[personal profile] jenett
Welcome to our fifth salon discussion thread. Wander in, invite a friend to come along, and chat! (Not sure what's going on? Here, have a brief FAQ.) The first three went wonderfully - you can find them in my salon tag. Please take a quick look at the reminders at the bottom of this post, too.

Topic of the day: What do you have in your pocketses? Or to be more useful, what stuff do you carry with you? I ask partly because I want to talk about what I have with me, but also because I'm contemplating being more systematic about some of it, and I suspect you all will have interesting ideas.

My usual bag is either a backpack (if I'm walking to work) or a small messenger bag. (My backpack is Tom Bihn'sSynapse 19, and my smaller messenger bag is their Medium Cafe bag. They wear amazingly well, come in nice colours, and have pockets and interior design that make me immensely happy. I own various others from them.)

What I usually have in my pockets at the moment is my keys (work key, house key, car key, car key fob) in the left, and my iPhone in the right. What I usually have in my bag is my asthma inhaler, a pen, and a few other minor things.

I'd like to do better. Things I'm currently contemplating include:
* Minor first aid kit (ibuprofen, several sizes of things to put on cuts or blisters, etc.)
* Whether I want to get some sort of pocket tool. In specific, the thing I need most and don't always have handy is stuff for opening computer cases/removing components. (And, y'know, in case of zombie apocalypse or getting stranded in back woods rural highway, a small knife blade and scissors and such wouldn't exactly be a *bad* idea)
* A small actually useful sewing kit (which probably means putting it together myself. because the pre-made ones never make sense to me.)
* Some combo of other useful self-care stuff. (Portable "I need food" object? I usually have a water bottle with me.) Lip balm. That kind of thing.
* A USB with useful stuff on it. (I have been creating one of these for work, with things I use all the time, but I could probably stand to have a personal one.)

Music in the background: I am very much about the comfort listening this week, which lead to my creating a playlist of Enya and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach cello suites. (Look, I'm a person whose comfort reading has long included Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. I never claimed to be normal about these things. Whatever normal is.)

Other possible topics: (plus whatever you suggest!)
* The annoyances of weather. (Weather is my current most annoying migraine trigger: it threw me for a loop Monday. I am still cranky.)

* Ways you make things like waiting for laundry at the laundromat or waiting for car repairs more enjoyable. (Guess what I'm doing this week.) Both places are noisy enough that complicated reading is not generally viable. Neither place has wi-fi, so if I want Internet, I am limited to my phone, and neither has a table, so I can't type easily. And neither has somewhere near enough by I could go grab coffee and sit there instead.)

* Nifty things you have read/watched/listened to this week/month/year and why we ought to check them out.

Quick reminders
- If you want to post anonymously, please pick a name (any name you like) that we can call you - it makes it more conversational and helps if we have more than one anon post.
- Base rule remains "Leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse". If you're nervous about that, I'd rather you say something and we maybe sort out confusion later than have you not say something. (People here have been excellently friendly and helpful so far.)
- I am still working on finding the balance on how much I talk vs. how much other people talk, so I am sometimes taking a bit before I reply to things. (An hour or two, usually.) Also, it is a slow brain week for me, please excuse.
- The FAQ still has useful stuff, but I have not added to it recently.
- Comments tend to trickle in over the course of a day or two: you might enjoy checking back later if you're not tracking the conversation.
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Date: 2013-07-04 12:18 pm (UTC)
lilysea: Serious (Default)
From: [personal profile] lilysea
In my handbag:
- card wallet with train ticket, atm cards etc
- mobile phone
- sharpie for pressing elevator buttons when my fingers hurt
- merino/possum fur gloves
- lens cleaner wipes (http://www.clearwipe.com.au/)
- Hurraw chai spice lip balm
- biro
- green highlighter
- wallet with money
- Panadol osteo (slow release paracetemol)
- 500mg soluble asprin
- zip up wallet containing index cards that say useful things like
"You can't change the past. What are the best actions you can take *now*?"
"People to make plans with..."
"Some people are going to judge you based on little things. Please don't let them get to you. You are a complex and incredible person. You contain multitudes. You are so much more than they think."
"'I am having the thought that', 'I am having the feeling that' creates space, distance, calm"
"Feelings are not facts!!!"
"Panadol osteo = 6 hours or more apart"
"This is pain, and it will pass"
"It's okay to feel sad, even if you don't know why"
"If you feel sad, it's just the Cymbalta withdrawal"

Date: 2013-07-04 12:31 pm (UTC)
shoaling_souls: Fish swimming independently but still together in a group (Default)
From: [personal profile] shoaling_souls
I have a waist pouch that i always have on me when i leave the house. this way i don't have to worry about my purse falling off my shoulder every two minutes or about getting tangled up in it or leaving it behind because it's literally strapped to me. it has lots of pockets.

