One Month Down

Well, there we have it. 11 days of this project has churned out 12 entries. I originally wanted to plan for one a day but didn't think I could manage it. Maybe I can.

My question now is what people think of the project up until this point? Any suggestions, comments, complaints? Should I just give it up? I won't, but it's nice to know if people think I should, if only so I can know who exactly I'm spiteing.

The project will continue on at least for another couple of months. I've got about 30 odd items that have had their pictures taken, and about a half dozen that are sitting in a basket waiting for my next bit of free time to photograph. That being said, there's only one entry waiting in the wings right now, after which I'll need to find the time to edit the raw pictures on my desktop PC. You probably don't care, but I like having entries like these to look back on later, especially if I change my methods.

Anyway, thanks for enduring my first "month" of the project. Let me know what you think.

Item Number 12: Cactus (Milhouse)

Time in possession: At least 5 years, although it could be as much as 6 or 7.

Description: Mostly alive cactus plant held in a coffee tin, painted red. Black label, with the name "MILHOUSE" printed on it. FULL OF MYSTERY (and dust).

Cost: A gift from Erica. Shall we say 3$ for the plant and 1$ for the can and the paint and the label. Okay, 1.13$.

Story: Erica (my former girlfriend of five and a half years) bought me this cactus plant for a birthday years ago, and named it Milhouse after the Simpsons character of the same name, as in "Everything is coming up Milhouse!". He's lived in the small basement window of my room ever since.

Milhouse is a trooper. I constantly forget to water him and I'm pretty sure my window is a shitty spot to get light, yet he has continued to live for years now, something which is pretty damn impressive considering. He's been dropped multiple times, forgotten for many long months at a go and generally abused and neglected in all the ways one could do such a thing to a plant. (Wait, imagination kicked in. There are many ways I could abuse poor Milhouse which had never crossed my mind until this very moment, and I will emphatically never partake in them. I mean, in the first place, he's a CACTUS for crying out loud!)

It's nice to have a plant in my room, and I'll be kind of upset when Milhouse finally kicks the bucket. You can see that his lower extremities are starting to lose the lush green colour, so it might be any day now. I hope not. I'm kind of attached to the little guy.

I wrote a poem one day inspired by him, although more about a girl. The girl wasn't Erica by the way, although I suppose the poem wasn't really about the girl I was thinking of when I wrote it in the end so much as a fictional amalgamation of girls which is generally the case when I try to write about people I know. I actually read the poem at an open mic night days after writing it, something I hadn't really expected to do when writing it, but I suppose makes sense in hindsight. I mean, why would a performer go to an open mic night unless he takes his turn on the stage? I think I might have a problem.

Item Number 11: Shoes (White), Athletic

Time in possession: Almost 3 years now

Cost: A gift from my sister's ex-boyfriend, so free. They were brand spanking new at the time though, so probably in the area of 100$.

Description: White and Red Adidas running shoes. Have sustained several stage combat classes worth of use, as well as some time outdoors. The back of the heels are also pretty worn, since I don't like to untie my shoes. This is why I can't have nice things.

Story: For a while my sister Regan (the middle one) dated a guy named Marcel, who happened to be a member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, our local CFL team. After one season, his contract was not renewed and so he had to head back to his home in the States. He was a pretty cool guy, and before he left he gave a bunch of his stuff to the family since he didn't want to lug it back home with him: I got a pair of shoes, since they fit well enough.

I've got a thing about keeping shoes, especially since I've been replacing them before they are totally worn away. At the moment I've probably got about 7 pairs, which is actually really excessive now that I write it down and actually think about it. I mean, sure, keeping one pair around for doing messy stuff like painting or whatever is fine, but a pile of them? Ridiculous!

I should actually really get rid of these guys. I've since discovered that my actual shoe size is about one and a half smaller then what I had thought it was and keeping them around is not really all that useful. Will I get rid of them? Lord knows.

That being said, I'm starting to think that this project is going to culminate in a big trip to the Salvation Army drop off box...

Site Update

I've decided to assign all my free items an arbitrary value, in order to keep a running tally of the total worth of all my possessions. There's a point to this, promise.

Since starting this site, I've been asked by several people how I have the time to do it. I don't have the time. That is why I'm a little crazy. Still, that's part of the fun, isn't it?

Item Number 10: Basketball, Semi-Inflated

Time in possession: At least 10 years, although probably more. 15 maybe? Who knows.

Description: Orange rubber(?) basketball, only vaguely inflated and has been that way for years. Practically as good as new!

Cost: The cost of the cheapest basketball at least a decade ago.

