The Big Announcement

For the everyone except the two or three of you that actually noticed and gave a crap/remember, I teased out some "big announcement" a few weeks ago on my Facebook like I was bringing the circus to town or something.  Essentially, I was hoping to bait everybody into caring that I was going to be selling a bunch of stuff because I really want to get rid of a lot of "things" that I've accumulated over the years.  It's not like I'm some hoarder that needs a TV crew to come and throw away all my empty cereal boxes and dead cats, but if I go through all of my books and movies and computer games, etc. there are several of them that I haven't even looked at in a long time (some I never even opened) and probably never will.  Plus, I'm trying to shake things up in my life and get out of this mostly-sedentary, insulated way of existing that I've gotten so used to, so cleaning house and getting rid of stuff is a good step in that direction.  Besides all of that, I'm trying to get out of debt, so the extra money will definitely help.

I'm going to work this in four phases.  First, I know it's probably not gonna get much traffic/interest, but I'm gonna work it garage-sale style, minus the garage. I'm putting up this post and a couple others on my Twitter/Facebook accounts to let you and all my other friends know what's going on and hoping you've got an extra couple of dollars you're wanting to blow on some slightly-used stuff.  I am literally willing to sell anything and everything I own (assuming that the right price can be agreed upon) up to and including, but definitely not limited to, my bed, my computer (desktop), my DVD collection, my pet fish, my artwork, my N64, my art supplies, my clothing, my posters, my fish tank and my guitar.  Some of this stuff I'm fairly attached to (particularly the guitar and a couple of the posters), but assuming you want it bad enough to pay good money for it, I'd be willing to work something out.  Let me know if you want to swing by and take a look-see at any of it.

Second phase is gonna be listing out my DVD/CD/book collection on here, basically as a virtual garage sale.  I'll link everything to Amazon.com so you can get product descriptions from them, but it's gonna take me a while to put together all those lists, so you'll have to wait and run the risk that some weirdo actually wanted to come to my apartment and bought up all the good stuff.  So if you like bargains and are lazy, this might be a good option for you.

Third phase is gonna involve putting stuff up on eBay and Craigslist and sell it that way.  It'll be open to a broader audience, and it'll probably go quick once it gets up there, so you probably don't wanna wait 'til then to ask if I still have any movies or games left.

Fourth, whatever doesn't sell I'm just gonna take to consignment shops and get whatever pocket change they'll throw my way for it.  I'll probably haul most of it to Half-Price Books, so you might see it pop up there if you're a frequent Half-Pricer (I am, which is partially how I ended up with some of this stuff, anyway).  Anything remaining will probably head to Goodwill and/or my dumpster.

So, anyway... I guess the bottom line is that I really want to get rid of a bunch of stuff and I don't want to throw things away.  I know it's not really "cool" to buy stuff used, but I'm slowly starting to realize that a.) I don't really care what's "cool" anymore because b.) it's not really "expensive" to buy stuff used, either.  I know that most of my friends are just about as broke as I am, but I'm not expecting this stuff to go high-dollar, either.  For example, I have a jar of paper clips that I'd be willing to sell for 50 cents.  There's probably a hundred or so paper clips in there and the jar doesn't stink or anything... I just can't bring myself to throw away a perfectly good jar filled with perfectly good paper clips.  Deep down inside, I know that somewhere there's a guy with two pieces of paper that he just can't manage to keep together and he would be willing to shell out two quarters to get rid of the headache.  All's I gotta do is find him...

Upheaval

...so it's been a while since I 'blogged and the last one was kind of anemic and a bit of a downer.  Hopefully this one will have a bit more substance and end on a more positive note.  But who knows?

I've been back and forth to Dallas twice in as many weeks now, which composes about half of the trips I've made up there in the last year or so.  It's reminded me of what a love/hate relationship I have with Dallas and how good it is for me to go back there from time to time.  There's almost a perfect 1:1 ratio of things that draw me to it versus things that make me wish I could teleport away from it by closing my eyes tight and wishing real hard.  For every person I miss or place I like, there's another one close by that sucks my soul straight out of my anus.  I tense up and stress out just being there, but seeing certain people and things helps me to relax in ways and for reasons I didn't even know I needed to.  Call it a perspective thing, I guess, but it's definitely a net positive.

I've also been battling a fairly hefty dose of depression of late.  Somewhere between turning 28 and not having a real job and coming to terms with the statement "I'm addicted to pornography," I just got really sad about nearly everything in my life and felt like a complete waste of space.  I know it's a lie and I've got a lot to be happy about/proud of, but you have to understand: addiction is addiction, no matter what the substance.  Tell a crack-head or a speed freak that he's got a lot to live for and he's throwing his life away and, odds are, he won't even hear you.  He'll go right back to doing all his crazy drugs and thinking all his crazy thoughts and maybe somewhere along the way remember flashes of a conversation he had with you at some distant, hazy point in the past.  It's tough, man.

I'm slowly but surely coming out of it, though.  I've always found that structure, while not salvation itself, is definitely a big push in the right direction for me.  I've been putting together spreadsheets and game-plans of what I want the next couple of weeks to look like and it's been really good.  Just plotting out where I'll be and when is a big deal because it helps me keep from wasting time on things I shouldn't/don't want to be doing.  It's just like budgeting your money or any other resource in life, for that matter: if you don't make a plan for it, you tend to lose a lot more than you realize you had.