there's a pocket for my mobile, and i put that in when i remember to bring my mobile with me, which is not usually. i have a pocket for my pocket handkerchief, and a pocket where i keep migraine meds, a pocket where i can keep a coin to get a shopping cart if i go to the big store and a small fold-up pair of sewing scissors. another pocket is dedicated to my keys.

the big pocket has my wallet.

the pocket in back has my crochet thread, my current project (a sock), and a crochet hook. i work on my project whenever i have to wait in a line, wait for public transportation, ride public transportation, or more usually, when i'm walking to town to save money on public transportation.

i usually also have a fold up cloth grocery bag with me, but it doesn't fit in the pouch so i just tie the handles to my pouch
Edited (shoulder, not folder) Date: 2013-07-04 12:32 pm (UTC)

What I've got.....

Date: 2013-07-04 03:17 pm (UTC)
kyrielle: painterly drawing of a white woman with large dark-blue-framed glasses, hazel eyes, brown hair, and a suspicious lack of blemishes (Default)
From: [personal profile] kyrielle
...then I'll try replying to others if I can make time, today or tomorrow. Because time can be a bit hard. :)

Pockets: iPhone, left pants pocket. Keys, right pants pocket. I try very hard not to wear anything without pockets that can hold those items. If I have to do so, both these go into the purse. (Which may or may not hold all my usual stuff if I have to wear a formal purse with. I try to avoid that even more, because I will never ever use such a purse again after the occasion.)

My purse should contain (currently it's missing two items and has others added, which I need to fix):
  • In the outside pocket, one end: chapstick, camera
  • Outside pocket, other end: nothing, unless it's corralling my phone and keys, or holding receipts from that day that need to make it home
  • Zippered side pocket 1: cash (being careful not to let the coins build up too much as this causes ridiculous shoulder strain, those things add weight like nobody's business), notepad and pen in a ziplock bag.
  • Zippered side pocket 2: medicines. Antihistamine, two types of OTC pain medicine (as what works for Scott and I is different), Lactaid-type dairy pills (in a large bottle, which means I never buy the brand, which only come in small paper packets, wherein the pill gets CRUSHED if carried around for long in a pocket or purse), zofran (I don't get sick to my stomach unless I get a bug, but if I do, I can't control it; we finally settled on a prescription for the dissolving tablets so I have it on hand at all time, after I was three-for-three with stomach bugs landing me in the ER within 6-12 hours), decongestant, Tums, and Gasx.
  • Central pocket, "secret" zippered compartment which is totally obvious: spare key to the car, because I lock my key in the car every now and then, and I seldom manage to lock in both the keychain AND the purse. Like, never so far. Also, jewelry I want with me that day but do not want chewed apart by the other contents of the purse, but am not presently wearing.
  • Central pocket, open small side pockets: spare memory card for the camera, 'critical' cards (driver's license credit cards, emergency contact info, health insurance card).
  • Central pocket, open middle area: Kindle, small notepad, bluetooth keyboard for the iPhone, large plastic pocket for non-critical cards - store cards, zoo membership, etc., etc. Work badge, second pen, iPhone charger cord and wall-power brick, iPhone headphones.


I should add the zippered side pockets run the full length of the purse, just not as much width as the center pocket.

If I am out and about with the kids, there's a backpack in the car (often left there and grabbed when needed these days) with spare diapers for Ian, spare outfits for both, wipes, and (if I'm really organized) a spare bink for Ian. (Actually, that backpack is often in the car when I'm not out and about with the kids, since we have two such bags. But, it only matters when they are there.) Also in the trunk of the car is a kit for injury/disable vehicle scenarios. Reflectors plus first aid kit, basically. I try to replenish the perishable medicines in the fall after the summer heat is over, because I'd rather not put new ones in and then degrade them rapidly with summer heat in the trunk. :P

When I get home, the iPhone stays in my pocket except when it's in use or next to me on the bedside stand; the keys go on the key-hook by the door; the purse goes on a shelf in the office, out of kid-reach, because pocket of medicines. (And aggravation if they took other stuff, but mostly, pocket of medicines.)

In rain I worry about the purse contents but not about the phone, which has a case that's water-proof to 6.5 feet (also shock-proof, sand-proof, etc., etc.). Not that I intend to take it swimming, but that means I need not worry about rainstorms, sprinklers, or acts-of-toddler.

And now I have a LOT of comments to go through, because I've only sort of kept up, although I have flagged several mentally to comment on or follow up on (SO seeing things here that could HUGELY improve my system, and I actually need a new purse soon as my current one is starting to really show wear).
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