What does your garage say about you? Mine says I’m a paper hoarder. Because while I absolutely detest scrapbooking, I will keep stacks of bank statements, paperwork and lists (for everything from groceries to a list of items I was going to wear on my wedding day, like perfumed deoderent, which I find funny that I actually wrote that down) for literally decades. Me? A problem with detachment? Are you kidding?For starters, I have bank statements, W2s and tax returns from the late 90s. Who the hell knows why I thought I should hang on to them. Actually, I didn't even realize I had them, and to think I have spent money for years paying to move this crap and/or store it in a climate-controlled facility. Some paperwork had paperclips that were so old and stuck to the paper that I just tore off the paperclip attached to the paper (so I could shred this paperwork).
I found the old letters from "Christy Leeth" - a mysterious woman who wrote me from prison during 2004 because she thought I was her 12-year-old niece. Some of my most entertaining monologues have come from those letters as I read about her questioning her niece about whether she had her "month friend" yet.
That and writing out every laugh as "hi hi."
A business card from a pimp in Houston. (I cut out the number; my PhotoShop skills suck.) Not sure if you can read it, but it says "Pimps R Us" and "De Social Underworld Society." Contact name: J.B. Pimp'n, you know, for just be pimpin. A'ight. I picked up this beaut during some SuperBowl party in 2004.
Race medals – 4 half marathons, 1 marathon.
Transcripts from college and grad school.
Not that this should surprise anyone, but I found a hand-written list of every guy I’d kissed between 1984-2004. Who was "Poncho" and "Boom Boom" and "Guy in White Jeep?" And there were several names with ? as the last name. Or "random guy in bar." I felt like I'd just found the stash of hidden Christmas presents when I found this list, which I immediately transferred to a spreadsheet for posterity. And then added years 2005 to current. (Another blog to come to expand on this list....)
Some kind of ‘senior’ book where I talk about one day being married to Russell, my boyfriend during senior year (well, the one who stuck around the longest and #26 on the Kissing List). UPDATE: I Googled him, and even though we went to prom together in Little Rock, AR, he lives around the corner from Amy W. in Austin. Small world.
The most useful thing I found: Long lost recipe to Prejean’s crawfish enchiladas.
And photos. I found one of me and my first car. In 1990, thought I was such a bad ass with that burgundy Chrysler Reliant K car and my one and only CD, “Please Hammer, Don’t 
Hurt 'Em.”
Here's an oldie that I'd completely forgotten about. From the looks on our faces, it was my idea to dress up and pose for "old timey" photos. Sorry for the quality; I didn't feel like walking upstairs and scanning it.
The top photo is of the garage post-cleanup. Whether it's actually clean is debatable. But it is an improvement. After a day of cleanup, a visit from AAA to change my flat tire and a chicken dinner at Luby's, I managed to get in a workout of just walking around the neighborhood.
One of my most cherished items I found was a handwritten letter from my dad on his business stationery from when we lived in England:
Dear Heather and Jason,
It rains here everyday. I am missing you. Please call me on Sundays.
Love, Daddy
And of course every journal I've ever owned. My life is in this garage.
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