Not.

[mrissa]

This is me not going to Madison for Andrew's wedding today.

This is me not applying to Viable Paradise this year.

This is me not making plans to go to the Bay Area with markgritter yet.

This is me not buying a membership for WorldCon or World Fantasy Con yet.

This is me not in a good mood.

This is me squaring my shoulders and going on with the day. All right, I've already asked you to tell me something good, and I've already asked about dreams. Silly fantasy writer question of the day (which does not make me silly fantasy writer of the day -- you can still vie for that title, some of you): if you got to have one object you currently own invested with magic, what object would it be, and what magic?

Alternately, do you know what your oldest possession is? and why have you kept it for that long?

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

It's not the oldest chronologically, but the possession I've had the longest has to be Ducky, a stuffed Donald Duck toy that has been around since before I can remember. I had it in my room growing up, and my mother sent it to me when she sold the family house (long after I moved away). It's in okay shape, though I don't have it displayed. I keep it for sentimental reasons.

[sksperry.livejournal.com]

I have a locket with our family portrait in it, and I would imbue it with good luck for everyone pictured therein.

My oldest possesion is probably my drums. I've had this set since I was 18, and I've kept them so long because they still sound great, and I can't afford new ones. (Although I'm pretty sure I have books I've owned since I was around 10, come to think of it.)

Sorry you're missing out on all the good stuff. I'll save some of that luck for you.

[ccfinlay.livejournal.com]

My oldest possessions are almost certainly books or possibly a couple comic books that I bought with chore money back when I was 10 or 12. Like the edition of Tarzanwith the Neal Adams cover that Ballantine published around that time. Or some issues of Captain Canuck I bought on the family trip to Niagara Falls.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Damnation. So sorry to hear it's screwing with so much of your life. :-(

I've wished for the capability to teleport more often in the past month than I oughter, seeing that I can't. I'll have to think some more about what object would best enable that, though. My flip answer was going to be "a broomstick" but then all those pesky logistical details (how would I deal with being seen? What makes me think I can keep my balance on one when I can't even ride a bike? etc.) got in the way.

Possession I've kept the longest is probably the diary I started keeping in first or second grade. Skinny red spiral notebook. Oldest possession in the house is probably the pistol my husband's great-great-granddad used to carry with him when delivering payroll up in the wilds of Ontario.

[redbird]

My oldest possession is probably a silver rattle. It has a toothmark in it, which my mother tells me I made. She gave it, and an accompanying silver charm (also rattly), to me when I was in my late teens. I think she assumed I'd pass it on to my children (this was before I'd become sure I didn't want them). I have yet to have an appropriate child to pass it along to (it should properly be given to a good friend who has an infant), so I still have it.

That's possession-I've-had-longest (though with a gap); alternatively, the dresser I've been using since I was three was my mother's first, and is well older than I am. I'm not sure how old my grandmother's earrings are.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Booo.

I don't know what my oldest possession is. But my newest one is a lovely blue-purple-periwinkle-babyshit-brown mug that I bought at the Willie Street Co-Op in Madison, Wisconsin. It's comfortable in the hand, holds heat well, and holds as much as two normal mugs.

These are all important things.

If there were anything I could invest with magic? My own magic? That'd be dangerous; I'd hate to lose it, but it might be handy if I wanted to give it away.

I might invest a bra with the power of antigravity. My back would thank me. *g*

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

OH! I know what my oldest possession is; the last post reminded me.

It's a rosewood ankh that I teethed on.

And so did my first puppy.

Hee.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Oldest as has been in my possession longest: probably either my copy of The Secret Garden or of the collected Alice (with 'The Hunting of the Snark' and other poems included).

Oldest as was in existence before my own came about, I have some Victorian or Edwardian jewellery that was my grandmother's; but again, it's probably books, this time weird Victorian tomes acquired for research purposes.

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit of a pack rat/collector, so I have a lot of old possessions. I'm currently selling most of my remaining Barbie clothes, accessories, and furniture from the '60s on eBay because I'm in a decluttering mode. I have a lot of things from my childhood, which makes them close to 50 years old now.

