I've had a shoebox of his paper junk on the shelf for six years. receipts, a parking ticket from 2009, a dry cleaning slip with a phone number on it that isn't his, grocery lists in that terrible handwriting. I always said the box was material. it was material.

I finally went through it tuesday. sorted it, kept eleven things, put the rest in recycling. felt almost adult about it.

now the piece I've been building around those receipts for two months is dead on the table. I keep going over to it and there's nothing. the eleven things I kept are the wrong eleven. I kept the ones that mean something instead of the ones that look like something, and it turns out I needed the parking ticket with the coffee ring on it, the boring one, the one that just says a guy parked somewhere and didn't pay.

the gallery wants the piece in october. I could go dig through the bin but the truck came this morning and honestly I think that's the right answer anyway, keep it gone.

anyway. hoarding is not a working method. it just feels like one.