Movin' Out

I just moved into a new place a few days ago. The place where I was living was about as cozy as living in a broom closet with an oily engine manifold that shoots waves of maggots at you every five seconds. So, naturally, any change from that would be an improvement, right? Right?

Well, maybe not so much, but I have myself to blame. You see, I have accumulated an epic amount of junk over the years - none of which I am proud - to the point where there is no room for me. There's my junk and then there's me, and guess who is winning the war? So, taking a page out of Alexander's book, with one clean stroke (CLEAN stroke), I eliminated whole chunks of junk. I took it like a man: I cried, peed my pants, threw a tantrum, drank heavily, and set myself on fire. You see, comportment is important to me.

Truth be told, most of the things should have been discarded long ago - things like cassette music tapes, VHS movies, and my paltry collection of sports awards. I'm a pack rat, so sue me. Sure, you say, a pretty simple exercise to John Q. Normal. Well, normal ain't me, because I will be getting rid of over 1,500 video and cassette tapes. The only way I can legitimize trashing all of it is that I had this crap in storage for about a year without ever feeling the need to access it, so into the buzz saw it goes.

I have a bad back, so I hired a team of movers. You might have heard of some strange names in the moving business. Me? I had my choice of "Hungry Student Athletes" (none of which were athletes - good guys, though, "Starving Student Athletes," and "Near Death Student Athletes" moving companies. I figured the "Near-Death" folks wouldn't do so well with the heavy lifting and my corpse-burying skills are, admittedly, on the wane, so I chose the first company. Quality people, all of them, but what I really needed was an interior decorator. I ended up doing more heavy lifting, shifting, and moving than I have ever done in my life. I'm pathetic. If I just didn't gather so much "stuff" (thank you, George Carlin), I wouldn't need so much room - and this hombre needs a LOT of room.

I did not need movers as much as I needed a SWAT team of interior decorators. I lifted, shifted, and moved more garbage than I should have been legally allowed. I can tell you this: once I become a homeowner again (I'm sharing a house right now), that's it, game-over, man. I will love there and die there because I have maybe one more good move left in me - that's it! And when I do slither off this morbid coil, don't hang around too long for the reading of the will and the distribution of possessions because there won't be any. I'll live like a hermit, snaring silverfish off the walls and drinking dew from the morning grass - and I CERTAINLY will not need to throw away 1,500 of anything to clear my house, because I'll be having a little ceremonial fire to dance naked around to celebrate the fact that I finally stopped being belonging to the things that belong to me