Absolutely nothing.

In my handbag is my purse (confused?) with money/cards in it, mobile phone, keys and lip balm. That's it.

I'm carrying a cellphone, ID, cash, keychain (house key, car key, bottle opener), multitool, work keychain (badges, keys, magnetic-entry cards) and flash drive. No wonder my pants wear out so quickly.

Cellphone, wallet, hairbrush, lipstick, name badge for work.

When I am out and about I always keep cash and coins in my pants pocket, instead of my purse. I'm a barbarian according to my mother.

my pyjamas have no pockets, sorry.

Soft, very old leather backpack, smallish. Inside: Phone. Keys with a compass on the ring. A couple of little notebooks and some sharp scratchy pens. Wallet. Checkbook. Cymbals. Comb. Enormous flash drive. Lipstick. Dog treats.

One wallet containing cash, cards, receipts and suchlike, one pen, five crumpled-up receipts, six keys on a keyring, a 4Gb flash memory stick, 1,241 SEK more in notes & coins, one key-card.

Could it be five minutes ago?
One wallet containing cash, atm card, driver's license, and family photographs.
The house keys.
And a handkerchief--a necessity here in India.

My "weekend" bag has my planner, wallet, small sketchpad, wristlet with misc. loyalty cards, small make-up bag with a shea butter stick, 2 lipglosses and eyedrops, my work security badge, gum and a pack of tissues. My cell would normally be in here too, but I'm charging it right now.

In my handbag:

wallet
keys
cell
crumpled receipts
cosmetic bag filled with stuff
brush
digital camera
twin lens camera
holga
film
some rogue pennies and a dime
take-out menu from a local cafe
gum
tea bags and sugar packets in a baggie
pen
calculator
a book I'm reading
a notebook to scribble and doodle in

My wallet, date book, pens, calculator, umbrella, lipstick, chapstick, cell phone, Bluetooth, papers, phone book, and small wallet. Like LoriFla, when I go out I forgo the purse and just take cash and the small wallet (plus cell).

In my bag:

My wallet, phone, pens, zantac, book, mirror, maryland terrapins t-shirt, coins, lipgloss, chapstick, and a little sewing kit thingy.

Let me say that the All-Ett wallet has been a disappointment. Whenever I open it the cards in the credit-card slots are always in danger of falling out.

The Utili-Key broke after after about a year of carrying it around on my neck lanyard.

Wallet, phone, iPod, an apple (Pink Lady), the new Muse CD, letters to mail, a credit card statement, a book (The rise and fall of Alexandria : birthplace of the modern mind).

In my pocket: about $5 in quarters. I'm doing laundry.

In my handbag:

wallet, which holds debit card, credit card, library cards, blood donor card, etc., eleven dollars cash, a never-to-be-redeemed coupon for a haircut, pictures of my entirely adorable flock of nieces and nephews (nine and counting!), two checks payable to me, one for a tiny sum and one for a (to me) GIANT SUM, and several fully punched coffee cards from a local coffeehouse.

the weekly newsletter my partner writes for the videostore where he works. It's always funny, and I have a full collection dating back about eighteen months.

a plastic soapbox full ob o.b. tampons (and did I feel smug when I figured out they fit perfectly in there, yes I did!)

cell phone, always silenced so don't even bother calling

datebook

bus schedule

gloves

a minimum of three and maximum of five lip balms, somewhere unfindable

pens, similar in number and vexing elusiveness

safety pin keychain given me twenty-odd years ago when I was a teenaged punk

small bag holding folding hairbrush, band-aids, powder, nail scissors, and the like

The Amateur Marriage, by Anne Tyler, which I am saving for an upcoming trip

packets of tissues, since I am a big crybaby

presciption and non-prescription analgesics, packed in a tiny tin formerly containing almonds sent me from the Almond Board of California

a fabric grocery bag that folds up into its tiny pouch, so cunning and small that I routinely forget I have it and accept a despicable disposable plastic bag.

--------------------------

One of the coolest things in my wallet deserves to be described as more than one of a series. It's a small yellow handwritten I.O.U. given me by a young gothy girl who works in a local consignment shop. Last winter, she noticed I came around much less often and was less smiley than usual. When she pressed me, I told her my father was ill. When I left the shop, she pressed into my hand an I.O.U. for a coffee date, saying she would like to take me out and cheer me up whenever I felt up to it. I haven't taken her up on her offer yet, but whenever I see the yellow edge of her I.O.U. peeking out of my wallet, I'm heartened by the kindness that near-strangers can bestow on us as we walk through life.

