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MY GOD I have a lot of crap. I know I present a calm, collected persona to the world, and you all probably imagine me dressed in Huge Boss suits, smoking strange brown European cigarettes, sipping martinis at elegant sidewalk cafes, casually jotting down these essays in chic, leatherbound notebooks. But the fact is, this may be the last you ever hear from me, as I am slowly being bricked into my apartment by the sheer accumulation of posessions. I am what scientists call a Pack Rat, a genetic condition that makes it nearly impossible for me to discard anything once I have bonded with it, said bonding occuring almost instantaneously. For example, a few years ago my old job was clearing out some old computers—ancient 486 units, underpowered even for their time. Since they were complete crap, my company offered to give them to anyone who wanted a free computer. I am a confirmed computer geek and gadget whore, so I took three. I had vague ideas of setting up print servers or hardware firewalls or some such thing, or maybe raiding the hardware. To be fair, I did use some of the hardware here and there, but for the most part these dinosaurs have stayed under the bed for almost eight years now, collecting dust. A recent effort to clean and organize Camp Levon unearthed these embarrassing artifacts of the past, and The Duchess made it very clear via subtle signs (a few dozen well-aimed blows to the head being chief among them) that she disapproved of all this old crufty computer equipment, our abode already being quite infested with it. So what was my initial instinct when faced with dusty, ancient, marginally useful desktop PCs that lacked monitors, keyboards, mice, or, in most cases, key pieces of technology inside? Naturally, I schemed to keep them. Why? Because I have a disease. The Duchess is powerful strong, though, so there really wasn't any chance that I'd get to keep those computers, which is probably for the best. It's getting to the point where my ability to get anything done is being affected by the sheer amount of stuff I have littering my daily life. I'm not alone, of course, but there do seem to be people in this world who manage to exist without creating solar systems of crap around them. I have CD-Roms for computer equipment I don't even own anymore. I have knick-knacks given to me as gifts by people I haven't seen, or thought of, in a decade. I have pairs of Converse Chucks that are so dilapidated they are unwearable. And let's not even get into the books, which are everywhere, and not even The Duchess has the strength to dislodge them from my gravitational pull. This translates to my writing, too, which isn't too surprising if you think about it. I have just about every piece of writing I've ever done, barring a few things lost to computer crashes, disastrous fires, and other natural disasters. Piled up in paper and electronic storage, it's a huge amount of words, most of which are shite and most of which I'll never use in any form. There are, however, some gems: Unfinished ideas that still have a layer of merit to them, early drafts of successful works, pointless but amusing essays that can provide paragraphs of pointless but amusing filler for other essays, scraps of text that record fleeting ideas that may yet prove fruitful. It's hard to pull those gems from the huge steaming pile of shit 15 years worth of scribbling becomes, however. The Cruft is starting to win. And it's early in the game, which is the really distressing part. I mean, according to the Jeff Somers Plan, I've 250 years left to live (the last 200 of which will be spent in a gigantic robot body, and I will be called Mangor, and people will fear me. . .but I've told that story before), so there it is frightening to think that after a mere three decades of existence, I have this much crap, both physical and mental. Where will I be in a few more decades? And I don't mean where will I be physically, since we all know that will most likely be Stinky Sullivans on 6th Street in Hoboken. I mean, where will I be Cruft-wise? Terrifyingly, the answer appears to be: Buried under a few tons of it. Having seen this future in a vision—a vision filled with old sneakers, David Lee Roth CDs, and Commodore 64s—I have gotten religion and have been trying to clean up my act a little. This isn't easy. The physical stuff—the old crap I've kept around for no reason I can articulate—is easy: I go to sleep and The Duchess throws it all away during the night, and I wake up in the morning convinced that Elves have once again broken into the apartment and done my dirty work for me, like the time they kidnapped Ken West just when he was about to reveal some terrible, dark secrets about me. But I digress: The hard part is really the mental cleanup: Sorting through all these half-finished and questionably valuable written works. The problem is, I'm afraid if I really store it all one of two horrible things will happen: 1. I'll suddenly remember a scrap of dialogue I want to use in a new project, and I'll have to work very hard to locate the folder containing the piece or 2. Wherever I put those old writings could burn down, taking everything I ever wrote with it. At least if my apartment burns down, I can suffer burns over 85% of my body in order to save them...most probably so my wife can then burn them once I'm dead, but a man's got to have goals, don't you think? The March 05 issue of The Inner Swine didn't finish mailing out until the last week of the month, a new low in delayed releases for me, and I blame it squarely on the increasing mental cruft taking up both physical and brain space in my life. This makes a cleanup effort incredibly important, although I must admit that when the siren call of beer and staring off vacantly into space presents itself, I am a weak, weak man, so chances are the cruft is just going to pile up even higher, meaning I get less and less done. Eventually there will be just one issue of TIS a year, drolling out of the mental pipe like cold molasses. And the people will, most likely, rejoice, as most people are bastards. In the time it took to write this essay, another 1.6 pounds of cruft has silently accumulated in my apartment. Please fetch the Jaws of Life. Until next time, email me your disappointed rage at mreditor@innerswine.com, as usual. Jeff |
April 7, 2005