My Storage Unit

I'm almost out of my New York storage unit.  Not that I'm living in it, even if it feels like it from time to time.  Especially lately.  I  have the amazing ability to find storage units that are miles away from any reasonable place I would actually need them to be.  Case in point, while six months ago I may have gone, "yes!  the storage unit right next to the u-haul place!"  I should have instead considered a place that might be more convenient once I got back.  My storage unit is on the west side highway.  I am living in Queens.  For those of you to whom this means nothing, it takes me forever to get there.  And I have to walk the last 4 avenues.  Which isn't a problem except when I'm trying to actually move stuff.  I have determined this can mean one of two things.  Either I should stop living in a situation where I need to keep stuff in a storage unit.  Or that wherever I live it is inevitable I will have a difficult time getting all my stuff in one place (i.e. a home) and should just resign myself to the fact.

Today's trip was from the storage unit to school, where my brilliant plan was to increase my generous quotient by donating used books to the theatre library.  And not just any books, no!  Books that will actually be useful to future graduate students!  But there is a twofold issue with my brilliant plan.  First, I learned the importance of not trying to carry 30 books in a large plastic shoe bag.  As it ripped farther and farther open I struggled through the packed subway...I wonder if I looked more like a genius for having so many scholarly books or like an idiot intern who was probably finding prop books for a theatre production and didn't think to bring a proper bag to the goodwill.  Well I was walking near the theatre district.  Hmm...

The second problem with my ingenious generosity was the realization that if everyone is as nice as me then when and if I do get around to writing a publishable scholarly text, no one will have to buy it because they can just get used copies from the department library.  Which I guess is a problem for published professors.  The whole used-textbook thing.  While I have often enjoyed the benefits of buying books second hand, I have also heard you would have to be mad to write a textbook.  Not that I fancy myself a textbook writer, but up until now I've never ruled it out.  But that's what I'm trying to do, narrow things down and focus!  So there you have it, I do not have a desire or dream to write a textbook.  (Notice I did not say book, as I still want to write a book, listen up universe).  Daily mission accomplished! I have named both something I do and something I do not want to do with my life.  Although positive reinforcement would counter that I shouldn't focus on the what I do not want, only on what I do want.  But finding what I do want has never been my problem.  I want to do everything!  It's finding the one thing, or one path with a couple things, that has been the issue.  So I'm countering that advice and thinking that narrowing things down could be helpful at this stage of the game.

I'll finish for today with my weird new part of my self-exploration, I'm walking around New York listening to cheesy uplifting music, you know that "yes I can do it I'm empowered" genre that incites public repulsion and private moments of dancing subtley (I hope) on the subway.  I know, roll your eyes if you must, but I'm finding it a helpful aide to my current attempts at positive change even if listening to musical theatre while walking through Times Square is a total cliche.  (In my defense, I was already there to see a show, so it's not like I went there just to listen to certain songs).  Oh, and hip hop.  I've been listening to a lot of hip hop lately.