A Pilgrim’s Digression

For the past few weeks, ever since Thanksgiving, I have been taking a rather unexpected trip down memory lane. When I finished Graduate School in 1998, I stored boxes containing almost everything in my apartment in my future mother-in-law’s attic in Pittsburgh. My wife and I were married later that year, but I never retrieved my stuff, partly because there was so much of it.

When my wife’s family came to visit for Thanksgiving this year, they brought with them about six boxes of my stuff from the attic, mostly boxes of books. There are about fifteen more boxes—again, mostly books—still in the attic. It was wierd unpacking boxes from a past that seems as remote as the Dark Ages now. It was really like opening a time capsule from 1998; and while 1998 is really not that long ago, my life is so different now that it seems like it was another era.

Incidentally, in the spirit of digression, every time I have to unpack following a move, I am reminded of that old George Carlin comedy bit about the difference between “stuff” and “shit.” As Carlin explains it, when it belongs to you, it’s “stuff,” but when it belongs to someone else, “shit.” Thus, I unpack my “stuff” while complaining about all my wife’s “shit.”

Anyway…

I found amongst all my “stuff” a coffee mug from my early days as a Republican. It’s one of those “Official Presidential Drinking Mugs,” and it has a caricature of the first President Bush on it. “No Bushit” it says on the mug. It has become my new favorite coffee cup, purely for the irony of it.

I found a shoe box of loose Star Wars action figures. When Kenner began reissuing these toys to coincide with the release of the Special Editions of the films in 1996 or ‘97, I bought a number of them, even as poor a college student as I was. In fact, wasting my money on toys is probably one of the reasons I was poor.

I also found my original, loose Star Wars figures from my childhood; they were still in the Darth Vader carrying case. I kept these under my bed when I was in college. My Mom long ago yardsaled (yardsold?) all my vehicles and playsets, but somehow I kept the figures and the escape pod that Artoo and Threepio use to escape the Tantive IV in “A New Hope.” Originally, it came with a Tatooine playset one could only buy through the Sears Christmas catalog. The playset was called Land of the Jawas, and it was just a plastic base with a cardboard back depicting the Jawa’s sandcrawler, but back in 1979, it seemed like a cool toy. The escape pod is actually pretty detailed and true to the film, which is saying something for that time.

My books were what really brought back memories, however. I had not seen these in six years. Many of these books were ones I had used in school; they still had my marginal notes in them. I also found floppy disks with old letters and school work on them. The letters were both revealing and embarassing. I don’t know what was more embarassing, realizing how immature I was back then, or realizing that immature person is only six years removed from the person I am today.

Embarassingly, I also found some loose condoms that had expired sometime at the end of the last century. Considering my Mom helped me pack up my old place and haul the shit …er, stuff…to Pittsburgh, and considering I don’t recall that I was the one who packed the condoms, I feel rather odd about that. My wife was watching me unpack when I found these.

My wife said, “Why the heck would you pack condoms for a move?”

I said, “Well, I guess I thought we’d use them.”

“At my mother’s?” She said.

“Well…” I said. “One can hope.”

Purely out of habit, I started to put them in the bedside table drawer,and my wife said, “Don’t you dare.”

I said, “Oh, geez, just force of habit I guess.”

I had also packed one lone lightbulb, which further consternated my wife.

“Why did you pack one loose lightbulb?”

“It was still good, I guess.”

My wife said, “There’s a burnt out bulb in the bathroom downstairs. Go screw it in and see if it still works.”

I came back up a minute later, “It works fine. See, if I hadn’t saved that lightbulb all those years ago, we would be without a light in the bathroom downstairs.”

“You were quite the thoughtful pack rat,” she said.

Then she found one of my books, The Joy of Sex (illustrated).

“What’s this? Do you think my mother ever went through your boxes of books?”

“I doubt it,” I said.

“I would be so embarassed if my mother or father had found this book in their house. I don’t think I realized what a pervert you were back then,” she said. “I never knew you had this.”

I said, “Well, I bought that before I met you. It was one of those ‘free’ books one gets for subscribing to Book of the Month Club.”

“And did you use it?”

I said, “Well, I looked at the pictures.”

She flipped through it and a pornographic playing card fell out.

“And what’s this?”

I said, “I was walking to class one day, through Sunny Side (the student district in Morgantown, West Virginia) and I found it lying on the sidewalk.”

“So you picked it up and kept it?”

“What else?”

What a strange thing it is to find damning evidence of the person one once was.

In other news…

Friday, I bought the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I am still working my way through the first DVD. The first DVD is almost over, in fact, and the movie is not even to the point at which Aragorn goes into the mountain to find the King of the Dead.

Overall, though, I am finding I don’t mind the length when I am sitting at home. In the theater, the movie was too damn long, and my butt got sore and my patience wore thin pretty fast.

I have to say, after watching just the first quarter of this film, I now think it is my favorite of the trilogy. Even a month ago, I would have said The Two Towers is the best of the three films. I no longer think so. The long scene added to the beginning of the film, in which Saruman meets his fate, is well done and addresses one of the complaints I had after seeing the film in the theatre, which is that in the theatrical release, Saruman just disappears.

I also appreciate the added scenes with Faramir. He is a character Jackson failed to develop in the theatrical release.

Watching this film—the entire trilogy, really—I am reminded again and again how I feel that Lucas comes up short in his Star Wars prequels. It’s so disappointing. I have high hopes for Revenge of the Sith, though I am nonetheless prepared to be disappointed yet again. However, Episode II was better than the “Phantom Turd,” and so I hope Episode III will be better than either of the previous two.

And then maybe Lucas will give over the production of any more Star Wars films to the geezer who directed The Empire Strikes Back…

Yeah, I know there aren’t supposed to be any more Star Wars films. Call me cynical. I don’t think a cash cow like this one just falls over dead.