i have too much stuff. i'm like my mom in this respect. a class-1 pack rat. an entire childhood of allowances spent on g.i. joes, christmases of star wars, and birthdays of everything else. so with my impending move to lake george, i've decided - much like i did with my comic books a few months ago - it's time to purge. so i opened up the closet, and dug out the grande-sized rubbermaid containers that hold all the toys that made it. in other words, my toy boxes.
i have three: one, i found, has atari 2600 games and the few things surrounding my video gaming resurgence in 1998 with the nintendo 64. another had a bunch of large vehicles and autobots. then there's the box pictured above, which my neighbors no doubt heard me opening: with paper-thin walls, there was no way they couldn't have heard my grande-sized expletive. what a mess. all the backpacks, miniature guns, familiar but unrememberably-named figurines, parts and accessories of star wars figures.jesus.
my first rule: all the action figures i keep. starbuck from the original (and far superior) battlestar galactica, charley pizer from disney's the black hole, peter venkmann from the ghostbusters...they're easy to put in a little box.
so i first decided to categorize: action figures, star wars, g.i. joe, transformers, everything else. i put everything star wars-related into a bag - that's for baitchman, since he's still under the misguided belief that george lucas isn't a money-grubbing, legacy-ruining dickwad. i sometimes think eric was wearing a blindfold and covering his ears during episode 1.wow. did you know i was single? as if the general nature of this blog post didn't give it away in the first place.
here's the other box of video game stuff. i'm going to keep a couple 2600 games and the system itself. i'm offering the 64 to friends. the star wars walkie-talkies will make nice props for the improv troupe.after a few hours i was able to separate all the star wars stuff, then i stood there looking at it all for about fifteen minutes. frustrated at the sheer volume, i dumped it all back into the containers and put them back in the closet.
this is going to take more resolve than i thought.