What is it with paper?
Yesterday, cleaning my desk…well, part of it (I can at least see some of the top now, if I squint)…I noticed that the process of simply handling file folders makes me salivate.
I can remember really only one Christmas from my childhood. Based on the house the memory is associated with, I would have been four or five, maybe in kindergarten, maybe not even that. My dad brought home from the office a bunch of pencils and notepads for me to play with, although I did not yet know how to write (and anybody who’s been on the receiving end of my handwriting can still argue that point).
That was the best Christmas, ever (of my childhood). Right up until they gave me a typewriter for my birthday, which, I realize, isn’t Christmas, but that’s not the point, is it? The typewriter I used to create the Streaker’s Journal in junior high.
That’s not meant to be unkind to my family and friends, who have given me many things and much kindness over the years. It’s just funny, this morning, to reckon how strong that particular memory is, and that it comes with a physical response even today. (I also have a physical response to the smell of bananas, but we’ll not go there, eh?)
This may explain my resolute adherence to the dead tree society of publishing. Or other quirks. Or it may explain nothing.