Nothing right now, it's Sunday but normally:

Keys in left front pocket (no coins ever, they go in the ash tray )
Wallet in left rear pocket (yes, you can tell I'm left-handed by staring at my rear end)
Thinkpad, phone, ipod, lunch, cables, usb memory, etc in shoulder bag.
Everthing else in the car.

I'm wearing capris at the moment - nothing in the pockets.

My purse is in my bedroom and I ain't about to go look, but I'm sure it has the usual assortment of stuff: wallet (money, ID, credit cards, debit card), passport, brush, Excedrin, Burt's Bees lip balm, pens, cell phone, lotion and a bunch of other stuff that makes it too damned heavy.

I'm not really in a place where I can empty it out, so I might be forgetting something, but here's most of what's in my bag:

Digital camera, mp3 player and two sets of headphones (athletic and audiophile), Nintendo DS and games, notebook, permanent markers and paint pens, both in various sizes and colors, library copies of Letter to a Christian Nation (Sam Harris) and Poor People (William Vollmann), a few flyers, a $20 check that I've been carrying around for a month now, a couple menus, a couple cables, a fistful of assorted teabags, a few packets of Emergen-C, a small container with headache remedies in it, a few replacement parts for piercing jewelry, a Littlest Pet Shop toy (gift for a friend's kid), the CD single for PJ Harvey's 'Man-Size' (gift for a friend, features a great cover of 'Wang Dang Doodle'), coffee-flavored candy, a chocolate bar and a Nalgene bottle half-full of now lukewarm tea.

Wow--that's a lot of crap.

box, how are you liking Poor People? I've been wanting to check this one out since I heard an interview with the author on NPR.

(I'm not very far into it.) So far, at least, I think it's great. Ambitious, literary, challenging. It's a little rambly and digressive, but that's something that I often enjoy in my nonfiction reading. Here's Vollmann talking about his book in a WaPo online discussion.

Pockets: Keys, change, coffee beans, tobacco, herbs and spices, leatherman micra multitool, 1 gb flash drive, 1+2 gb media player/recorder, headphones.

Belt: 1 watt LED flashlight, pocket knife/boxcutter combination, beefy multi-tool pliers with torx, hex, phillips and flat driver bits and adapter.

Nerdpurse: Mapping GPS, camera, overpowered laser pointer, red bike taillight LED blinky, wide angle lens adapter, four camera filters, flexible pocket tripod, pens, assorted audio wires, USB patch/charging cable for media player, flash card reader/writer for camera and media player memory, post it notes, largish spiral notepad w/ pen, activist stickers, various flyers for parties or art shows, spare batteries for camera, GPS, flashlight, spare matches, lighters, rolling papers and assorted smoker's tools, metal shaving/signalling mirror, metal flask filled with vodka, metal 16 oz vacuum flask of coffee, instant emergency coffee in baggie, black cotton aviator's scarf, a mylar space blanket, assorted unused ziploc baggies, several full sized unused trash bags folded neatly, a well stocked first aid kit, condoms, emergency signalling whistle, camoflauge colored parachute cord in several lenghths, velcro cable straps, carabiners, binder clips, safety pins, sewing kit.

Uhm, there's actually more which I'm forgetting. Basically, if I'm carrying my nerdpurse I'm ready for whatever, from a 3 day long party, to armageddeon, or simply a large earthquake.


Also in the nerd purse at this moment is a nice little piece of magic. It's simply a laminated card on a lanyard, like a backstage pass. It's the Magic, Universal Backstage All Access Pass. On one face is a subtle fractal printed in royal and sky blues on a black field. On the other face is a julia set fractal rendered in prismatic, holographic foil. There is no text or verbiage anywhere on the card. Both sides are covered in trippy fractalness. The lanyard is purple sateen cord.

I've used that thing to get into hundreds of concerts and parties. It will only work for parties I actually want to be at. It only works solo - I can't get you and your friends in with it. To make it work, I have to put on The Attitude, and show that I Know What I'm Doing and I Have Important, Legitimate Business here, which is 90% of the magic involved.

But I've actually had meat-headed security guards stop me and "read" the card carefully with a flashlight dozens of times before they've nodded or waved me inside. I've often wondered what it is they see, but I haven't wondered too deeply about it, because I don't want to break it.