But my oldest possessions haven't been in my possession for as long as they've existed. My mother gave them to me years ago: my baby shoes, the ribbon with my name on it from my baby carriage, and the hospital bracelets she and I wore when I was born. I suppose I figured to hand them down to my kids, but I didn't have any, so now I keep them for sentimental reasons.

And I have my mother's wedding ring and ankle bracelet which my father let me have after she died 23 years ago. I have some old photos of my grandparents and their families. Those are from 80-100 years old now.

[seimaisin.livejournal.com]

Question 1: Is it lame to say I want my mp3 player to magically access every song in the world? Because loading and reloading that thing is a bitch.

Question 2: I'm sure I have something older somewhere, but the oldest one that comes to mind is the Christmas stuffed dog that I used to sleep with when I was younger. I got it for Christmas when I was 10 years old, from a coworker of my dad's, because my mom was in the hospital and everyone felt sorry for us. That thing lived in my bed well into years I was ashamed to admit it.

[aet.livejournal.com]

The oldest are couple of silver spoons that may be around 100 years old. I keep them as one does need spoons for eating - and why discard something that is still useful?

Then again, nostalgia also is a great power - I HAD to take pictures of (slightly newer) objects from my childhood:

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/50797989@N00/154659515/)

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/50797989@N00/154659516/)

[songwind.livejournal.com]

My first inclination is to say that I'd have my credit card empowered to pay itself off every day. This may just be a side effect of long-time financial stress, however.

I believe the oldest possession of mine is my fishing reel, which was given to me by my grandfather. My Boker folding knife might be the same age - it was also his.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

*Hugs*

Object: oh, my long black velvet cloak with the hood. I would like it to become an invisibility cloak. I would not want to do any harm unseen and unfelt, but I would like to be able to walk anywhere and be able to look, and listen. I could, for example, sneak aboard a travel vessel, go to Europe, slip into one of my favorite old residences and just sit and watch the light change and perhaps catch the whispers of the ghosts.

Oldest possession: well, the oldest one relating to me is my babybook, written in my mom's teenage handwriting, and intermittently kept up until I was nine or so. Oliest possession of my own, my old diaries; mom threw away the earliest ones, but I have one, made out of paper, dating back to when I was ten or eleven. Oldest thing I possess is probably the Greek kylix, which is approximately two thousand years old, though some of the ancient Greek coins might be older.

[pameladean]

I'd probably choose my glasses, because I always have them with me.
I don't know what magic, though. Most of my ideas in that direction strike me as dangerous.

My oldest possession is probably the not-quite-complete set of blue-bound editions of Louisa May Alcott's books. They belonged to my mother originally, and she gave them to me when I was not much more than six or seven. I'd be able to pinpoint it better if I had not had the same teacher for first and second grades.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Umm, that sucks.

Magic? I'd like to have my writing computer enchanted to come up with the right word, the first time. Not the almost-right word, per Sam Clemens.

Of course, that spell would have to be transferable to a new computer every now and then. (This one runs Win98, which tells you the transfer clause wouldn't have to allow for constant change.)

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Forgot the "oldest possession" thing. Probably a hand-woven linen tablecloth allegedly brought over from the Old Country by a great-great-several-more-greats grandmother, Mennonite, around 1700. Oldest to _me_ would be an electric train set from Christmas 1952, +/-. Still runs.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

My oldest personal possession is a wooden box in the shape of a turtle. One of the feet is long-lost. The azalea-like pattern carved on the shell/lid suggests an origin in some tropical clime, but I have no idea. I know I owned it by the time I was three. I don't know who gave it to me--one of my grandparents, I think.

My oldest possession (now that I have given the 18th-century secretary to my mom) is a gold locket that originally belonged to my great-grandmother. The surface has been textured, but you can sorta tell, if you look closely, what the texturing was added to conceal: a teething mark, made by my grandfather when he was a baby.

