scrapbook

i'm a forgetful guy. always have been. it's not something that bothers me really, i don't wake up and think "dammit i forgot the time me and havan and tom went to the christmas fair again". it's little things, birthdays, random memories, phone numbers. i actually never knew any phone numbers other than the two of my own and dad's. i learned dad's when i was in kindergarten and it stuck ever since, flawlessly. now that i think of it there will be things that stick to me without even trying. like i can remember my bank card's numbers by heart. i don't even use it that often. i pay cash for groceries, got a standing order for rent/bills, and nearly never order shit online. but when i do order something online and need to add the card info i just do it off the top of my head. my romanian id card number also stuck to me after reading it once. i even remember this one time when i was in middle school (around 15 years old) and our homeroom teacher needed them. i said i could recite it couse i didn't want to get up and she just said "oh shut up i don't trust you". what a thing to tell a kid huh. i also remember random moments like this, or more often, random dreams. i can recall various dreams from up to ages ago with more clarity than if i've just dreamt it. not particularly important or distressing dreams or whatnot, just random common dreams i've had, they simply just never went away

i'm like this guy except i don't actively think i'll remember the moment, i just realise it a bit later down the line

i digress, this is supposed to be about me forgetting not remembering things. for each arbitrary meaningless thing i randomly remember there's loads i forget. i'll recall them if you tell me about it, but by myself? gone. maybe they'll find their way back in front of my brain on occasion but they'll be gone as soon as they come. i don't want to lament about it, it's not like it immediately impacts my life for the worse. it doesn't impact my life at all even. i'll often enjoy rereading books, replaying games, rewatching movies and shows. it won't be exactly just like the first time, but the excitement will be there, they'll still be relatively fresh. i write birthdays into my calendar, ideas and random stuff i think of in my notebook, i log moments going on...?

i actually don't anymore. i grew up on used to use facebook to shitpost a lot, (but that's a whole other can of worms i'm not getting into now). i also used to use insta pretty frequently. originally used it for posting drawings, i later shifted to using it as my main... "platform"(?). besides the usual posts -- which i would play around with a lot, editing, writing stuff, had a lot of fun with that, it was a pretty nice outlet for me -- insta lets you post stories, random photos which would hang around for a day then disappear. you could always make them sit on your profile permanently as highlights, but usually you just let them go. that's what they were made for after all, and it allowed for a very specific kind of post. random memories, moments of your day, posts you think were funny, screenshots of your groupchat being funny, songs,

we were all niche internet microcelebrities. we all posted to our own circles. maybe you'd recognise 30 regulars who'd see your posts and interact with you every so often. everyone had their own things going on their stories. i had my weekly sunday confession box, some other guy would post pics he'd take trying to visit every single neighborhood in bucharest. a con would come around and you'd post pics with cosplayers you'd take pics with, and other people would post pics they took with you. memories. stories

i could go on but i'll stay on topic (and it's getting a bit late). since i stopped using insta (or any form of social media for that matter) about 2-3 years ago, i've noticed now more than ever the lack of these stored memories. i very often like going back and looking at my posts and saved stories, the same way i very much like to look back through my screenshot gallery or a discord server me and some facebook friends had since about 2018 and read old chat logs. before deleting my facebook account (again, can of worms) i grabbed an archive of chat logs, posts, comments, everything facebook would give me, which i go through every so often. i wish i had one for the account before that (and the one before that too). if i could i'd go back to and read chat logs from old group chats or with old friends, or mmo chat logs. if i could have had a video log of my everything my eyes saw i would eat that up. i don't really have much to go through for the past two years

i'm doing a bad job of trying to keep my memories in order. i have little to look back on this past year, year and a half. it's all kinda scattered. i suppose there's some pics spread in various discord chats. the whatsapp photos between me and my girlfriend would be a good source but actual memories are so few compared to tons of unfiltered random shit we send eachother throughout the day. i have a few photos printed out on photo paper glued to my dresser but they haven't increased in number in a year. i'm not entirely sure how to deal with this either

my only obvious solution is to just, write more on this website? that's why i made it right? but it's not as organic as those stories were, instantaneous moments. besides, diary-style reading doesn't do it for me when i'm reminiscing. and also, diary-style writing wouldn't fit "logging quick memories". when i write something here it's more to process or ruminate over various things. or more full-length archival writing. all i do is sit down at the keyboard and start hitting the keys for a couple hours (often i won't even read them afterwards lmao). maybe the move here is to also start taking more pics. not just that but i'll also be more careful with the photos i take and what i do with them. i've been sitting on a folder of unfiltered photos i took with my phone for a year now, just waiting to be brushed up and pushed to flickr. i'll start collecting the photos others take too and drop them in folders. i just noticed the local game store i went to for the magic LTR prerelease took pics of us playing and uploaded them to facebook, those will fit right in

it's late so i'll end the post for now. i'll finish off with two of these memories that i like to look back on: first, the photo of me, tom and havan at the gds halloween meet.

second, the societies fair at the beginning of the academic year, where gds had a stand (tom was there too, he took the picture)