Christ on a crutch, loq, you must be exhausted from carrying all that around?

Me? nothing in my pockets usually. In winter, in my coat pockets, I usually have car key, possibly work keys (which amounts to about 8 keys) wallet, lately a cell phone.

Maybe some gum. That's about it, I travel pretty light. My car is usually housing 10-20 cds, always burned...I never bring the originals in the car. Too many friends have reported have a cd wallet stolen, and being the sad new owners of a bunch of empty CD cases.

activist stickers

bumper stickers?

Local motorist doing her part.

Christ on a crutch, loq, you must be exhausted from carrying all that around?

Actually, it's not all that heavy. And this is packing light, for me. I used to carry around a similarly stocked laptop backpack that regularly approached 60 pounds of stuff, cables, batteries and assorted tech. The nerdpurse is well under 10 lbs fully loaded, including liquids like coffee and vodka, or a water bottle. Without the liquids it's probably actually well under 5 lbs.

Besides, I'm a large, active, athletic mammal. A regular beast of burden, if you will. I've hoofed 100 pound packs across miles of loose desert sand and rocks. A little geek purse isn't going to weigh me down much.

It's all (usually) very neatly and obsessive-compulsively packed and sorted away into the dozens of pockets the guide bag has inside. There's only one "assorted" pocket I use, and in that resides nail clippers, burt's bees, gum, etc. Everything else has a dedicated pocket. There is no trash at all in the bag. Zero. Trash goes in pockets, which goes in cans, not in my bag.

And before you get the idea I'm some kind of neat freak, I'm so totally not. There's a bowl of half-eaten oatmeal atop my monitor from last night I need to take to the sink, my desk is littered with empty packets of tobacco and there's a pile of audio and computer cables on one side of my bed tall enough to be considered an official geographic feature.

I only get totally OCD when mobile/travelling. Otherwise I lose or forget shit.

The peace of mind, however, is worth it. Remember, I grew up in Earthquake Country. As a Boy Scout. And then I discovered drugs and music and dancing, and I'm still a Boy Scout. Just a filthy rave-scum technohippy Rastafarian Boy Scout. That little 5-10 pound bag has everything but an emergency supply of food in it. It has shelter, tools, signalling, fire, and just about everything you'd ever need to not only simply survive an event, but also almost everything needed for a decent, safe party. (Makes mental note to add a few water purification tablets to the first aid kit.)

There's a related allegory to "better living through chemistry", and it's "better partying through technology". I'm that guy who brings a soldering iron and tools to a desert party he's not even part of the crew of, just because the party must go on. (And, yeah, I've soldered on amps and speakers in the desert. And, yeah, the party went on. :) )

Also, it's a great way to meet cute girls. "Why, yes, I do have a needle and thread. Or a safety pin. Or an Advil. Sure, have some vodka. Ah, yes, I *do* have a condom. Wait, what!? Oh. OH! Ok. Yes, lets!"

OK, well, random cute girls generally don't ask me if I have a condom. BUT GODDAMNIT I'LL BE PREPARED FOR IT WHEN THEY DO!!

Also, it should be noted I don't drive. I'm a cyclist and strap-hanger. I have no "car trunk" in which to carry a case of water bottles, a road kit and a blanket.

I was pretty sure that was the story loq. My wife used to have a baby-oriented version. She also found that if she didn't organize/prepare for outings, she went batshit when she needed something.

It's impressive, and good on you for finding a system that works for you.

Left front pocket. . .keys

Right front pocket, my loose bills, loose change and this little case that holds all my cards.

Left hip pocket. . bandana handkerchief.

Right hip pocket. . plastic bag for dog poop (in case) and assorted loose atm and store receipts that should just go in the trash.

talk about a question that's begging for a t.m.i. response!

wallet
checkbook
boat key w. float
change
hand lotion
calendar
cell phone
water (currently, but not usually)
handkerchief (same)
bracelet, ring, watch (same)
condoms n lube
earplugs
ibuprofen
change
lip balm
lipsticks
concealer pencil
tea
pens
comb
tampons
hair clips
cell phone battery for long-dead-phone
squished penny

I hate carrying things in my pockets, but usually have my wallet in a back pocket.

