today my parents asked me what i wanted for my 23 birthday. i honestly couldn't think of anything. i know i will need a small vacuum & a toaster, though maybe these are things for freecycle finding. i will also need a bed/mattress.
it is kind of liberating to realize that there isn't an object to immediately want, but also i feel sort of sad. i want a lot of things, like plants if a windowsill or an art studio for printing and mess making - but those are things to make happen myself. i had wanted TOMS and ryan so nicely got me some. all the ads on my internet browser are for TOMS, but i like it.
this evening i finished watching OBJECTIFIED, a documentary about designing objects, with my sister. one of the people in the movie asked what would you take with you if you had 20 minutes to evacuate your home. again, another strange emptiness. i feel sorta weird knowing that the objects i would want have little to do with their physicality. i would want my backup hard drive and my laptop and my cameras. i might grab a couple of my notebooks/sketchbooks from last year. i guess my personal story or history is not found in objects so much as my obsessive documentation of my life (which is still so full of holes). and yet its also strange, that when i think of the things i document, i feel so detached from those experiences. i think it's true, what was said in a Goddard or Truffaut film, you hide behind a camera, passive, not taking part in your own life. because a lot of great moments, i will never capture them in fotos, but that is part of what makes them so great. they were unexpected and carefree.