Story: My father was a jock when he was younger, so it comes as little surprise that when I was old enough to enter into the world of sports he was only happy to see that I have the equipment and support to go on and be a super sporty sport guy. Or something. Only a couple of hitches in that plan: I didn't really like sports all that much- I didn't hate them, but I certainly didn't like them as much as reading or playing video games or about a hundred other things. Also, I kinda sucked. So really, what kind of incentive did I have?

That being said, I would flit around from time to time and give various sports a try. This basketball is a relic of the time that I thought I might want to try playing on my school team in grade school. My dad bought it for me, and I think I must have played like 3 or 4 games with it before tossing it in my closet and never touching it again. I actually did end up playing on the team in grade 6. It was pretty brutal, getting up for our early practices before school, and then going on to lose most of our games. And so basketball was too abandoned.

I've held onto the ball all these years with the assumption that I might need it at some point, but as it has gone on so long without even the possibility of being brought out, it's uselessness to me is really starting to be felt. I'll probably get rid of it the next chance I have.

Unless anyone wants to play basketball?

Item Number 9: Book, Watchmen

Time in possession: 2 years? Maybe less. I should probably research this a bit more when I do these things.

Description: Yellow paperback graphic novel, excellent condition despite several readings. Under a black light it radiates pure awesome. I forgot to take note of how many pages it is, but suffice to say that I does indeed have a good number of them. Pages that is. I don't know what else you could have thought I meant, but best to be clear. (Edit: There are 416)

Cost: Free, as it was a present from Rufus. Birthday or Christmas, I can't quite remember. The cover price is 26.99$

Story: When I was young, like most boys, I greatly enjoyed comic books. Now, I never had many, but I certainly did enjoy watching various vigilantes in tights beating the crap out of the bad guys. Then, like most kids, as I grew older and my attention was taken by other things, I slowly fell away from comics. Now I continued to draw, and much of my drawing was still influenced by my initial exposure to Jim Lee and Jack Kirby, although that soon became overcome by the influence of various manga: In the end, my exposure to North American comics was totally negated.

Then, years later I would meet people who were my age but had continued to read comics. And rather then being what one might typically consider a "comics nerd", these people were well adjusted members of society and highly literate- And they liked comics. This seemed strange to me, as while I hadn't totally tossed them out of my life, comics certainly were no longer an active pursuit. I decided that I must be missing something: And I was. Because there was a lot of great comics out there, good enough to equal if not better any book or movie or play I'd ever seen. Soon I was reading what is now easily identified as a core list of modern comic masterpieces: Preacher, Sandman, Dark Knight Returns, Supreme, and so on.

Alan Moore is an awesome writer and possibly the best comics writer in the business. For anyone else, Watchmen, which was his signature book due to its long duration and high profile, as well as the various ground that it broke creatively, Watchmen would be the pinnacle of their career. For Moore, it is merely another stepping stone, if a prominent one. I read it during my initial run through Moore's major works and owning it now adds to my substantial Moore collection. He's just amazing, he really is.

Plus it has tons of pretty pictures with guys in tights kicking the crap out of the bad guys.

Item Number 8: Sword, Rapier

Time in possession: In the neighborhood of 3 years

Description: A steel practice rapier, for use in stage combat and (I assume) fencing. Wooden grip with leather inserts (added later to tighten the grip). Currently in need of a little time with some WD40.

Cost: Something to the tune of 200$, although the exact number is lost to me. Ordered online from an armory in Alberta.

Story: Before I begin, do you know how hard it is to take a decent picture of a sword? They're so freaking long. Anyway....

In my theatre program at the University of Winnipeg, there is plenty of room for extra courses outside of the typical acting classes. Personally, I managed to fit in some play writing, a couple of musical theatre workshops, a makeup course and, my favorite, several stage combat classes. Our prof is named Rick Skene, and he's one of the top fight choreographers and stunt people in Canada, and on top of all that a really fun guy, so I threw myself into each class with reckless abandon.

After completing the unarmed stage combat class, I was delighted to find out that a sword fighting class would be offered the next year. We had done a little bit of weapon fighting in the unarmed class, but the sword fighting class promised to add new dimensions to our fight making skills, not only as we'd be learning new weapon skills (Rapier, Rapier and Dagger, Quarterstaff) but also because the class would be twice as long. Whoo!

I enjoyed the class so much that I decided that it would be worth getting a sword of my own. A few inquiries with Rick and my class mate Jacquie and I found a site based out of Alberta that was just getting into the sword making business and was cutting a deal for it's second run of swords. I was in, and greatly enjoyed having my own sword, especially since it meant that I would not have to risk getting stuck with one of the older, much heavier and clumsier swords that Rick had for the class.

