TREE

I moved this past week. It is amazing how time consuming packing and unpacking can be. It seems like such a waste of time to sit and shove everything you own into labeled and numbered boxes only to open everything up a few days later. I do not mind tearing open boxes during some party when everyone is giving me new stuff but its a drag to rip open 300 boxes of the same old crap. The new place is dandy and even looking at that sheet of paper with that massive number two and half times larger then the price of the house that they stick in front of you during closing that tells you how much the place will cost including all the interest, was not enough to spoil my happiness about being in a new place. With everything else going on there has not been much time to write this week. I did not want to break my run of posting a new blog every week so I will share with you my failed idea for last year's holiday card letter . My original idea was to plant a tree and take a picture of it every month with the changing seasons as it's backdrop. The photos were to make up the background of the letter. In an effort to make my life easy Dawn bought me a dandy little tree kit with a few seeds and a starter pot. Unfortunately things did not work out as planned. After the tree's sad summertime death it lingered around the house until we started packing for the move. I kept hoping it might magically sprout back to life but he ended up having an unceremoniously funeral today as I dragged a few last things out of the old place.

DO YOU LIKE STUFF

I have a lot of stuff. Heaps of junk. Vast quantities of paraphernalia. Piles of possessions. My place is crammed full of books, music, toys, art… and most every item has a fun story attached to it. Occasionally I long to live in a well lit white walled extremely sparse minimal space but most of the time I find comfort in having my vast quantity of odd possessions around me.

Typically I do not think about how vast the collection of stuff is. When you see it every day it all just kind of fades into the background until some new guest shows up at the house and starts asking for details about everything in a slightly overwhelmed tone. Questions like “where did you get a lamp shaped like a bust of Elvis?”, “do you ever actually play that William Shatner record hanging on the wall?” , “is that Menudo doll supposed to be Ricky Martin?” or “why is there a mannequin head on your shelf next to the Baccarat crystal?” (By the way, the answers are “a junk shop in Washington Court House Ohio”, “ yes his version of Lucy In The Sky is priceless”, “no, it is Roy my friend burned the Ricky doll’s head off 20 years ago” and “it’s a very long story but in short since this old possession was returned to me at my wedding I felt it needed a place of prominence to be displayed.”

The other time I notice just how much stuff I actually have is when I find myself packing it all for a move. That is usually when I will have a mini-crisis of sorts dealing with my pack-rat tendencies. I find myself asking no one in particular “why am I keeping this Laverne and Shirley board game”, “will I ever really reread that Thomas Pynchon book?” or “why do I have over 15 record albums by the Chipmunks?” I am perfectly content holding on to these things when it is not moving time but when I see box after box of packed unnecessary items I often find myself introspectively asking is my life better because I have these items under my roof? And even more importantly, while moving to a bigger place might temporarily ease the crowdedness and clutter level, will I just make the problem worse by eventually filling up a new larger living space.

My wife is of no help with this issue because she is as bad as me. Occasionally we go through things and toss, donate or give away a pile of stuff. Unfortunately we both sometimes have an issue just throwing out things that we perceive to still have value. The other day I sold two bags of books and CDs to a resale bookstore and only got $16 for the lot of it. That was less then I paid for the included Davis Foster Wallace book alone. A rational person would tell me that ‘at least it is out of the house’, but I still am having second thoughts about the received compensation not exceeding my perceived value of just keeping the stuff.

I guess I am sensitive to the saving issue because my Dad’s way of cleaning when things felt too cluttered was to just throw stuff away. My brother still bemoans the fact that my Father arbitrarily threw out all his old comics and baseball cards from the 50s and 60s without need or cause. He was just in cleaning mode that day; a cleaning mode that sent thousands of dollars of collectables to the Fresh Kills Landfill.
In an effort to overcome this feeling of just throwing money away, my wife and I have started an E-Bay box with items that we will feel better selling for any profit verses just giving away. This giant E-bay box has been sitting around for over a year without a single serious attempt to post an item. I am not sure what price I might get for my ‘Watergate Coloring Book’ and ‘Mrs. Miller records’ but it can’t hurt to find out. Even if the price is right, I am just not sure if I can part with my Menudo doll. I guess there is room for Roy at the new place, if I ever get around to finishing up all the packing.

JUST SAY UNCLE

When I was a little boy I had a whole lot of Uncles. As I got older I learned that a lot of them were fakes. I grew up calling these people Uncle because, from the time I was a teeny tiny tot, that is what they were referred to as around me. It was much later when I started to realize that some of these men were really just friends of the family. To make matters more confusing there was also a slew of uncles that were actually just older relatives like great-uncles (granduncles) and multi-removed cousins. Some I still have no idea how I am actually related to them.

