Shelves

I have an apartment.

In my apartment, I have shelves.

On my shelves, I have things.

What follows is a list of some my things.

A Dwight D. Eisenhower toby mug (SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER EDITION! RARE! BIN!)
The New York Times report on the Fischer/Spassky World Chess Championship of 1972
A Jiffy travel steamer
A small wooden figurine of Kali
A DVD of Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop
A four compact disc set of Opera from the Works of Tadanori Yokoo by Toshi Ichiyanagi
A 1/35 scale model of an Israeli Defense Force infantry unit
An LP copy of ZZ Top's Fandango!
A Boss PN-2 Tremolo/Pan stompbox

What follows is a list of those things that I actually need.

A Jiffy travel steamer
An LP copy of ZZ Top's Fandango!

'Cause that album KILLS.

Most male members of my family are collectors. My father collects books, my brother collects DVDs, my uncle collects worthless garbage. I don't know exactly where I fit in the scheme of things...

...probably more on the "worthless garbage" spectrum of things.

My collecting habit would not be such a problem if I:

A. Had an actual income

B. Lived in an apartment that actually had enough room to fit everything that I find

Why do I have all these things? Do I have a disorder? Am I going show up on one of those MSNBC "documentaries" about horders? Will it feature a police officer remarking "We found him underneath a pile of half-eaten chicken wings and decade-old copies of National Geographic" while my body is being wheeled out on a gurney?

Probably not.

So what gives?

The best I can come up with is this: I don't have much of an actual personality. What constitutes the author of this entry is the music he's listened to, the films he's seen and the books he's read. I would love to be able to drop everything and retire to some Himalayan hillside, shave my head and wear orange for the rest of my life. But for whatever reason, I can't fathom living life without my things.

Simply put, these things are me. I am these things.

I hate that.