frank, sammy and dino. packing up is hard to do. harder than breaking up? it's a close call. so far i've found a few articles from my past that i'm not sure if i should toss or box up. my kindergarten scrap book with cut out magazine pictures of things, my juvenile handwriting alongside explaining items like "cute cat, big ice cream, green grass." all very fundamental stuff for a neophyte english speaker i'm sure. and then i found my report on lobsters from the second grade. and then my report on basketball from sixth grade. the drawings were really good in that one and i was all proud for a second, before i admitted to myself that i had traced everything. then i found a whole album of cartoons i used to draw. either comic book heroes (looking decidedly disproportional and unheroic) or heathcliff. i used to draw alot of heathcliff for some reason, never garfield, just heathcliff. and of course, ninja turtles, if you didn't draw those as a young boy you probably did too well in your classes.



then i found all these letters to and from chinese school and middle school crushes. filled with witty things like "what's up? the sky! ha ha ha." guess how long i was single for? there was also a photo album of my star turn as woodstock for christian youth theatre. so far everyone who's seen it had to look twice to make sure it's not george. i'm wearing yellow tights and lots of makeup. woodstock the bird doesn't talk, which is fortunate because jon the seven year old didn't speak english. *chirp* i'm still looking for the video. the year after "you're a good man charlie brown" me and george were streetsweepers in pinocchio. we rocked white and red polka dotted costumes. i was also a boy slash donkey. i was versatile i know. it's stunning how alike me and george looked in full street sweeper costume. identical even. i remember always coming out for the closing curtain dressed in my boy/donky outfit because who the hell wants to come out as the townie street sweeper?



and i'm willing to lay all i own on the line that between me and george, we can out-fob, out-dork, out-geek, out-terriblehair just about anybody else with our collection of childhood pictures. one thing we can't do is out-big head james. but then again, who can? actually i've seen a picture of amit as a child and he might out-big head james.



after moving james last week, i've decided to forgo all physical possessions for the rest of my life. i just want my computer, my music and my books. i don't even want a bed, a desk or anything heavier than thirty pounds. i'm trying to toss all sentimental items aside. i am not as much of a packrat as james but i have alot of shit. james had alot of stuff (furniture, keyboard, electronics, clothes, shoes) while i have alot of shit. pads of paper from way back, toys of all kinds, magazines from a decade ago, itty bitty pieces of gifts from people, boxes of letters, cards and valentines (from third grade). what the heck do you do with all this stuff? burn it? toss it? i've kept it this long why not a little longer? my mom almost tossed my entire comic collection. tragedy was narrowly averted. score one for childhood.



anyway. the packing has begun. word to your mother. or actually, my mother.