It is so hot outside that I’m trapped in my apartment, sipping Pina Coladas and going through old stuff, trying to clean tha place up. Here is a sample of what I found:
* A Letter from the City of New York’s Finance Department which read (bold my emphasis): The respondent has been charged with violating Traffic Rule 4-08(k)(2) by standing or parking a vehicle where a posted sign reads “No Standing Except Trucks Loading and Unloading.” The time first observed is stated as 12 AM. Respondent persuasively states that this is an error. Defective summons dismissed on the merits.
Sweet! I love re-reading traffic tickets that I’ve been able to get thrown out, especially when I got the ticket Thanksgiving 2004 and it was eventually dismissed in January, 2006. Who says you can’t fight City Hall?
* An axe on my wall:

I bought this axe online for my friend Tree’s Medieval wedding a few years back. Yes, I was able to buy a weapon and have it shipped to me. Yes, it was after 9/11. I’ve been trying to find the right hook in order to hang it because even my wife, joy of joys, thinks its cool and I finally found what I was looking for in a store called The Container Store (I know, The Hook Store would have made more sense) which really actually kind of rocks. As my friend Mr. Neu stated, my day yesterday was sort of summed up by Will Ferrel in Old School: “Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we’re going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I don’t know, I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.”   That being said, I was also able to buy 5×7 plastic sleeves there for the next item I’m listing….

* A book for my postcards. I have been collecting postcards from museums I’ve visited, places I’ve been and people who’ve sent them to me (regardless of where they are from) for a long time now. In fact, the only tangible items I have from my Bubbe (she was my great grandmother even though “bubbe” means grandmother in Yiddish) are postcards. They’ve all been in a bundle in my bookcase for years – at best a few were displayed on my wall in college to try and show a bit of my personality to the world – but now I’ve finally put them in sleeves, courtesy of the aforementioned Le Magasin de Container, and then in a book so they are more accessible. I’ve been buying representations of these fantastic works of art to use as inspiration and to jog my memory that such art exists in the world and instead of being inspired by them, they been hidden away from view. Now, I hope that maybe by looking at Van Gogh’s “Skull with a Cigarette”, the intensely huge sky of Ullapool, Scotland, the words that two Icelandic girls who I knew for all of 24 hours wrote me after they left London, “Le Baiser (the kiss)” by Rodin and many, many, many other ‘cards on a more regular basis, my creative fire will spark from its smoldering state more often.
* A phat new rap mix, titled “Rap Mix #2.” I bought 2 tickets to sunny Florida online the other day and in doing so, I got 20 free iTunes songs to which I said, “Sweet!” I’ve used 3 of them on tracks from Ghostface Killah’s new album “Fishscale” which is just flat out ridiculously good. After reading a really positive review of Ghostface’s new album in the NY Times of all places, I was on iTunes and wound up buying these songs after to reading reviews and listening to snipits. I just love the Wu-Tang clan. Out of all the rap groups that are out there, I seriously think that the Wu are the best. I just love the imagry, the mythos, da mystery of chess-boxing and everything that is associated with them. So, “Rap Mix #2” is devouted to them and their disciples. My head is grooving back and forth listening to “9 Milli Bros.”