It’s easy, when one stays in one place for a long time, to not notice how much one accumulates.  In other words, I have way too much shit.  I’m finding things I didn’t even know I had, things I’d forgotten about, things that defy description, and some things that I just have to marvel at, because it’s like finding toys from a lost civilization.

Also, I think there is the great possibility that I was really, really, REALLY high for a long time. It’s the only thing that can explain the Jay and Silent Bob dolls…er, action figures.  Complete with bong, dog, beer, and various other accoutrement. Also, ren faire costumes, fairy wings, bat tiaras, coffins and skulls and more goth crap than I should admit to in public. 12-hole, steel toe doc martins, a cutting of long blue hair, stick-on bindis, a shirt held together by safety pins and signed by one of my favorite naked bands, and a hospital bill from a mosh pit gone terribly, terribly wrong. Concert posters taken from walls all over the world.  Giant sheets of newsprint that I put on on walls for other people to decorate and write on.  Pounds and pounds of art supplies, with an equal amount of started and never completed art projects. And comic books. Dear god, I have comic books. So many comic books. And games.  Steve Jackson paper games, D&D 1st edition books, 3 ring binders full of campaigns and characters and worlds and storylines. Boxes and boxes and boxes of software…and subsequently systems that will run some of this ancient code. Apple Plus, anyone?

Apparently, not only was I high…I am now, and have always been, a geek.

And as I face this mountain of collected effluvia, I’m just not sure what to do with any of it.  Part of me just can’t bear the thought of throwing any of it away, or selling it, or burning it in a sacrifice to the gods and guardians that kept me alive during some of the more stupid periods, but I realize that I’m not likely to ever frame and put up the band flyers from 25 years ago, or break out the goth gear for anything but halloween costumes, and what in the name of all that is right in the world, am I going to do with a collection of tattooed brothel-house Barbies?

Packing the books and the china and the media collections was the easy part.  Now I’m down to the stuff I haven’t seen since I looked at it the last time I moved, a decade ago.  Some of this stuff has been moved 5 or 6 times, and has never come out of the original box from 20+ years ago.

It’s like I’m afraid that if I get rid of the Thing that reminds of of the Memory, that somehow I will also lose the Memory.  Having watched what Alzheimer’s can do, I’m terrified of somehow losing connection to the fragile thread that ties me to my past and my memories.

I know that’s just completely illogical. And really, when I’m trying to remember my ill begotten, misspent youth, the odds are I’m not going to need a club-date poster from Sham 69 to do it.  I’m pretty sure that’s what flashbacks are for.

Wish me luck, I go bravely forth to battle the demons of my past, the fears of my future, and the shame of the unfortunate wardrobe choices I’ve made through the years.