Sadly, it hasn't seen too much use over the past little while. Besides being used in a Fringe play over the summer it has remained in my room, ready to be put to use should I be attacked by zombies. And then it would old be used until I could get my much-more-reliable-for-hitting-zombies-in-the-head boken. While there have been talks as well for organizing a fight club, for stage fighting of the armed or unarmed variety, nothing has come of that either. We're lame.

Item Number 7: Cat (White), Stuffed

Time in possesion: The better part of 20 years.

Description: (Mostly) white stuffed cat, although it's harder and harder to tell. Amazingly well loved. Formerly had a bell at the end of her tail, but was clogged and then removed long ago. Stiched up repeatedly. I think she's pretty cute, but she has taken on, I must admit, many rag-like qualities over the years.

Cost: Another item stolen from my mother, so yet another free item. It was a really nice stuffed animal before I got my hands on it, so I'll say 20$.

Story: Most people have a childhood toy that they loved above all over. A bear, a blanket, whatever. This cat is mine. She was a gift to my mother when she quit her job at Air Canada, a stuffed animal from Bowring & Co. The story as I remember it is this: I'm little, and my mom is on the phone. I don't know how old I am- Maybe three? Old enough to walk at least. In any case, I go into my mom's room and upon seeing that she is talking on the phone grab the stuffed cat which sits on the foot of her bed. It's one of those "kid trying to be sneaky even though the grown-up is looking right at them" moments. Anyway, I've got the cat and I run away. The cat has been mine ever since.

One of the frequent offers over the years has been to re-stuff the poor creature, since she has been pretty saggy in her body for years. However, the reason for that was because I loved to wrap her around my neck much like the now widely available travel pillows- What can I say, I was ahead of my time? - and that comfortable "worn-ness" is not something I'm likely to give up quickly. That being said, she has taken more then her fair share of abuse- her eyes are cracked from frequent trips to the dryer, her ears once pink now a dull grey. On more then one occasion she has been spun around by her tail or tied into knots and she has parts of her that are almost threadbare to show for all those years of faithful service. I was kind of a jerk to her.

Alright, so the story that this is all building up to: When I was little I couldn't get to sleep without my cat, not uncommon for any comfort object. The difference is that my mother called it my "Pussy Cat" which I then shortened to "Pussy". You can tell where I'm going with this. I have a couple of Scottish cousins who still love to tell me about the time when I was 4 or 5 and telling them about how I "can't get to sleep without my Pussy" and how "I love my Pussy". What a bunch of jerks. :)

She spends her time now either with my few stuffed animals or (most often) on the foot of my bed. She's earned a place of honor.

Item Number 6: Clock, Wind-Up

Time in possession: Something like 3 years

Description: White plastic wind-up clock with gold metal (not real gold) details. Has wind up alarm, which is decently noisy. Makes ticking noises.

Cost: Stolen from my mother, so free. I'll call it 15$.

Story: To understand this clock, I think you have understand a phenomenon that I experience called "Morning Me". Some time in high school a friend told me that for your first 15 minutes of being awake you are legally insane. I don't know if that's true or not, but it would certainly explain Morning Me. You see, Morning Me is a person who takes over my body every morning and does crazy, inexplicable and downright inconvenient things. He has conversations with people who wake him up, assuring them that he's getting up, giving them false answers to their various questions and promptly goes back to sleep. He turns off alarms and promptly goes back to sleep. He continues sleeping despite many well placed mental notes or otherwise excellent reasons to be awake and then, most devious of all, HE ERASES MY MEMORY of any of these events. I cannot even begin to describe the amount of messes I've had to clean up caused by this guy, but let me tell you, he's a grade A jerk.

Sadly however, there's not a lot I can do about him. I mean, we seem to inhabit the same body and any fitting punishment to him would carry over onto me after he's departed and frankly I can't think of anything that would be sufficient motivation to get him to obey my wishes. So, I have to trick him.

Yes, it's a messy business, but the only way I can ensure that Morning Me doesn't get his way is to come up with ways of rousing him from his slumber. The best way to do this is by setting multiple alarms and having them all go off staggered, so as to force him out of bed where he generally quickly leaves my body, leaving me back in full control and capable of making my morning appointments on time. This clock was stolen/borrowed from my mother (depending on who you ask- When she saw that I had taken a picture of it when she asked to look over the project she quickly claimed that it was her clock. I think if I've had it for that long however, it belongs to me!) for such a purpose.