My backpack that I carry pretty much everywhere with me has:
Laptop
Power supply for above
Mouse for above
Telephone connection cable for above (long, with adaptor for old-style sockets still found in motel rooms)
Digital camera
iPod
Sony earphones in cute wind-up case
Calculator
USB drive
Umbrella
Assorted stationery (blank CD, pen, pencil, highlighter, small ruler, post-its, sticky tags)
Assorted cables (PC-iPod, PC-camera, PC-cellphone, PC video out)
Work cellphone (permanently diverted to my phone, used only for outgoing calls)
Work ID card with proximity card and SecurID attached
Handsfree kit for personal cellphone
Business cards
Keys
Water bottle (full)
Various papers related to current things happening with new house
Whatever book I'm reading (currently The Intruders by Michael Marshall)
Contact lens case
Contact lens fluid
Glasses in case
Paracetemol tablets (generic)

The above is currently spread all over the bed in my motel room, because there is supposed to be a Nokia phone charger and the adaptor to fit my personal phone, but it's not fucking there, so I have to go out tommorrow and buy one! Not happy Jan!

There's too much in my bag to list, but in my pockets I have: a bus transfer ticket (expired) and thirteen vitamin pills.

Comb.
Chap-Stick.
Small ballpoint pen.
Small Gerber folding lockblade knife.
75¢.
Launch codes for the Trident missiles aboard USS Maine (SSN-741).

Okay, I made that last one up.

in my pockets? nothing. i have a skirt on today (boo for crappy women's clothing). oh wait, i do have my nerdleash (office entry badge, on retractable lanyard)

usually i carry my wallet (dude's super-slim type with debit card, library card, cash and the week's receipts) and change in the pockets of my knickers/Dickies/jeans. keys (house, mailbox, krypto lock) are always on a carabiner clipped to a belt loop.

in my messenger bag / nerdpurse (varies immensely, but today):

- change of clothes (office to cycling)
- Olypus Stylus 500 point n shoot digicam + USB cable + spare card (Nikon D70 & assorted gear goes in on weekends, Stylus goes with me always).
- thread on lid REI coffee thermos mug (caffeine)
- 1 litre Nalgene (H²O)
- 'necessities' bag (cosmetics, toiletries, tooth care, contact lens crap)
- hair brush and assorted doodads to control (ha, right, whatever) the wild animal attached to my head
- sunglasses
- 1 banana, (oops... in the time it took to write this, plus re-boot the network server, it became an ex-banana) 1 large braeburn apple and one of my SO's yumtastic wholegrain blueberry muffins.
- hipster PDA
- 2 pens
- twintip Sharpie (black)
- passport (in case i feel the urgent need to leave the country, which during this administration has been tempting)
- 1gb flash drive
- Altoids
- chapstick
- small tube of sunblock
- emery board(s)
- pocket handkerchief
- the aforementioned wallet
- 2 spare tubes, compact multitool, patchkit, minipump, CO2 inflator/cartridges
- Surly Jethro Tule for removing track nuts
- a set of Pitlocks for when i'm downtown with the gearies.
- nerdleash goes in the messenger bag next to my passport anytime i'm not @ work.

carried externally on messenger bag:
- keys on carabiner, clipped to front dee ring.
- plain jane motorola razr cellphone, in cell holster

Nothing, but thanks for the excuse to touch my own bum. :)

nothing. I'm wearing these sweet Umbro soccer shorts with no pockets. I got them at the Alvarado St. Ross for $6.

(also i haven't visited this site for like 6 months, for no good reason. wow it looks different.)

· C.O. Bigelow Ultra Mentha Lip Shine also known as the greatest lip gloss in the world, unfortunately almost empty
· Silver space pen
· Zippo lighter that more or less matches the space pen
· This heavy gold plated locket with a watch in it. My mom found it in her business months ago and no one ever came back for it, so she gave it to me when I was visiting today. It's sort of ridiculously gaudy in a charming way. Once I get a new battery in it I'm going to put it on my key ring. :)

Also, I had the exact same thought as drjimmy11 about the new look.

- Wallet, containing various cards and about $15 NZ.
- Trusty barebones Nokia phone with a rubberized face/back plate. Yes, it has the texture of a cyberskin sex toy.
- Keys on ring connected to the block ("pulley") that allowed me to win a sailboat race in 1989.
- Bottlecap, Stella.
- Hair tie, black.

Wait - nobody else is packing heat?

Also - Loq.: That's no "Nerdpurse." That's a Bug-Out-Bag. You wouldn't happen to be a Hoodlum, would you?