Dave's journal, week six

(somberly) Fly, Eagles, Fly

WILMINGTON, Del. - Would it have been better if we’d had something to celebrate? Yes. Do I regret being at George’s party with my childhood friends, leaving another friend’s housewarming/Puppy Bowl party in Virginia to absorb the Eagles’ defeat in Delaware? I don’t. Everyone in that room, except (obviously) the children, had known each other for two decades or more. Everyone but me had a team jersey, and everyone played along with a game Dean invented; after every pour of a drink, a partygoer had to pull an Eagles player card from a box to summon the power of a departed player.

Dean’s makeshift ofrenda didn’t work. No regrets. It was a good end to a very long week, spent mostly in D.C., free time spent mostly on cleaning out our guest room. I have “cleaned out” this room many times, to different standards - first as an uncluttered room for real guests, then as a cluttered room for guests willing to navigate a couple piles of books, then a storage room where any attempt at navigation meant knocking over a pile of something.

I was undoing all that, even getting rid of a bed, to do more or less what’s described in this song.

I pulled it off, with no crying children this time. Out went: Five bags of assorted trash, five cardboard boxes of books I didn’t need, all donated to places that would either find homes for this material or pulp it. Ever since I reported a 2007 story that relied on a source’s private library of out-of-print newsletters, I’ve had trouble throwing out documents. That trouble diminished as I got more serious about turning the house into one a family might want to live in. Over many hours, I sorted out my literally irreplaceable political junk into a Keep pile (a 2010 Oath Keepers brochure, a Ryan-Romney mailer with promises Republicans have abandoned) and a Toss pile (almost anything from the Tim Pawlenty campaign), the second one twice as high as the first.

Getting there. This year’s goal, which I’d never achieved before, is being aware of everything I own and where it is. No more boxes of assorted wires; no more surprises, like digging into an old suitcase and realizing I never brought that 2013 box of Cadbury chocolate to the office I worked at three jobs ago. I am not put together well enough to turn this into a self-help substack, but the thought’s occurred to me. First: It would be much more popular than the stream-of-consciousness diary I’m writing this year. Two: Sincerely, truly, I think that tracking personal behavior and being aware of what you consume is the only defense against the hypnotic consumerism pushed on me - and you, if you’re online enough to read this - every second.

Not a great week for consumerism, anyway. This year’s Super Bowl ads were mostly dire, because there are more celebrities than ever, more who are willing to sell their images, and more ad-writing that relies on the lazy shock of a famous person selling crap to people. I’ve already forgotten the name of the app Alicia Silverstone wore her “Clueless” outfits to advertise. You, too, right? I remember that Adam Driver was advertising Squarespace, but I wish I didn’t.

The Best Thing I Read: Light week for that until Sunday morning, when I was so exhausted after the deep clean that all I had energy for was reading, pouring coffee, and eventually drinking the coffee I’d poured. (One of those “oops, forgot I poured this, better microwave it and make it worse” mornings.) I burned through a few short novels and graphic novels that I’d planned to get rid of, and the only great thing to come out of it was Michael Herr’s “Dispatches,” his collection of Vietnam War journalism that feels familiar before you read it; he helped shape the scripts for “Apocalypse Now” and “Full Metal Jacket,” so his view of the war is the one played back most often to people who weren’t alive for it.

The Best Thing I Ate: See above: Erin’s pizza bread. There are many ways to combine cheese and pepperoni and bread, and this one stood out amid a true American spread of cheesesteak dip (don’t ask, you can intuit), buffalo chicken dip, and chili. We did not have wings and won’t be shamed for that decision.

The Best Thing I Saw: “Black Orpheus,” a classic that I had started and stopped several times, before realizing it would be fun to watch with my friend Mike, who speaks fluent Portuguese and was in town to cover Lula’s White House visit. Sure enough, he talked over the whole movie, explaining every shot, just how I like it.