Many things about me have changed as I've aged. I am less obsessive, less single minded. I am not the utter social disaster I once was, and while I'm not a socialite, I have friends and some minimal faith I can make new ones. I am more self confident, but less proud. I think I am happier than I was.

(Wouldn't it be delicious, dear reader, if I didn't now tell you what hasn't changed? If I broke the convention I've signed into by opening as I did, and  now started writing about how hot it's been out lately, or what the best beans were, ranked in order? I'm tempted. Really, I am. But no, you don't deserve that, and it would force me to change the title, which I've grown a bit attached to. So I'll continue, but do realize how close you came. You teetered on the brink, just now.)

What age has not changed is a fondness for bottles. The type isn't really important, for one can't be a bottle purist, there being a unique and perfectly appropriate bottle for every bottlable material. In fact, it extends (to varying degrees) to things that are not conventionally bottles, but are undeniably bottle-like: Drinking glasses. Petri dishes. Test tubes. Even, in the rarest cases, boxes or chests (out of the gutter, dear reader) or small drawers. Think fishing tackle boxes. Think tool chests.

When I was very young, before entering school, I had a particular "game" I would play to aid me in falling asleep. (Quite different, I hasten to add, then the "game" often employed these days. Back in the gutter, dear reader.) I had a bed in which the headboard was not solid, but instead had an empty area in its centre with five or six ornamental dowels positioned vertically inside of it. I am not describing this well, but the design is not terribly uncommon. (Use your imagination, but not too much.) Geometrically it was not entirely unlike this, but the top section was solid, and it was made exclusively of wood. The glue holding these dowels in place was weak, and they could be rotated within their sockets to varying degrees.

While waiting to fall asleep I would grip these, behind me, and twist them (as though one might twist a pepper mill), and I would imagine that they were connected to various chemicals (or ingredients -- I'm not sure the distinction was clear at the time). As I turned them I pretended that the chemicals were being dispensed, and placed great importance on only turning them the appropriate number of times, lest I ruin the, uh, creation. (I cannot remember what I envisioned myself creating, although I suppose it must have been a "potion", inspired by cartoons.) I faintly recall even having a sort of mental "recipe book", relating the appropriate ratios of twists to the desired result.

Dear reader, the link here may not be obvious to you, but for me the continuity is clear. The dowels were the interface to a series of über-bottles, storage containers taken to a peak of efficiency. They were clean (despite dispensing a seemingly endless quantity of material -- that non-existent material is quite often very clean may have slipped my mind at the time), and precise, and controlled access to a seemingly limitless quantity of material. While I never needed to refill the über-bottles (this being one of the things that made them so über) I'm sure if I did the process would have been fast and easy.

There is some pivotal divide in me, I think. I am obsessively organized in my mind, believing firmly in the existence of a proper container and organization scheme for all things. For some time I expected to do my thesis on theorem organization software I would write, carefully displaying logical dependencies in (at various points) mathematics proofs, or philosophical arguments. Each (argument | proof) would be carefully annotated with the originator's name, and relevant articles, and tied in somehow to one of the pre-existing opensource logical proof systems. It would be meticulous and thorough. It would also, I soon found out, be impossible -- at least for interesting systems of knowledge.

My actual life is a parody of this urge for careful organization. It is haphazard and chaotic, not only in how I live it, but also (less admirably) in its physical trappings. My apartment is consistently messy, and I make no claims about being able to find things in it. The mess overwhelms me at times, causing inaction by its sheer scope.

A cupboard above my stove serves the role of a pantry. It is filled with bulk dried goods, as though I were expecting to need to hole up here over the winter. (The urge to "hole up" may be another consistent trend. While I cannot honestly claim to be agoraphobic, I find enclosed spaces comforting. I dream of bunkers.) The contents of this cupboard (nuts, beans, grains, pastas, flours, etc) are currently stored in plastic bags, just as I packaged them in the bulk store nearby. The bags are developing holes and are delicate from wear. Frying on the stove below has coated them in a thin layer of greasy film. They are piled on top of each other, and conform to the shape of their environment. Bags are weak, and weak-willed. They are not a good sort of container. Tomorrow, I will buy more bottles (for the available bottles I have are too small) and I will transfer the contents of the bags to them. I may label them if I'm feeling particularly ambitious, although this would be a particular obvious waste of time. The bottles will be clean and sturdy and tightly sealed. They will make easy the location of the legumes that was so vexing tonight.

I am convinced that there is no problem that cannot be solved by the right bottle.