Baggies and Baggage
One of my usual habits, especially when Mercury is retrograde? Upend my EDC (purse) and look. Then, as my needs have shifted yet again, I’ve wanted to change this up, just a trifle.
When I’m working in Austin’s rock shop, I need a set of cards, a handful of business cards, a small notebook for accounting, a couple of pens, a battery pack, cables, and the charge card reader.
astrofish.net/travel
When I’m working in San Antonio, I tend to favor a smaller version of the same deck of cards, but recall, I’ve carried tarot cards as a totemic elemental for the whole of this career. The additional piece I need in San Antonio is a little sign that sits on the table with a price per reading.
In theory, I could drop the extra notebook, and exchange it for the sign, and adjust with the diminutive price sign. Practically, I always carry a notebook of some sort.
Baggies and Baggage
The usual material that always rides in my EDC jump bag? A small wall charger and cables for a tablet, a watch, and a phone, as currently each one takes different type of connector. When Mercury is Retrograde, shopping online, I kept thinking about the most correct little baggies to house and corral this material, and then, how all of that would fit.
Odd, as business cards have long since become almost spurious in our current electronic climates. At the beginning, I was working in Austin, “Do you have an e-mail address?” when that question was universally accepted. Not many other locations offered the same.
That was the old, outlaw, high-tech Austin, and it’s never returned.
But I digress.
Tarot cards, tablet, charging cables, paper and pens, then the usual assortment of crap — ask any modern woman about the crap that accumulates in the bottom of a purse, all of that. Maybe not make-up for me, but certainly limp balm (Chapstick) that I amusingly enough call lipstick, so it is similar in sentiment, if not actual content.
Rectifying that everyday stuff against what I need for specific locations, and while Mercury is backwards? This is even worse.
Baggies and Baggage
At the twilight of this career, what I want, need, and what I carry daily differs from what it was like at the start. I can’t believe I used to carry a portable printer, supplies for it, and spare toner cartridges. A cassette recorder, and blank cassette tapes, and at a latter point, blank CDs. A portable CD burner. All changed.
I’ve been through a handful of shoulder bags, too. I’ve tried backpacks, and I still have the one briefcase, made by saddle maker, a heavy duty leather briefcase from more than three decades back. As much as I love it, it’s just a tad unwieldy for this work, now.
Looking at the ideas, though, what I adopted, was a small keyboard, really a cheap one, and folding case that makes a stand, and while it is far from ideal, it does work, with the keyboard/case riding in a pocket of the current purse, and that makes the whole ensemble function. It’s portable yet useable.
That keyboard and its folding cover was a bit of inspired problem-solving, the keyboard is a few years old, as I was trying it out, and then, the cover was similar to an item I’ve used before, all held together with some super glue.
That’s not even the first keyboard I’ve fixed that way.
Inspired solutions to making this all easier for me.
As it turns out? I didn’t need to buy any more baggage.
Baggies and Baggage
Moleskine Cahier Journal, Soft Cover, Pocket (3.5″ x 5.5″) Squared/Grid, Black, 64 Pages (Set of 3)