The Best Stuff I Found in My Move

Reunited With All My Lost Garbage and It Feels So Good!

If you follow me on Instagram then you already know that I moved, due to I have not fucking shut up about it for 1+ month. Sorry! It was really hard! Aham and I moved into this rental house in 2012 when I had just turned 30 and he was 29 (he still smoked cigarettes!!!) and now we are both 40 years old and we kind of abruptly decided to move (to another rental house—what am I, a sultan?). If I can give you one life tip, since you all think I’m soooooooo smart (STOP!!!), it’s this: do not ever live in one place for 10.5 years. There are simply too many little pieces of shit to deal with! I spent the last month digging through bins upon bins of little tiny pieces of shit—scraps of paper that say “MEAT SALE” that I ripped out of a newspaper in 8th grade because my friends and I thought “meat” was the funniest word; a promotional pocket mirror with the Botox logo engraved on the back that I got in a swag bag at a screening of the first Sex and the City movie; a very tiny rubber moa, a type of extinct flightless bird, which I cannot throw away without adding insult to injury!!!

People keep asking, so here’s why we moved:

1. Our kids (WHO WERE SEVEN AND NINE WHEN WE MOVED IN) are elderly now and have their own homes and jobs and 401Ks and back problems and we just don’t need all these rooms anymore.

2. Despite having SO MANY ROOMS, somehow none of them was ever really functional as an office for me or a practice space for Aham? They were all too loud or cold or hot or too many spiders. I wrote every Jezebel post, every NYT article, and all three of my books sitting on my fucking couch in the living room at 4 am! Can you imagine what I could do with a real desk during the daytime? (Watch me say that and then my next book is worse lol.) Anyway, the new house has a tiny house in the yard that will be my office!

3. It was time for a new vibe. We’re in our 40s now! I want double-pane windows! I am too old to be cold!

4. New house has a fenced yard for Barold “Borgis” Saxophingerlinger!!!!!!!!!!!! He has already fallen in love with the dog next door and dug up and destroyed approx 17 daffodil bulbs, his 2nd favorite activity after biting.

5. It’s not happening yet, because Roya has a fancy and important job in Portland, Oregon, but eventually all three of us will live together and we wanted a new space that we could set up together and she could feel ownership over, instead of moving into an old house soggy with me and Aham’s ten-year-old baggage.

6. Old house possibly plagued by the Curse of Johnny Appleseed?????????

Anyway, moving was shockingly bad, but I did get to say hi to all my treasures before they went back into their plastic tombs for another decade. Here is all the best stuff I found that I remembered to take pictures of:

The ad in the Stranger that I applied to while I was working as a cashier at City People’s Mercantile (I would hand-write my silly little theater reviews on the backs of return slips when things were slow!).

Odie Maid.

Absolutely filthy and disease-ridden Grass Valley Greg mouse pad that says “Mis-stakes? More like Opportunity-stakes!” (Fun fact about me: I did not throw this away.)

“The baby.” Top inside joke of 1995.

Signed headshot of John Henson from the time my friend Leah and I sent him a present in 8th grade. Leah, I am sorry for being pissy that he only wrote your name! You’re the one who found Weepy the Wee Wee in the first place!

Box containing literally hundreds of fan letters to the Beatles from when my dad’s friend Norm briefly worked for them, or at least that’s the story I was told? (EVERYONE invites the Beatles over for dinner.)

Important information that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY (when I was trying to get into the safe)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Season 2, disc 1 of Breaking Bad, season 1, disc 2 of Mad Men.

Kazaam thermos. I am the man… to grant your wishes. (Good catchphrase!) I forgot to take a picture of it but mine is identical to this one I found on eBay. Roya tried to make me throw it away!!! Can you imagine!?

Dad’s “accident.”

Seth Cohen promotional pillowcase. (The other side has Marissa.)

OH NO! IT’S JOHNNY APPLESEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE’S GOT A CHUPA CHUP AND HE THINKS JOE ROGAN HAS SOME INTERESTING IDEAS ABOUT UKRAINE!!!!!

Housekeeping: Moving ruined my life, obviously, but I almost have my office set up and then I’m getting you that LOTR Butt News I promised. Except first I think I gotta do a Halloween-themed Butt News, which I already have picked out, so expect LOTR in November! But also I feel like I should do Bedknobs and Broomsticks to honor Angela Lansbury?? IDK! Tell me what you want in comments!

Housekeeping part 2: I accidentally sent this from a different Substack account I didn’t know I had, so sorry if you didn’t get it and/or got it twice, or you’re welcome.

See you when I’m 50, Johnny Appleseed! Enjoy your dark slumber!