Closing Home for Good

So my parents recently sold the house I grew up in. It's the only house I ever lived in. My parents decided to take an apartment in Manhattan and be like New Yorker types and stuff which is totally coolio (plus convenient for me! bonus!). So for the past couple weeks I've been heading out to the suburbs to help pack up the house and my old 'room' (yes trophies, sports banners etc...) I figured it would just be a question of take this, chuck that, look at this, pack that. But as I went through and sifted through stuff  I got a little weirded out by my past life. Reading old letters and school reports and my diary or whatever was sort of like one of those time travel thing where you write something in the past... to communicate with the you in the future.

Weird memories started flashing back hardcore. Finding my old rubbery aquaman and thinking about the adventures we had. My matchbox car collection and remembering which one was my favorite. Digging through boxes of old cartoons I drew. Love letters from my high school girlfriend. Letters from camp. Photos from wherever. Class pictures. Report cards. An detailed evaluation from some academic therapist guy (I was flunking school for no good reason so my parents made me get analyzed in the head). It was hard throwing anything away. Everything seemed to have some value somehow. But I had to pick and choose. I live in an apartment. Like do I take my old beat up matchbox cars? Yes. Rubber Aquaman? He's here now. Giants sports banner? Here. A super old TV? Here. I returned to my place with tons of stuff. Probably too much. Boxes. Alot I haven't even looked at yet.

Also before I left I took one look around the walls of my bedroom (wood paneling) and remembered before that wood paneling went up-- they stripped the wallpaper so it was just bare walls. I asked my parents if I could draw all over the walls before the wood went up-- and they let me. So under that wood paneling is some huge kooky mural (which I guess I'll never get to see. I mean you can go prying wood off the wall after you sell a house). I was tempted to rip the paneling down just to see...

So yeah, it's always a sad occasion when some chapter of everything gets sort of closed and all that. But as I looked at the pictures of 'other' me. With a full head of hair. Dorky clothes. Failing grades. I realized that that kid would probably be pretty happy with who he is now (granted he'd probably be happier with a rocketship under construction in his backyard with a Indy race car track... and a horse.... and more hair and less belly) but whatever. So far so good! As for my parents packing up and starting new as New Yorkers-- I'm psyched about that too. I guess in alot of cases when you pack up a whole house it could be generated by a sad occasion. And my parents starting fresh and new is a happy one...

Bleh! Enough of the sentimental crap or whatever! FU! Ass! Whatever! I'm loaded up here with a ton of stuff to scan in and share on this site which should be fun. Weird stuff. Funny stuff. Crazy cartoons. (And a whole box of creepy old stuff that I found in the basement of someone else's house. It was gonna be thrown out. I saved it.)

Starting on Monday the "Daily Letter" on the site is going to change to "Daily Scan". Yah I'll still post the letters and postcards-- but I'm gonna mix em up with some childhood stuff too and other things that I have here.

So it'll be a crap shoot.... so to speak.

Lots to come. And all that.

Good vibes to y'all!

tOdd