Monday 12 June 2000

Pic of the day: The site of today's archeological dig. Hey, my digs are the best! :)

Dig those clothes

Today we're off from work because of the religious holy days. It doesn't matter that lots of Norwegians have only faint ideas about what Pentecost is all about, it's a day off from work and you can't beat that.

Myself, I went on an archeological dig in my bedroom. At the foot end of the bed is a big trunk. Not a tree trunk, but one of those you carry stuff in when you're travelling. This particular trunk has been standing there for years - perhaps since I moved in - and accumulated two kind of items: Comic books and used clothes. These are used clothes that I intend to use again before I wash them. But somehow this doesn't always happen - in the past, often because I have bought something new, suddenly.

Today, I ventured beneat the upper crust of mismatched PJs (pajamases? pajamii?) and ditto jogging suits. Below, I found (big surprise) more mismatched PJs and ditto jogging suits. Then I started to find interesting things. There were shirts I remembered from last year, or was that the year before? I think it was last year. And trousers too. Digging deeper, I found that the clothes started to be deformed by the pressure from above, but still recognizable. To the right was a vertical shaft filled with knitted sweaters and jackets. To the left were interleaved shirts and trousers, several of which seemed to fit me quite well. At the bottom of this layer, I found the pair of trousers which the darling girls had picked for me on that memorable day when we harried Oslo, buying clothes for me, spending a month's pay in one day. They picked the clothes, I paid. We had loads of fun, and went to places where none of us usually dare to thread. Those trousers were more than wide when we bought them. Now, I could have pillows in there.

The end of the historic layers was properly symbolized by a red patterned vest in lambswool. Rather small, too. This was the vest to end all vests - or at least to end all shopping, on that fateful day. The girls found it on one of the lifesized dolls and fell for it with a splash, particularly Old Friend, the oldest sister. Since the one on display was the last one left, they craved that the shop staff denude the doll and give me the vest instead. Neither they nor I asked about the price. To be honest, I still don't remember the price. But I do remember the expression on Old Friend's face when she heard it. Not to mention the changing colors of her face. Heh. Heh. Heh.

The bottom of this layer marks the boundary between the history and the prehistory of the Chaos Node. I've decided to name it the "Byrne Transition", because immediately under this were several issues from Byrne's reboot of Superman. Artifacts from other cultures are an immeasurable boon when trying to date an archeological dig. (Archeology is largely a dating game, as you may know. Though I may soon need a paleontologist - they date fossils.)

In the pre-Byrne layers, the clothes were seriously deformed by long term sustained pressure, and patched with dust. These clothes were characterized by their lightness. Both shirts and trousers were made from thin nylon or polyester materials. They also incidentally looked quite cheap. Based on this, I have dubbed this "the Dressmann epoch", after a cheap clothes chain here in Norway.

Finally, at the bottom and in toward the wall, there was a lone knitted sock and several Flash comics from shortly after Crisis. My theory is that these were originally deposited elsewhere and were then moved to the trunk site by some event now long forgotten.

***

In today's happy news, I got two friendly and thoughtful e-mails from my penfriends. I love that! It is not always easy to reply, especially to long mails, but it is something I like to do.

In todays crappy news, my guts are acting up this evening. In fact, if I had been eating out, I would probably not go there again. But I have not. I have not even been eating old scraps. Mainly yoghurt and cooked spaghetti with cheese (big surprise there, huh?) and some soda. The strawberry yoghurt is the most suspicious ... it is way too acidic to be natural. They must have added vinegar or something, it nearly burns the tongue. Local readers may want to avoid this batch.

On the bright side, I don't need to worry about constipation for a while...

Anyway, have great days, people, if at all possible!