Back Issues

The task this week is to clean out our garage. It's not as daunting a task as The Infinite Garage, but it sure feels enormous. What I didn't realize was that a lot of the big boxes are mine, dragged out from underneath each other, untouched since I'd left New York in 2001. At the time, I didn't do any of the outgoing packing -- my roommate and friends were kind enough to throw everything into boxes and ship them out to me -- so opening each one up has been an adventure.

One giant cardboard slab was filled with VHS tapes. Relieved to see a lot of old cultural show videos in there, I was still appalled at how many useless movies I thought I'd needed. I think I'm going to hang onto the My So Called Life set because I paid a mint for those but The Three Musketeers starring Chris O'Donnell can be safely given away. And my home taped version of Yanni Live at the Acropolis. That will be heading to Goodwill also.

So much crap.

Nowadays my collection of trinkets and tchotkes is pretty small, filling just a small bookshelf, but unpacking those boxes revealed a past addiction to just collecting any interesting or semi-precious thing I could get my hands on. All of it will have to go, of course, but I'm thinking I'd better document everything just for posterity. What will not be leaving me is my comic books and RPG manuals. The latter will actually be handy for my current writing project, and I was actually just looking for them a few weeks ago.

My mom's goal is to clear out the garage and then digitize all the photo albums. As always, there's a lot of good stuff in there. For example, this wonderful remnant of my acting past, where I was Woodstock in a highly acclaimed Christian Youth Center version of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. When you need to cast for a bird nobody can understand, I'm your immigrant boy.

Okay, the writing workshop I was trying to get into this summer rejected me so now my June through August is up in the air. What to do, what to do. I have to stick around San Diego through May for a few events here and there but then everything else is wide open. In theory I should go jaunting off again, at least to New York, but we'll see if I can work that out. Summer in the city is obviously ideal but then what? I'm not yet feeling restless but life boredom is definitely coming right around the corner.

Actually I'm a little afraid of what happens if it doesn't come, what then?

Jobs my friends think I could hold: Seating chart maker. Gummy bear taste tester. Guy who fires people. Casting director for female fashion show. Professional muse. Self made popular guy. MC of Comic-Con. Towel boy for Celtics. Model man purses. Traveling blogger. E! channel interviewer. Celebrity judge. Professional plus one to weddings. Online dating ghostwriter. Sandwich maker.

Compiled from a list that they sent me. Currently I do none of these things. I don't even make sandwiches.