One of my Mom’s favorite family stories is about Uncle Moe. In his latter years his memory was pretty much gone and he spent the bulk of the day napping on the day bed off the front porch. Whenever company came his wife, Aunt Selma, would dutifully call him to the table to sit with everyone. One afternoon my Mom was at the table and Aunt Selma called Moe in for coffee. As he shuffled by he looked at my Mother and matter of factly said “ I don’t know who you are but you gained weight.” It is a cute, funny family story except when I tell it I have a hard time explaining just exactly who Uncle Moe is because I have no clue how he is actually related to me. The only thing I am sure of is that he is not really my Uncle.

I eventually learned that very few of these faux Uncles were blood relatives. When I was growing up the only living siblings that both my parents had was a sister each. Their husbands are my only real Uncles. My Mom’s sister’s husband, Lester, was one of my very few ‘real’ Uncles. I only had one problem with him; as a little kid I was sure he hated my guts.

OK, I later learned my Uncle Lester was really a very loving man that liked me a lot but as a child I did not understand his sharp wit. My four siblings and I would pile into his house for some family gathering and he would look at me and say ‘your not invited’ while closing the door on me. I eventually would figure out some other way into the house and he would bark ‘how did you get in here.’ This would go on for hours. For a time I was sure he despised me. Of course now I look back and could easily see myself playing the same ongoing prank on some pesty nephew of mine.

I recall finally understanding my Uncle Lester’s sense of humor after the umpteenth time of my Mom explaining that if he did not like me he would not waste his time teasing me. I did not know anyone else like him so it makes sense that I would not ‘get it’ right away. As a kid I might have seen him as a cantankerous man but as I got older I started to really enjoy his biting humor and strong personality. Come on, as a young man how could I not love a grown man whose two favorite foods were burgers and peanut butter. Not only did he eat those foods constantly, he also made a huge deal about never eating anything green.

A few hours ago I found out that Uncle Lester passed away this morning. I do not think I ever told him how much I liked him. In today’s world of mushy mamby pamby people that spend all their time trying to impress the Joneses or worrying about how others will perceive them, a true character like my Uncle Lester stands out way above the rest. Individuals like him just do not seem to come along anymore. I am glad he was my real uncle; I will miss him.

I HAVE A GUT

I have 6-pac abs; they are hidden underneath the pony keg I lug around on top of them. Yes, I have a gut. It has pretty much been there in one form or another since my first year of college. Not long after I moved into my dorm I discovered that the Howard Johnson’s Restaurant across the street had an all-night $2.99 “2-2-2-2” breakfast special consisting of 2 pancakes, 2eggs, 2 slices of bacon and 2 sausages. Of course the all you can eat pizza place next door to the HoJo did not help either. Oh yeah, and there was a little thing called beer that I have always had a bit of a fondness for.

Throughout my life I have gained and lost the same 45 pounds over and over again. I know that it is bad for me and it gets harder to lose each time but it has been a reality in my life for more then 25 years. When I find myself getting a bit too ginourmous I modify my eating habits and kick start an exercise program until I get things a bit more under control. I try not to use the word diet, although since my ‘modified eating habits’ tend to obviously only be temporary I guess it really is closer to a diet.

About 4 years ago I again had to move up to the pants from the ‘Gordo-Dan’ collection. Before my wedding I got myself down to near my high school weight but I fell prey to the common first year of marriage bulge. I restarted my running (jogging) routine until I hurt my back. I woke up one morning with nasty shooting pains in my lower back. After walking around like Lon Chaney’s Quasimoto for a few days, I was talked into going to a friend’s chiropractor.

The Doctor was a nice enough guy but after several months of $50 a week sessions consisting mostly of sharing bad jokes and being told that things are progressing nicely, I called it quits. I do not know if I got better from the Chiropractor’s minor treatments or simply that enough time had passed that it healed itself. Either way I felt better. I did in fact follow the doctor’s advice of quitting my daily running and started riding the recommended elliptical machine instead.

For the next 3 years I spent an average of 50 minutes 4 days a week on the elliptical machine until one day I noticed my knees were starting to throb. They cracked and popped whenever I kneeled. I had never had aching knees before. As a matter of fact I often used to come home from work and brag to my wife that “I’m a 44 year old man and I just ran up the stairs 2 at a time’. My knees had quickly gotten so bad that I could barely walk up the flight of stairs.

I quit riding the elliptical a few months ago and am now back to running a few miles 4 days a week. My knees and back are feeling great but my gut does not seem to want to leave this time. I have decided to push a little harder and I am going to add to the current regiment by attending one of those boot-camp style workouts 2 days a week but I am afraid that the 5:00 am start time might cause this to be short lived adventure.
Of course it might help me lose the weight quicker if I cut out the beer and fatty foods but I have this fear that any minute I might get hit by a car. From my hospital bed a doctor will lean over to me and tell me for the brief time I have left I will not be able to eat solid foods. I would hate to think my last meal on Earth had been rice cakes and celery sticks. Bring on the bacon and fries. I guess I might be lugging around that pony keg a little bit longer.