What I'm throwing away today:

a postcard advertising a 2006 fringe festival show, Every Nigger Is a Star, written and performed by Mario Burrell of Rent

a smaller pink RSVP postcard for a November 1991 IRTS event about Talk Shows ($45 per person)

an equally small RSVP postcard for a September 1992 IRTS event with FCC chairman Alfred C. Sikes ($50 per person)

a clipping from Assemblywoman Adele Cohen's newsletter. She's photographed with Hillary Clinton and some other official types who were joining forces to keep New York City's only active military base, the Fort Hamilton Army Base, open.

a 9/8/98 receipt from the Trader Joe's in Scarsdale for 14 items (I was able to buy more at a time when I lived in the suburbs and had a car)

an April 1992 mailing from IRTS Under-30's for a program called "Selling in the Cable Arena"; free and only $10 for nonmembers.

a green RSVP card for an IRTS luncheon, "Public Television: Dawn of a New Era or Twilight?," June 18, 1992, for $45, at 12:30, and a flier advertising the panel: Dr. William F. Baker, Les Brown and Dick Hubert.

a green one-page IRTS Under-30s invitation to the Museum of the Moving Image on Saturday Nov. 23rd (it only cost $5 at the time!) with plans to meet for dinner afterward. Wish I had gone!

a blue one-page notice from the IRTS Sports Division (yes, I was a member of that too) for "The Sports Radio Listener! Who Are They? Where Are They? How Do We Know?" on Thurs., Dec. 5, 1991. Tickets only $10 to $20.

a white one-page flyer advertising and IRTS Newsmaker Luncheon on Tues., Nov., 26, 1991, at the Waldorf-Astoria, featuring such notables of the day as Deborah Norville, Maury Povich, Montel Williams and Jenny Jones. Those were the days...

four stapled note pages of notes that I took while I watched "Side Effects"

a doubled-sided missive from Diana M. Gurieva, president of Planned Parenthood of New York City, from Oct. 18, 1989, about President Bush and federal Medicaid Funds for Abortion a receipt from Marseille dated 10/30/2010 at one in the afternoon. The bill, with tip, came to $65.05. I do hope Brian joined my mom and me for that brunch.

Twenty years after I graduated from college, I think it's time to re-purpose the cylinder mailer that my diploma came in, with an Oct. 5, 1993 postmark and sent me in Allentown, PA. I'm using it to send out a small Mad Men promotional poster that I picked up at Comic Con a couple of years ago.

Kitchen Clutter

It's just getting too hard for me to locate important papers (like last year's unfiled tax documents!). So this week I am determined at least to get my financial affairs in order. I'm starting in an unusual place, the kitchen. How many important papers could actually accumulate amid pots and pans and cans and bags of food? You'd be surprised.

The kitchen is the first room one enters from my front door, and it's often the place where I open my mail and store the items that I think I should keep but don't want to deal with at the moment.

And so I never deal with them. That's why I came upon a card from Fresh Direct for a free delivery and $10 off an order (both expired last spring), and lots of Valpak coupons for local restaurants and car services, some of which expired more than a year ago. There's a coffee-stained offer from Dell for savings on an extended warranty, which expire 6/29/08; one from Bay Ridge Sushi that expired 11/15/08; and a 15 percent off coupon for drapes and linens from J.C. Penney.

Coat Clutter

It's amazing the things that you find when you go through coat pockets. They're like little memories of where you used to go. Tonight I found a bank receipt for $60 from the TB Banknorth on Spring Street in Williamstown, Mass., from 8/18/07. (And I had an available balance of $2,331.22; how did that happen?)

Finding these bank receipts is a painful reminder of the days when I was flush with cash. On 1/21/10, just before I was laid off, my checking balance was $3,770.02. Even if the rent check hadn't yet cleared, that's still pretty good. One from a Brooklyn Bank of America on 2/16/09 shows a balance of $1,751.56. Two years later I'm lucky if the average balance is more than $1,000.

Old News

During the year between college and the rest of my life that I spent living at home, I collected a lot of newspapers. (Why should that chapter in my life be any different from the others?) Some of which are only now being excavated from their rest place of the last 20-plus years.

I collected a lot of pages from the classified section in those days as I looked for work. I'm trying to figure out why I saved page D17 of the Sunday, May 16, 1993 Morning Call. What work was I interested in under the "Miscellaneous" section? The Highlite Models call at the Easton Sheraton? More likely the Lehigh Valley Donor Center ad for paid blood/plasma donors. Fifteen dollars for a half-hour's work? That's more than I make in 2011.

I also saved page B39 from the Saturday, June 19, 1993 edition. I appear to have been setting my sights a bit higher that day: I think the ad I was responding to was for
"Writers: Needed for proposed up scale regional magazine. Free-lance calendar editor & feature writers. 717-264-1856.

I finally sold a lot of 12 New York magazines on eBay. It feels like an accomplishment even if it's not helping me cut the clutter as much as I would like. The buyer requested that I put two pieces of cardboard between each magazine. What?!? I don't keep a surplus of cardboard around, but I will do my best. However, I think my best may only be one piece in between the magazines. Still, this gives me ample opportunity to rid myself of whatever stray cardboard I have hanging around. Like an old Priority Mail envelope from March 29, 2000 sent Screenplace.com in Fillmore, CA. (Was this the Homicide I bought from eBay?)

The heat finally came on yesterday, which meant it was time to pull out a heavier coat. It's always like taking a trip to the recent past. I reached into my pocket and found a post-office receipt from April 22 (we did have a very cold spring) for $2.28 for a package that I sent to Birmingham, Alabama, exactly six months ago.