Sadly, it didn't actually work- Morning Me quickly discovered that since the alarm was wind up, it was a small thing to simply lie in bed and wait it out. Worse still, the ticking noises it makes make it harder for me to get to sleep in the first place. Also, I don't think I have the tenacity for a wind up clock. I'm a lazy bastard, one of the few things that Morning Me and I share.

You win this round jerk-face, but I'll win the war!

Item Number 5: Game, Robotrek (SNES)

Time in possession: Around 4 years

Description: Super Nintendo Game cartridge, grey plastic. Label and contacts in good condition.

Cost: The exact cost has fallen from sight, although it was an eBay purchase, so something like 20$ plus shipping.

Story: The SNES was (and still is) my favorite video game console. I spent far too many hours playing away on it and think on it fondly. However, I didn't have a lot of money growing up, and while my family was well enough off, I would very infrequently get games as gifts. As such, when I would get my monthly issues of Nintendo Power (one of the few family sanctioned Nintendo products- It did, after all, encourage reading!) I would typically spend a fair amount of energy coveting the various games I would read about but never (at least in the near future) own.

And then I got a job.

While I've tapered off, as soon as I had a source of expendable income, I quickly began to spend it on all the fun toys I could never have when I was younger. This quickly amounted to a large collection of video games, the majority of which were for the Super Nintendo. Sadly however, it was also quickly apparent that my local pawnshops and game stores didn't have a ready supply of all of my sought after games, and so I had to look elsewhere. To make an already long story short, I bought this baby off of eBay.

The unfortunate bit is that when I finally got the game I wasn't all that enamoured with it. I mean, it's a decent game, but I pretty much played it for an hour to make sure it worked when I got it, and then put it away. It's on a list of games that I need to play that has been lost somewhere, but I don't see it coming off any time in the near future. There's a moral in there somewhere, but I don't know if I've quite got it figured out.

Item Number 4: Text Book, Philosophy

Time in possession: Since first year University, so over 5 years.

Cost: The excat number has been lost to me, but I want to say 100$. Apparently I can buy it on Amazon now for 25$. Jerks!

Description: Black textbook, paperback, 1039 pages. Well worn and slightly water damaged. Contains the writings of a lot of very smart people, most of which cannot hold my attention for very long. My first year philosophy grade attests to this.

Story: I really shouldn't still have this book. I didn't really need it in the first place. It was purchased for some ungodly amount of money in first year and used amazingly seldom. Also, it bears mentioning that the classics of western philosophy are rather popular and as such pretty easy to obtain at your local library. But, I was young and in first year, so how could I know any better?

While my prof for this class was fantastic, my self discipline for reading various treatises and writing responsive essays was not. I cracked it as seldom as I could manage, party because it's a huge ass book and a real pain to tote around. Also, I really let my girlfriend at the time Erica do most of the heavy lifting in the class (intellectually I mean) and so this further makes the possession of the book silly.

But still, I bought it. If I was smart, as soon as the class was done I would have sold it back to the bookstore for a pittance, but for a small amount of money none the less. But I didn't. And not because of ignorance. No, the reason I did it was because I decided that I would actually read them someday. Yes, some part of me assumed that I would just suddenly decide to rip open the Leviathan one day, and the need to do so would be so strong that I couldn't hop over to the local library or borrow one of my several philosopher friends' copies. No, I would need to have this book in my possession and at the ready! It currently sits in my bookshelf with a bunch of theatre reference books, waiting for that fateful day.

It's been 5 years. I don't think that day is coming anytime soon.

Item Update

An update on the story from Item Number 2: A story about Kuma- The woman who gave him to me, a co-worker with my mother, was named Robin. She had been named by her parents before she was born, as were her two siblings. In order to account for the fact that the children could be either male or female, they pre-named them with unisex names. So, she was Robin while her sisters were Regan and Ryan.

And that's where my mother got the name for Regan, my younger sister.

Item Number 3: Chair (Black), Folding

Time in possession: About 4 years now.

Cost: Yet another gift, so free. I'll call it 15$

Description: A black folding lawn chair with a maple leaf on the back. Has a nylon strap for carrying when folded up. Really comfy. Like, ridiculously comfy when it all comes down to it.

Story: When I told my mother about this site idea, she asked me to see what random items I had photographed for the first few entries. When I showed her this one, she laughed and asked me if I knew where it came from. I confessed that while I remembered it had been a Christmas gift, I didn't really know anything else about it. She started to fill me in.

Apparently my sister (the middle child) had won it in a draw at her grade 12 graduation and really didn't have a use for it. Then, when she and my other sister (the youngest of us three) hadn't bought me much for Christmas that year they decided that since it hadn't really been used much to toss it in as well. As far as re-gifting goes, I think I did pretty damn well with it.

