Andy once mused that the artifacts that we carry contain of some sort of civic identity–for instance, weaving through the subways of Shanghai, we seemed to consistently run into those inexplicably lugging around large stuff animal plushies. It was a curious lifestyle I have not witnessed anywhere else, save for maybe the supermarkets of Chicago. He then went on to wonder what objects define us now, wherever we are.
Funny you should ask.
Every couple of years, I make a habit of emptying the contents of my bag, perhaps taking a picture of it, then discussing it in earnest. No seriously. I kind of make it a big deal. While the junk I throw in my bag is not necessary indexical of where ever I am–my mp3 player and copy of American Psycho are universal, as far as I am concerned–it does provide an accurate snapshot of that particular moment in life. When those pictures were taken, I was 24, living in Chicago and apparently really into Kraftwerk. I was in art school writing my graduate thesis, which is to say I had a tendency for pretension, music elitism and other occupational hazards. I was one of those girls you’d see with the funny haircuts walking to class on Michigan and Monroe and, generally speaking, kind of an annoying shit. And I’d like to think this is more than discernible through the contents that I carried.
Fast forward it three years, I now sport a large multi-purpose bag that vaguely resembles a diaper bag. If I were to identify Chicago with my dilettante adventures in academia, my time in Los Angeles would surely tell a different story. The post-colonial rhetoric and ridiculous amount of cosmetics have now been deposed by identification cards from my cancer treatment, various business cards of my doctors at City of Hope, and stray foreign currency that I never had the chance to exchange. I suppose there is something incredibly distressing–or at least somewhat compelling–about this transformation. It surely doesn’t say anything specific about Los Angeles per se, although on occasions the city does resemble one large scar tissue.
But if anything, it does point to the absurdity of my time here. And it makes me wonder what were to happen if I were to leave…? Just like how 24-year-old Karen with the Kraftwerk buttons in Chicago doesn’t exist anymore, could I say the same about 27-year-old Karen with a dead tumor once I am no longer in Los Angeles?