Magic? The selfish part of me says that any purse I own should allow me to teleport...but barring that, I think I'd have LMH's favorite doll charmed so that LMH is always safe from harm, even if she is not with the doll, and the doll never gets lost.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

and I'm very sorry you're still feeling so poorly that you're missing all these things you were looking forward to. I really hope you feel better soon.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Oldest possession can go either way, its age, or its seniority with me. I have some botanical prints that are 19th century, and an 1893 Encyclopedia Britannica. I have a watch my father was given in 1936, but I didn't get it until after he died (I do have the watch he wore through WWII, which I got in 1958). I have a few books I bought new before 1966, and a few more I bought used from the first half of the 20th century.

The concept that I might have to explain why I still have any of those things is so totally foreign, I can't begin to address it.

As for magic -- give me some time to consult an expert in the actual system of magic available, and come up with clever things, and I'll tell you how I'd put it to work. Magic systems have such a range that I might end up with anything from a watch of virus repelling to a keychain of ultimate command.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

My oldest possessions go back more or less to my birth--a yellow satiny blanket, a particular stuffed bear. I keep them because, well, I keep most things.

My possession that has existed the longest is one of my books--I'm not sure exactly which--and I've kept it because the reasons I got it in the first place are still good ones.

Magic. Hm. I'd say using gas is the personally most upsetting thing I put up with in my own life, so a magic car that ran without gas or oil or toxic fluids of other sorts would be wonderful. If it protected against accidents and injury, that would be good too.

[ellarien]

Oldest personal possession that's always been mine; the bald and battered teddy bear my grandmother gave me soon after I was born. He's been bald ever since I can remember, and lives in honourable retirement at my mother's house, while I have her bear here.

The oldest object I own is either the 1910-printed book inscribed to my maternal grandmother in 1918, or the little wooden souvenir sewing kit that came to me via the same grandmother. The book is the kind that doesn't get thrown away, and was passed on to me at the time of my baptism; the sewing kit I loved when I was a child because it was smooth and small and neat, with a little engraved picture of a seaside resort on the side, and took to university with me because it was useful for keeping a needle and thread handy.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

I keep things because they are my memories - visible, touchable pieces of the time past, of the life that doesn't exist anymore, of something that mattered to me once.

from time to time i go through them and throw away some. also, I have a big part of my archive of things at my parents' place - because I might get attached to things, but not enough to drag them across the world with me.

the oldest in my posession now - photos and a notebook I kept at fourteen.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

My oldest possession is my big rosewood-dyed-to-mahogany four-poster bed with dressers and vanity. My grandmother bought the set with her first paycheck, back in the Twenties, and I was conceived in it.

The oldest humanly manufactured thing in the house (the dinosaur fossils including the T Rex teeth, which I picked up on my property, don't count) is the coin of Alexander the Great that I wear as a pendant.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

I come from a line of people who Keep Things, so I have my first crib toy Pink Lamb, a very battered stuffed lamb with white ears who used to play music and have jinglebells in his ears (both long gone). Straightforwardly oldest - I own a few Roman coins, nothing special and badly corroded, and somewhere I have a tile from a floor in Pompeii which got stuck in my shoe and came home with me by accident.

As for magic objects, I own a mask that I'd love to wear to step into books (although my practical side says that I'd have to publish a book called "Sienamystic and Her Piles of Money" that I could walk into for unlimited funds) and a charm bracelet that looks like it would make a good teleportation device.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

When I was five, my mother and my grandmother took me clothes shopping. (I know I was five because my grandmother died the next year.) This was, they knew, difficult for me, and I came out of it with flying colors. So they took me over to this small toy shop, and said for me to pick something out.

I looked around, and pretty much instantly saw a tiger-kitty which Must Be Mine. I pointed to it, and said, "That's Daniel!" (Of Mr. Rogers fame.)

Daniel's still with us, unlike the stuffed black dog that I had inherited from my mother and which my real dog chewed up when I was 7-ish. (Though Daniel's stripes have mostly worn off.)

And I've kept him because, well, I keep stuffed animals, but also because he reminds me of my grandmother.

As for Thing Which I Would Imbue With Magic-- gosh. Tossup between the laptop and the cat. But the cat's probably alteady magical, so I'll do the laptop.