While it hasn't gotten a huge amount of use, on the occasions that I do have to use it it is very handy. It folds up small behind my door, so it's always at the ready for a party, to run off on an impromptu camping trip or just to be an extra chair for a party or get-together. In fact, it was used just the other night when I had friends over for our game night and the chair I was using collapsed. A handy thing, for sure.

It's best use however has been during my several times at the Winnipeg Folk Festival camping ground, where it provided a nice place to warm up by the fire, drink beer on the crazy evenings and nurse a hang-over while eating breakfast in the morning. Good times.

Item Number 2: Bear (Musical), Stuffed

Time in possession: Almost 24 years

Cost: Free, as it was a gift. 10$ shall we say?

Description: A brown stuffed bear, good condition. Contains a wind-up music box type device which no longer works. Cute little guy.

Story: This stuffed bear was a gift to me from one of my mothers co-workers when I was born. It has followed me through 4 major displacements and all things considered is in great condition. The biggest thing that comes to mind about his is that he is one of the very few stuffed animals I have left from when i was born. I named him Kuma, although that was in my teens, so for his days of active service on my bed he was unnamed, although greatly appreciated. His music box was broken mostly because I played his song frequently, although I'm sure I was a little rough with is as well. As kid I never really took good care of my things.

Now little Kuma is one of only a handful of stuffed animals I have left from my childhood. While there are no distinct memories featuring him, he's a calming presence, something familiar that has been around me literally my whole life. Plus, he's a bear, so should I suddenly be attacked by the inanimate, I have in him a sturdy protector that can chase my assailants up trees. Everybody needs a bear on their side.

Item Number 1: Bagpipe Trophy

Time in possession: It's dated 1994, which would make it 12 years now.

Cost: Free, as I won it in a competition. Let's say 2$

Description: A small trophy, gold coloured plastic music note and staff on top of a faux-marble base. Engraved metal plaque announces it as the "Novice Piper Award" for 1994 in the "L.S.B.S.P.B."


Story: This trophy was the first thing I picked up in my room. It has been sitting on my desk for years now and it is truly about as random a thing as I could possibly grab.

I played the bagpipes for 10 years, in a band called the Lord Selkirk Boyscout Pipe band. I have many stories about the band, although I expect them to be uncovered with future items. In this case, the trophy was won when I was 10 or 11 years old in an inter-band competition. I was against probably half a dozen other members of the band, and this would be the first and only trophy I would win in such a competition, as shortly afterwords I would rise to the intermediate level which I would eventually rise towards the top of, but never exceed. Frankly, I never had much heart in the pipes, but this trophy proves that I had enough skill to be of some, if minor, note.

That being said, I'm fairly certain that all the kids I was up against that year would go on to surpass me later on, until I was one of the few stragglers who would remain in the intermediate level (and therefore out of the competition band) for the remainder of my time with the group. But again, these are all stories for another day.

A little bit about the inter-band competitions- Band rehearsals would take place in a church basement, deep in the heart of St. James. Every Saturday morning I would wake up early to be dragged out to practice, a trek that took a good half hour at the shortest. The yearly inter band competitions were a nice change of pace: Instead of typical 3 hours of rehearsal (9-12: Yeah, I loved it) we would all hang around and one by one play a piece for a guest adjudicator. Usually it wouldn't take too long and after the winners were announced we could leave. The point behind this all was to both encourage friendly competition in the band and to prepare everyone for the upcoming competitions held around the city and province.

I actually got this trophy at the yearly band ceilidh, a social held every year to raise some money and give the band another chance to both perform and socialize. My name is on a plaque now, which was briefly in my possession, until I had to return it for the next year's competition. I don't know what I did with the plaque, but the trophy was put on my dresser, where it would remain until I moved it to make room for a TV, at which point it has lived on my writing desk, gathering dust and taking up space. Trophies like this are kind of weird- It has little sentimental value, but I don't want to just throw it away. That being said, there's not really much I can do with it. I suppose it will return to my desk, until I've worked up enough callousness to discard it for good.

And It Begins

This is a project called "What I Own: A Biography in Belongings". A few things about myself- My name is Brent. I live in a middle sized Canadian city that wants to be both a small and large Canadian city. I am an actor, writer and library worker. And that is all you need know for now.

The point behind this project is manyfold, but on the simplest level I want to see what happens when I take photographs of the various (and many) things I own and tell you whatever stories they hold. It's part art project, part biography, part therapy and more then a little voyeur/exhibitionist exchange, but let's not get bogged down in that for right now.

My hope is to publish at least one entry every week, although we will see how far that goes. Reader feedback is welcome and encouraged. Wish me luck.