Oddly enough, in spite of trying to appropriate some structure into my life, I've decided to not be so rigid about doing things like riding my bike and 'blogging.  I've talked before about how a sense of obligation to something can kill my desire to do it, and that's definitely been part of why I haven't updated in such a long time.  I kinda got used to having people tell me how much the liked such-and-such 'blog and actually started allowing my moods to be set by how many people had read my 'blog on a given day.  I didn't really talk about it because I didn't really want the feedback, but I kinda just decided to post my last 'blog and not do another one until I got out of the funk I was in.  Now that I'm getting out of it, I think I'll probably start doing two or three a week again, but don't hold me to that.  I changed the title so there's not a daily expectation and I guess you'll just have to keep tabs with me on Facebook or Twitter (which is pretty much the only way people get to this, I think?) to find out whenever I update.

Also, part of the complication and/or inability to set a firmly committed schedule comes from the fact that I'm using the business center computers at my apartment complex because I sent my computer to live in my friend/pastor's office for a while.  Even without the pornography struggles, I waste an incredible amount of time mindlessly surfing the internet and playing World of Warcraft.  Don't get me wrong, it's not like I think those are inherently evil things and I'm about to start a worldwide picketing campaign to bring them down... I just don't need the distraction right now.  For now, I'm setting a goal of being without a home computer until December 1st, so we'll see how that all pans out.  In the meantime, I need to be looking for jobs and apartments and getting back out on my bicycle.  We'll see how things go until December and then make readjustments as needed after that.

K, guys... I really have a blast writing this thing and I appreciate all the encouragement I've gotten from you.  I hope I don't just let you all down completely and you never come back, but I think you probably have enough insight as to what goes on in my head and my heart to recognize a change of pace as a good thing.  It's not stopping completely and it's not full-steam-ahead, it's just whatever it happens to be right now and I'm okay with that.  I hope you are, too.  For now, I need to go submit a resume or two and I'll probably be back around tomorrow.

...but trust me, you'll be the first to know if somebody takes a weird poop in the bathroom at work again...

Piece

Ups and Downs

I should be asleep right now.  Well, at least, I should be in bed.  But I'm not.  I'm not tired.  And I feel kinda sick.  Probably because my day has consisted of little more than sleeping and eating a bunch of spicy Mexican food.  Plus, I've got this weird bump on my forehead that my neuroses are slowly convincing me is an early warning sign of cancer.  It's like my dad always said, "Getting old's a... what the heck is that on your forehead?"

I was feeling a lot more inspired last night from the Bansky book than I am now.  I think it's probably easier to put off the rigors of conforming to society and not care what people think about you and your work when you're an internationally-known street artist.  Plus, I didn't have to work this morning, so I didn't have that stuck feeling like I'm not doing anything meaningful with my time.  Nights before my days off are like that.  I have all these hopes for what the next day will look like and how productive I'm going to be, and then I either sit around and do nothing with it or I actually do get off my butt and go someplace, but it's only to Petsmart so I can buy $70 worth of new stuff for my fish tank.

I didn't finish my Groupon application today like I said I wanted/was going to.  Part of the reason is because they changed the submission content and I have to redo part of my application.  But mostly it's because I didn't work on it.  I didn't feel like it.  I just kinda wanted to be sad today.  I'm not really sure why.  I think it has to do with feeling like I should've done more with my life by now than I have and that I shouldn't be stuck where I am, struggling along with a bunch of debt and a crap retail job.

I also didn't get anything done with the side projects I wanted to finish/get started.  Yesterday I mentioned toying with the idea of quitting this because I felt like I was out of material, but that was only part of it.  I've been looking at a few different ways to make some extra money and thought to put together some ideas this week to have ready to roll out/act on by tomorrow.  One idea is to sell pretty much everything I own.  I have a lot of really cool stuff (t-shirts, CD's, books, movies, old N64/SNES games, etc.) that I hardly ever wear/use anymore and I just keep it with me because of some messed up sense of sentimentality I have that never lets me get rid of anything.  One of my goals in life is to get rich enough to buy all this stuff back whenever I have the kind of disposable income that can afford to blow money on things I don't really need (and the space to store it all), so it would behoove me to go ahead and get started whittling away at all the "accumulation" I seem to have gathered over the years.  And if I can make a couple dollars off of it in the process, why not?  I've got cool stuff.  I don't think it's crazy that other people would want to buy it.  Especially if I let it go pretty cheap.

Another idea I had was to start hand-making journals out of different, un-journal-y materials.  I need to work out the logistics of how to get decent paper in appropriate sizes that I can use for the interior folios, but I'd really like to experiment with binding covers made out of found objects (cereal boxes, for instance) and different types of materials that you wouldn't normally see used for notebooks.  I've also been thinking about selling some of my artwork and getting in the groove of painting new stuff to sell, but all I can think to do is rip off Ashleigh Brilliant quotes and I hear he gets kinda pissed about that.

On a lighter note, I got the Batarang money clip my mom ordered for me today, so that's fun.  I'm having to work really hard to resist the urge to throw it at stuff and see if it'll stick.  Maybe it won't be so hard if I actually put money in it.  But I doubt it.

I'm gonna try to lay down again and see if I can sleep.  Hopefully I'll stop burping deluxe tomatilla sauce long enough to fall back asleep for the fifteenth time today.  Sorry I wasn't more energetic today.  Maybe somebody will poop in the bathroom at work again and I'll have something more up-beat to post about tomorrow.  Goodnight, all.  Thanks for all the birthday well-wishes.

P.S. if you actually know of something I own that you want, go ahead and make me an offer on it.  At this point, the only thing I won't be selling is my computer and my bed.  Everything else is fair game, assuming the right offer is made.

P.P.S. if you have an idea for a handmade journal, let me know.  I'm going to try find a couple more things to use for covers before putting together samples, but if you run across something and think, "Hey, maybe that would be cool," just tell me and I'll see what I can do.  Anything will work, really.