Home Body Horror

I can think of things more vulnerable-making than doing a yard sale. But there is a quality to them that’s like standing outside in only your old socks, price tag attached. You put some stuff in the donation pile (“nobody needs to know I owned this many versions of Jurassic Park”); and some goes in the municipal dump pile (going to have to talk about the municipal dump another day—what a trip!). What goes in the yard sale pile then are things you won’t part with without a fight. It’s not stuff you want, certainly. But as I’ve learned over the last few months, the upfront cost of cardboard boxes isn’t cheap. Can you really afford another box for your books from that gothic horror class you took sophomore year? It’s still stuff you don’t want other people to know you owned (“Wow, you really went through an American Apparel phase in the late 00s, didn’t you.” “You read a book by Nate Silver?”), but go it must. You watch people rifle through tokens of old phases, running the same calculation you did putting a price tag on it: What does it say that I wanted this? And how many more times can I justify moving it along with me over the next few years? I heard one buyer excitedly call their friend about the pile Criterion DVDs I lugged between two states over a decade ago that I was selling for $2 a disc. Oh no, I thought, I might have to talk about early-Noah Baumbach. I’m going to have to talk about going to Prague. An embarrassing sale is a sale all the same.

In the time since my last newsletter I got an eviction notice, caught COVID (first timer!), witnessed daily genocides on my phone, packed, my music app attempted to Meyers-Briggs me, moved, partly unpacked, and watched seven Mission: Impossible movies. Each phase could be its own writerly epoch. (Don’t worry, my Mission: Impossible takes will strictly remain in another repository for my nonsense.) My main takeaway as it pertains to newslettering is that I can’t write like this, here in a newsletter, when I’m feeling that bummed or angry. Despite my best efforts to shield my dear, sweet newsletter from the travails of modern life, I can confidently say that sometimes This Shit Stinks. More, even: This Shit Stinks and sometimes it gets me Down. This isn’t a machine that operates efficiently under most circumstances and weather. The part purpose of doing this newsletter was to practice writing quickly and lightly. It’s fun and I want to keep at it. If the universe intervenes, a laser-guided American horror, I’ll probably be dealing with it in a different way other than writing (like watching a lot of hours of Mission: Impossible movies).

It’s remarkable the speed with which a place can become alien to you. I got the eviction notice and immediately got to work mentally packing. Then I got home and started physically packing. Each box building new momentum. Sizing up furniture for evacuation routes. How long could I live with one pot and a carton of half-and-half? COVID had a similar effect. Even my body had a negotiated agency with the world. Snot pouring out of my nose. Phlegm lodged in my nose. Hate and anger taking possession of my nose. A fevered delirium, three-years delayed crashing down me like a ton of moist bricks.

Like the other mixes, I’ll do my best to throw them up on YouTube for personal home use. Saw Depeche Mode a few weeks ago. My friends, I saw elder goths stretching before the show. They put their hips to work.

Speaking of newslettering, time for a little business: Apparently Substack doesn’t mind making money from Nazis. I don’t like Nazis. I hate them, in fact. This will likely be my second to last post from the platform. The last post will explain where this will all go after.

Like COVID, I’m glad all that is out of my system. If there’s ever long pauses in between these newsletters please don’t send the St. Bernards. The process here is shock, grief, then either a process that turns into a newsletter or doesn’t. I wouldn’t read much into it. Unless I’m writing it, then all you can do is read it.