When I go to Tallahassee from Sarasota, I drive

“the back way”

all my family and sister-cousins and brother-cousins and me, we call it, simply,

“the back way”

and there is a small shop, perfect for a stretch of the legs and absolutely impossible for a single woman driving after nightfall, that sells CBD cigarettes and when I tell you I have been looking far and wide across this whole entire world for this specific brand of CBD cigarettes…

anyway

they live in my junk drawer

you know,

the drawer that embodies the word,

miscellaneous

like someone created the word as they marveled at what they had accumulated over the years

or after they found the safety pins they didn’t know they were looking for, two attached to one, their past-self having outsmarted their present self, certain they’d know exactly the place to look next time they needed safety pins

I haven’t ever had one of my own, a junk drawer

if you live this sedentary life, if you have your own space or if you live with people whose clutter comforts you, you probably have a junk drawer

but when I lived with strangers, we never got close enough to agree upon what qualifies as

miscellaneous

because

there is an art to the junk drawer

after all

I have a playlist with the same title

and it’s really as simple as

anything that doesn’t belong anywhere else gets together to hang out at the junk drawer

the outcasts, the rejects of the house

Aside from the CBD cigarettes, there is a matchbook that I pilfered from a table I once served . I don’t know who the people were and I don’t remember what they were like, what they sounded like or what they looked like or what they ordered and I always tell people I’ve never stolen anything in my life. I wonder if they miss their matches. I’m hard pressed to say they don’t, just because it was a full matchbook. Wait. Maybe this is the one I bought at the second-hand shop in Christchurch. To remember Christchurch.

the irony — could it really be the case that I buy souvenirs and forget where they’re from…?

have you ever done that?

I guess that’s what the junk drawer is for

the forgotten memories

the remembered memories go on the fridge. like a magnet you bought in Dubrovnik. something like that.

my incense are in the junk drawer, too — I light one stick most mornings before I sit to meditate. I couldn’t tell you what it smells like other than

meditation in my new living room as the sky turns pink

which is one of my favorite smells

but I’ll forget it one day

funny thing, memory

two lighters — one long and one short, one for incense and one for my giant candle because I got sick of burning my fingers — odd, really, how having more things just necessitates having more things to take care of those things. I bought this candle for an ungodly price and then I had to buy another lighter so that I could light my expensive candle; I spend precious time cutting the wicks with nail clippers because apparently that’s a thing I’m supposed to do …?????? The dishwasher needs something called “rinse aid” ??? and the Swiffer needs Swiffer pads and the lamp that flickers needs light bulbs and the toothbrush needs batteries and my god have you seen the price of oral-b heads??????? Name we one thing you own which requires no tending to at all.

Anyway

My keys and wallet go in the junk drawer when I get home. I am starting to think that my end of adolescence may require that I buy a purse because I tend to forget one set of keys or drive without a license at least every other day and I think maybe that’s why people have purses? because life gets busy and you don’t want to have to open up the junk drawer so many times each day?

that’s what is so funny about the junk drawer —

drawers are for organizing and to varying degrees, people organize their lives for the sake of efficiency. The drawer I open the most, by far and away, is the junk drawer. What does that say about the things I use most? should I make a lighter drawer? A drawer for all things that relate to lighters? Do I have enough lighter-related items to fill a drawer? Should I buy more lighter-related items so that I can fill an entire drawer?

And a note on THE END OF MY ADOLESCENCE because when on EARTH did that happen? I didn’t decide that! I was listening to a book that claims I’m getting to that age and maybe that explains what’s going on with my menstruation and my acne.

Can we all agree that the one thing you should not have to be on your birthday is

ugly?

I spent too much of yesterday being sad that I’ll be ugly on my birthday because I’m turning 24 and all these spots are going crazy on my face and 24 really does mark something like 11 years of acne and so fingers crossed that the end of adolescence marks the end of this fucking acne

cheers!

anyway

I also have batteries in there. A new addition. We talked about the electric toothbrush already. annoying.

BUT what’s more annoying are the cavities I have to pay for next week. I set a reminder on my phone that reads, “you are saving for cavities” and it is set to pop up every morning until my dentist appointment so that when I think about buying a coffee, I think twice. And then I buy the coffee anyway. And every time I buy floss or mouthwash or toothbrush heads for $40, I close my eyes and take a deep breath and remind myself that prevention and maintenance are a worthy purchase, more bearable than a thousands-of-dollars punch to the gut in the form of 6 cavities; 3 fillings appointments spread out over the course of 6 months does not change the fact that my teeth are the actual last thing I want to spend that amount of money on.

There’s a pen in there. It’s not a good pen. Just a normal pen. But without a pen, I couldn’t write. Or play sudoku.

Do you write with a pen or a pencil? I remember the high school teacher who required we always write in pen. I remember being so afraid to mess up — there’s no eraser for a pen, after all. And I remember him saying to just scribble if I decided there was something else I wanted to say. I remember thinking it looked ugly on the page, the scribbles. And now, I think evidence of another thought makes a piece of writing more whole.

What if you could see all the words I deleted?

I told you already that my wallet lives in the junk drawer. My wallet is animal skin. Crocodile, I believe. My mom bought it for me in Cape Town. It’s green and yellow and absolutely beautiful and I remember the moment I saw it and because I claim so loudly my love for animals people question my choice to carry a wallet made from a dead crocodile. And I just smile and laugh and have no justifications at all.

The things in the junk drawer have no other home.

There are people, too, who have no home.

When I lived in Auckland, a friend of mine who worked at the café — she was a friend because I sat in the cafe to write almost every morning before my shift started at midday. She was the kind of friend who became a friend because we exchanged small bits of information each morning. I learned that she played in a band, that they were traveling to Japan soon, etc. She learned that I loved to write, that I drank Americanos, sometimes two in one morning, etc. On my birthday, I stopped at cake shop down the road and brought 6 cupcakes into the café and proclaimed it was my birthday and that I wanted everyone with whom I spent most mornings, three front-of-house and two back-of-house, to stop whatever they were doing and celebrate with me by eating one of these cupcakes.

anyway

I lived in my own junk drawer when I moved.

My friend recently introduced me to the concept of the

third place

he explained that people have home and work

and then they choose another place, a third place, to spend time and build community

like a bar or a gym, for example

This café was my third place

the café was the drawer with the label

and I graduated from my own junk drawer to the café, my third place

I knew I had graduated when my friend who worked at the café invited me to her “Orphans Christmas party,”

a place where others, each once in their own respective junk drawer, came together to float around in the same junk drawer together.

Until You Know Better

Take care of the things you already have

Do some research on histamines

Write a letter but please, for the love of Goodness, do not send it

Great Artists Steal

I’m listening to this silly little novel titled Funny Story and last night I overheard the protagonist say to her friend, “Your birthday is not for celebrating progress. Your birthday is for celebrating existence.” and I have this Osho poem that I have kept for some years now and I see it every day and it begins, “Take hold of your own life. / See that the whole existence is celebrating.”

And I marvel at how lovely it is when She ties the loose threads into perfectly wonky little bows.

Also, I do think I coined the term junk drawer but are any of our thoughts truly original?