During the blog outage, I was messing about with the Nokia 3310 and decided to compare it to the Nokia 6620 or Motorola V635 via phonescoop.com, which used to be an everyday visit once upon a time. Sure enough, for a $60 burner phone in 2018, it could go back in time to January 2006 and it would be a killer. Everything I wanted in a phone twelve years ago except possibly iSync (and let’s be honest, iSync was crap): quad-band coverage for home and abroad, Bluetooth AND speakerphone, an equal-or-better resolution display and a battery 50% larger than anything else I had, and all in a package half the size. A memento mori of the time when your cellphone went in the change pocket of your jeans and manufacturers were competing to get smaller.
But then, there’s a lot of things I don’t have the same glee for anymore. Time was, I was on the eternal search for the perfect bag. Constantly looking at Timbuk2 and Rickshaw and Chrome for all manner of what have you. Messengers, backpacks, the One True Bag that would sort it. And then about five or six years ago, it stopped. Partly because I didn’t need to carry a laptop every day any longer, but partly because I ended up with a small backpack that was just what I needed for work and no more, and because I had a Rickshaw messenger for an overnight bag and a Timbuk2 that could go for two or three days (in fact, I am actively contemplating a Monday-through-Friday with nothing else).
There was jacket glee. That mostly passed as a result of eventually accumulating everything I could have wanted. The Filson/Levis trucker jacket. The long-sought-after Harris Tweed. The seersucker blazer. The Buzz Rickson, imported from Japan in person. The peacoat, after all that time. And the thing that kills me is that thanks to climate change, I rarely need anything heavier than a rain shell. I’ve gone from a world where I defined my look by my outerwear to one where outerwear is superfluous to requirement.
Well, how about shoes? I accumulated those too. I eventually got my British-made DMs and DM-alikes. The quest for American footwear got me some canoe Mocs and the Alden Indy boots, both of which will be remanufactured for the rest of my life as required. And by a weird stroke of luck, I fell ass-backward into a $35 pair of plastic Birkenstocks which fit and wore so well that I bought two more pair to have stashed in the closet for when the time comes that the first ones wear out.
Which is a recurring theme. It seems that for the last two years, almost, my clothing purchases consist of “stockpile more of the basics.” The Pointer Brand jeans from LC King of Bristol, TN, basic American workwear for a century. The black T-shirts from American Giant, with their slubby cotton weave. The overbuilt work shirt from AG that became almost an everyday garment when I wasn’t in the office from January to June, every chance I could get when the temps were going below 66 degrees. (And yes, there’s a spare still sealed in its plastic in the closet.) I suppose you could make the case that Hat Glee overpowered all other clothing fixations, but the two wool flannel caps and the tweet flat cap from Ireland very nearly put a sock in that as well (special souvenirs like the San Jose Churros lid notwithstanding).
I didn’t learn not to want stuff. Not at all. This is not me moving past material concerns. But there’s a chance that I’ve accumulated as much stuff as I need or want. I really like the car, I really like the work shirt, I really like the three pair of footwear that do for most everything anymore. If allowed, I would just wear the same five black T-shirts and same three pair of jeans until they wore out. My three wool caps – two flannel baseball, one tweed flat – obviate the need for any of the others. I have everything I require or desire to get through life, and at this point, the money is all for plane tickets and lodging and bar tabs. (And Kindle books and iTunes content, to be honest, but that’s not taking up any more space.) It’s possible that the things of the world finally dovetailed neatly with the life I’d like to lead.