WHY THEY'RE CALLED TRAPPINGS I didn't just move into my apartment three years ago. I started a relationship. I had a first-time high. I bought pop art and miles of phone cord and coaxial cable splitters and lamps. I marked my territory with paint and postcards and furniture. I looked for little things to make my place better every time I visited the hardware store. In our first unsupervised living space we deliberately disbelieve all notions utilitarian, festooning our rooms with personality. These bricks-and-board bookshelves and this tasteless shower curtain full of tropical fish and this teal toilet plunger may just be stuff, but they're also a reflection of something else. When you're 19, you think not only that personality is hard to come by, but that yours is so special you must announce it with the Blues Brothers in the hallway and a disco ball in the living room. And though the magic of that budding relationship with your apartment may take longer to fade than others, a level of comfortable nonchalance will soon set in. You'll forget about moving your desk to a better spot because there's really nothing terribly wrong with it where it is. The decor becomes white noise. The hole in the bathroom countertop is no longer annoying; it's just there, like a mole or a freckle or a wrinkle. And then there comes a time to end the relationship entirely. By the time you hold this magazine, I'll be gone from these four walls. Last spring, I thought it would be hard to leave. The very idea of transporting acoustic guitars and all my clothes and a stereo and six speakers and the odd lamp over 500 miles seemed beyond possibility. I could not fathom selling my desk and my bed, giving away my big clay pot that housed my favorite rubber plant. But now it seems like the perfect thing to do. In July I headed to Squaw Valley, where Professor Jack Hicks sets his "Art of the Wild" conference, a writing workshop that I'd been looking forward to for weeks. I packed as I normally do, throwing a huge bag of most everything into the trunk of my car. I made it as far as a steep grade 70 miles west of Squaw Valley. It was 90 degrees, and I was running 80 miles an hour. The radiator cracked, and I was towed to a place called Dutch Flat. God sent me a wayward soul named Armando, who was looking for a gas station. He didn't find one, but he did find me. I offered him half a tank of gas in exchange for a ride and asked him to give me three minutes. I picked through the trunk of my car. I stuffed a backpack with a tank top, two T-shirts, one pair of jeans, a jacket, 20 copies of my short story and the Jack Daniels I'd promised my friend in return for use of his residence at the writing conference. Armando took me to Truckee. I hitched it from there just fine. I lived out of that backpack. I thought about my dad saying that one of the happiest moments of his life happened about 30 years ago in Europe, when he'd gotten down to one bag. This is the same father who now has trouble picking which car to drive to work; it just goes to show how stuff has a way of accumulating. It's good to be young and mobile. I can make anyplace home as soon as I meet two people and get my own set of keys. I don't need all this stuff anymore. I'm not attached to it. I've got almost enough with a flat writing surface and a clean pair of 501s. I just hope it stays that way for a while. -- Frederick W. Houts '99