade is a small one i got it from my dad.

I have a guitar pick that I've been using since age eight. It's worn down pretty much to a little stub now.

A copy of "Travels with Charley", very old. I got it from a used book store for a book report - and did the report on something else entirely. Since then, it's followed me through 27 moves - and sits on the shelf over my computer, or on the desk where it is. I've read it enough to loosen the pages, and have other copies as I enjoy the story, but that copy has followed me all over the country.

I always kinda regret not nabing that Muzak company hard hat when I had the chance.

A buddy of mine's Amulet borders on albatross. He has the front right half of the fender of the works Porsche 911 GT-1 that he bribed a pit worker through a translater for after the GT-1 hit slower traffic at Laguna Seca. He even wired it so the headlight would work. That thing is huge and cumbersome. But kinda cool.
I don't know if he still has it, but my old office mate while I was in grad school still has the headlight assembly that one of his students brought him as proof that she'd been in a car accident--she'd missed her midterm as a result. He let her make it up.

And Vastavia, I still have the very first book of poetry I ever bought with my own money--it's better than twenty years old now, thumbed to hell, and I know where my favorites are by heart. It's a slim volume of e. e. cummings' selected poems, and it does not leave my home. I do believe I would seriously harm anyone who fucked with it.

I don't know if he still has it, but my old office mate while I was in grad school still has the headlight assembly that one of his students brought him as proof that she'd been in a car accident--she'd missed her midterm as a result. He let her make it up.


Another buddy of mine is a high school history teacher who has a globe a student made as a make up assignment. The continents are un-recognizable blob, but he says it's the Earth. Then he'll direct you to what he considers the genius of the piece-on the base is painted 'not to scale.' If I was still persuing music my first album (well, my second-my first would have to be called 'Greatest Hits') would be called 'not to scale' and have that on the cover.

planet Earth

I have a tendancy to collect random things which come to symbolise wherever/whenever they arrived for me. I have a can of gerbil fur polish kicking around somewhere, that kind of random trash that you never get around to throwing away and suddenly it would be sacrilegious to even contemplate throwing it out because its been around for so long.

usually they all sit in a couple of box's on a shelf and I take them out when i'm feeling nostalgic, then realised I'm sat in a pile of what anyone else would consider trash...

I have a jar of beetroot, which i am saving for a rainy day.
Problem is, i dont feel like eating beetroot when I am in the rain

A jar of Noxzema face wash, and a canister of non-dairy coffee creamer...as well as any number of empty Altoids tins.

I wouldn't run back to get any of these things, but they'd probably manage to stick to me somehow just to continue their haunting of my personal space.

A copy of "Lake Wobegon Days" that I borrowed from a library in fifth grade, and forgot to ever return it.

Everywhere I go, I wear my watch. From waking in the morning, to climbing into bed at night, my watch is there, a permanent reminder that I am not the master of my time, not the master of my labour, not the master of my fate.

I've carried a pocketknife since third grade. Unfortunately I don't think it counts as an amulet because I've had to replace it several times due to police officers confiscating it.