just how much I love the Godfather.

In more-or-less chronological order:

Jer
Jerm
Weasel
Scrod
Jomby
Forbes
Yappledapplestein
Rap-A-Sap
Pimpin' J.
(Red) Snapper

Back in our carefree and childless days, I used to tease Lynn by asking her conspiratorially "Hey! You know what?"

"What?" she'd ask innocently.

"Poop!" I'd say gleefully in my best imitation of a little kid.

Yep, I thought that was great fun, back in the day.

I guess I'm a little past that now.

Thrift-shopping no longer holds strongly over me. After thirty-odd years of collecting other people's junk as my own treasures I'm starting to have some kind of fundamental shift.

Simply, I don't enjoy acquiring as much as much as I once did.

This realization struck me today as a gang of my pals and I went thrifting, with a stop at a long-avoided record store lair of my past.

Surprisingly, I bought nothing at the record store and only a handful of cheap paperbacks at the thrifts - books that I'll likely donate to another thrift when I'm done reading them.

Why? I think because I've been reading things like the quote below lately.

"Most things that you save for the future represent hopes and dreams. But the money, space, and energy you spend trying to create a specific future are wasted. We can't control what tomorrow will bring. Those things we hoard for an imaginary future do little other than limit our possibilities and stunt our growth. When I urge you to get rid of them, I'm not telling you to discard your hopes and dreams. It's actually quite the opposite. Because if you throw out the stuff that does a rather shabby job of representing your hopes and dreams, you actually create room to make dreams come true."

It's All Too Much, Peter Walsh

Back when I was in bands, our dream was always to put a 45 out (that's the small record with the big hole, kids), even though we knew we'd probably see that 45 in the Goodwill bins beginning months after it was released. If I though about it too much, though, I'd start seeing every scratchy and dusty 45 as being emblematic of somebody's broken dreams, a feeling that eventually transferred to EVERY item in the store.

Which, though patently untrue, keeps me from acquiring any more junk, which is nice.

But it doesnt do anything to help me with the half-basement full of crap that's there now.

Hey - do you remember that girl from freshman year? You know, the one who you got a funny feeling somewhere around the top of where you thought your stomach might be every time you ran into her? You tried to say something funny each time you saw her because to see her laughing and smiling gave you a slow jolt every time, something that made the rest of your day more tolerable?

Remember how you worked so hard just to be her best friend, just so you could spend as much time as possible each day with her? To sit close to her and whisper secrets in her ear and smell her hair was maddening and with nearly every sentence you spoke you had a dizzying moment when you thought to yourself "This is it! This is where I tell her how I feel, where I put it all on the table and see where the chips fall!" But each time you stopped yourself, fearing that such a blurted admission might queer the whole thing, might stop her from wanting to spend time with you.

Then do you remember that time you went to the frat party together, to soak up some free beer and silently smirk at the empty preening shells that the social-climbing frat boys were? And then do you remember how one of the polo-shirted frat boys walked over to the corner where you were huddled and started talking to the two of you, but mostly her? And how surprised you were when instead of making sarcastically subtle and vicious comments, she started smiling and laughing at his jokes like she did yours?

And then do you remember how, when the keg of beer went dry and the party was ending, you nudged her elbow to join you as you left and she turned to you and said "You go on, I'll catch up with you later" and turned back to laugh with the accursed frat boy some more as you walked away in a combination of gloom and shock and heartbreak and despair?

Do you recall the next morning when you went out for breakfast and asked her with feigned cheer and secret dread how the rest of her night was and she blushed and looked down at the eggs on her plate and then looked up with a sheepish smile and bright eyes and said "He says I'm his blowjob queen!" And remember how you felt when you realized first that she wasn't saying it disdainfully but actually like the moniker was something she was proud of? And then you realized how such a title could be bestowed and you felt like the earth had suddenly opened a chasm beneath you and you were suddenly plummeting endlessly to the incinerating fires at the core of the earth? Do you remember that?

Nah. Me neither.