Scavenges

I am currently in an if-i-don't-think-about-it-i-don't-have-to-deal-with-it standoff with the post-Issac contents of my fridge. And so my lunch is yet again "Screw it, I'll make pasta." At least it's actual pasta I'm making this time, as opposed to the four days of Chef Boyardee from which I was previously getting my sustenance.

Anyway, to distract myself from my failure to consume a balanced diet, I will provide here a list of the assorted (and variously grody) contents of my coffee table drawer. I very much like lists. They provide a charming illusion of order and control.

• guitar tuner
• 3 dead lighters
• ticket stub to Avatar in 3D
• LED flashlight (damn that would have come in handy a couple of days ago)
• distressingly old Marlboro, broken at the filter
• my old swipe card from The Chimes
• Blockbuster Rewards pamphlet
• snowman PEZ dispenser
• 1/2 box of my wallet-sized high school senior portrait
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre playing cards
• ticket stub to Toy Story 3 in 3D
• expired copy of my driver's license
• tiny glow-in-the-dark stegosaurus, formerly a jey chain, souvenir from my sister's trip to Europe
• House of Blue wristband from Bright Eyes concert
• 5 coasters declaring "HOME IS WHERE THE BEER IS"
• detached bicycle reflector
• scratched sunglasses

And much more--in just this drawer. There are at least 3 others of a similar nature around the house. These are the kinds of items I cannot bring myself to throw away. Do I hope that if I keep them, I will remember everything, that by attaching scraps of physical matter to my anecdotal flotsam and jetsam, I will never lose a moment? Probably something along those lines. But what good does the detritus of my life do me holed up in drawers, fraying at the edges with grime until the distinctive features are unidentifiable anyway? What claim can be laid on me?

I will end on this note with part of Bukowski's poem "This Moment":


you must begin all over again.
throw all that out.
all of them out

you are alone with  now.

look at your fingernails.
touch your nose.

begin.

the day flings itself upon
you.