Excursions deep inside a handbag
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January 12, 2007, 6:16 pm
Filed under: carrying, identity, in class exercise, layers, location, narrative, place, rubbish, storage
Filed under: carrying, identity, in class exercise, layers, location, narrative, place, rubbish, storage
Originally uploaded by nnlondon.
I uploaded this photo automatically using flickr…
I feel rather cheeky that I never let you look inside my bag, so I have emptied it on the floor:
- Mini London A to Z with slightly crumpled corners and a yellow 3M post-it standard flag on page 98. I only know it is called a post-it standard flag because I have just looked on the 3M website. They have a plethora of seemingly useful flag type stuff: http://www.3m.com/us/office/postit/products/prod_ft.html The post-it picture paper must have some use for Neighborhood Narratives… paper and photo stuck on sites all around London? I have no idea why it marks page 98.
- 2 crumpled plastic carrier bags: a purple one from m&s and a white and blue one from Pet Pavilion. Hmmm… can you tell where I shop. Purpose? Think dog.
- A wrigley’s extra peppermint megapak gifted to me by my boyfriend. Inside are two sticks of unchewed gum. The flap is open (tsk, tsk, so remiss of me not to close it), so in the bottom of my bag were scattered 4 more unchewed sticks (the corner of one is very squashed, I think it got dripped on during yesterday’s insane wind-rainstorm) and two crumpled wrappers and two bits of tinfoil.
- 18 hour protective hand cream, sally hansen, very orange-y (i really mean this, if you hate the smell of oranges it will make you vomit) but very, very good
- Garmin nuvi: it works well walking from knightsbridge to trafalgar square to picadilly to green park but not so well yesterday when I tried to locate satellites at Oxford Circus.
- One black bic pen (no lid), one blue bic pen with lid. I hate bic pens. They seem too simple and they are hexagonal and bug my fingers, but now as I type this I think maybe I do like something about them. In contrast, I love my MUJI pen.
- A niceday notebook. I have run out of nice notebooks so I’ve had to make do over the last and a random selection of papers needed for meetings for all my consultancies.
- One U.S. penny
- One 5p coin
How revealing! I wonder if you see what I do…
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I found out the hard way that you have to be logged in before submitting a comment. Here goes (again).
I’m assuming the bags are for picking up your dog’s waste while walking him/her. If so, it’s interesting that at least one of the bags was, from the start, used for carrying something for your dog (and eventually something from).
I’ll post my contents once I get my list from Dan today. (I don’t recall what I had in my bag the day of class.)
Comment by beckyclawson January 14, 2007 @ 12:59 pmI like this concept: that our bags include so many other signals of shared identity.
Comment by nnlondon January 14, 2007 @ 2:40 pmThe contents of my bag included the FIE information packet, one pair of mittens, an empty packet of birth control pills, keys to my flat and one folder containing flight information that my dad put together for me.
The FIE info packet was in my bag because of convenience, It was the only place I could put it when first arriving. As far as the folder, there was a note on it reminding me to call Kyle between 6 and 8. Mittens, well, I wear mittens because I am most comfortable in them and they keep my hands warmest. Keys are essential to getting into my flat and locking it up so that everything is secure. The folder of flight information is just an agenda my dad put together in case I am not so organized upstairs in my head, he did it just in case I lost it…my head that is. Empty packet of birth control pills, well they are only empty because I just finished them all.
Everything in my bag was pretty essential. All information packets were to keep me organized, birth control too, keeps me regulated. Mittens are essential for warmth. Keys are important for shelter. All of these things are necessities on the surface but I guess if you are willing, you can dig deeper to understang the real meanings behind what these objects mean. To me though, they are nothing but objects that just so happened to be in my bag during that specific point in time and have no relevant meaning. I didn’t pack them for any reason (except for the keys) The thing is, I don’t think about what is in a bag unless I am preparing for something, which was not in this case.
Comment by stellablue2 January 14, 2007 @ 7:59 pmTo be honest, I’m not sure if we were supposed to write our own blog entry or reply to this one with the assignment, so to be safe, I’m including my response to the assignment in a comment.
The contents of my bag included:
-one notebook for class notes
-one click pen from Texaco Express Lube
-my digital camera, which I have used extensively throughout the trip thus far
-a notebook with humorous quotes said by fellow Temple University study-abroaders
-a receipt for the duty-free liquor Becky Bordo and I bought at the JFK airport
-a neon pink bandana, for keeping my bangs in place on bad hair days
-a thin black Sharpie pen
-the wrapper of a tropical flavored piece of Trident gum
-three used batteries
-one long black nail filer
-a guide to day-excursions in London
-the tourist guide to the V&A museum
-tampons and pantiliners
-$4
-mint waxed floss
-an 1/8″ to 1/4″ adapter for my headphones
-one starburst candy wrapper, which I ate on the airplane
Tada! We already discussed what these things might imply about me, so I don’t feel I need to write much more about them.
Comment by beckyclawson January 15, 2007 @ 12:57 am