Stamps

I like stamps.

Not the rare ones, mind you. I like real stamps. The kind you can use. I like sticking a stamp to the top, right-hand corner of a blank envelope. I'm addicted. I don't know how this happened, but so it is. I just can't help myself. I'd spend my last five dollars on stamps – definitely.

I've tried buying cheaper stamps – one cent stamps, three cent stamps, and so on – but I can't really get off on them. See, if an envelope doesn't have proper postage, it leaves me feeling queasy inside.

Once, while I was down and out, I couldn't afford good stamps so I just bought a book of penny stamps thinking it would tide me over. That was a joke. I didn't even have enough postage to finish a goddamn envelope.

I made a stack of envelopes without enough postage in my room. I didn't know what to do with them. They sat there all day and made me sick. I couldn't get any work done. I lost my appetite. I couldn't even sleep at night. Eventually I got fed up, and, one morning, around five a.m., I tore the envelopes up into tiny little bits and threw them all into the dumpster in the alley behind my building – all of them but one. That envelope sits on the tray used to hold sheet music for my keyboard.

It's a reminder. Sometimes, when I sit down to play the keyboard, I'll look at the envelope. I'll think about envelopes without enough postage, close my eyes, and play.

I don't tell anyone how much I like stamps. It seems like a real nerdy hobby and I've already got so much weirdo nerdy stuff going on in my life that a stamp obsession would put me too far over the top.

Sometimes if I'm drunk you'll catch me talking about stamps. I don't remember most of these conversations, but I'm pretty sure that after I achieve a certain degree of drunkenness I get it in my head that other people would enjoy stamps if they understood what I see in them, and then I just launch right into it. The results are mixed. Usually awkward. Especially with women. If you ever become enthusiastic about putting stamps on envelopes, keep in mind that most women you will meet at bars will have absolutely no interest in your hobby. Do not let the alcohol convince you otherwise.

Now, I don't want you to think that I am only interested in putting stamps on envelopes. I mean, that's my favorite part, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I do address the envelopes once they have their postage on them, and I do mail them from time to time.

I keep all of the stamped envelopes inside a large cardboard box. I found the box in the alley behind my building. It is a very large box that looks like it used to carry a television or something.

I brought it up to my apartment and put all of my envelopes in it. There's no orderly system or anything for how I put the envelopes in the box – I just dumped them in there. Then I put the box beside my bed.

The envelopes inside the box are white and standard for the most part, but I will also stamp other types of envelopes as they become available to me. Places of business, bills, hotels, and a variety of office supply stores have provided me with as diverse an assortment of envelopes as you can find anywhere. When I need to send a letter, I only have to rummage through my box and choose the envelope that seems to feel right at the time.

Because I always have so many envelopes which are stamped, ready to be mailed, it allows me to mail pretty much any random thought to anyone I want – and I take advantage of this.

For example, when I'm thinking about what I will have for dinner, sometimes I will make a list of options, or write the contents of my kitchen on a piece of paper and try to plot out a meal. Once I've finished and I understand what I'll be eating, I usually dispose of this piece of paper. Sometimes, however, I fold it up, place it into an envelope and mail it to someone.

To who? Well, never to someone entirely unknown, and rarely to someone who lives within a close proximity to me. I like to send my envelopes to people I know, but who I haven't seen or heard from lately. People who are far away to the point where it would be impossible for them to know what it is I am doing at any given moment.

I mean, sometimes I wonder what they are doing. I would like to know what my friend Greg, a stockbroker dude who lives out in Culver City, is eating for dinner. And I would like to know what Mary, a dental hygienist from Denver, was doing yesterday at 5:35 p.m.. Was she lying on the ground? Did she bury herself in laundry and pretend to be an old sock?