The Bloody Doors Off

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.
But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

The King James Bible, Corinthians 1:13

Don’t worry, I’m not about to go on a religious rant.

Another time.

This is about letting shit go.

And I’m not talking about ‘so-and-so did me wrong [15] years ago, and only now am I able to forgive’.

I mean, actual physical shit.

Like cigarettes.

Took me three tries, and being locked up in the psych ward for three days to help kick the habit.

(Seriously, if you haven’t caught up on that adventure, check out my posts from 2013.)

I did stop.

But I replaced it with vaping.

At first, there was nicotine, but I began to wean myself off of that to where I am now, basically inhaling water vapour.

Or, where I was two weeks ago.

‘Cuz when I had the top teeth removed, I wasn’t allowed to smoke or vape for four days.

A day longer than when I threw away the cigarettes.

And this was without nicotine.

So no cravings.

I haven’t donated my vapes to the next person who wants to quit.

Not yet.

But I will.

And now comes an even more monumental task.

I’ve been collecting comics since I was twelve.

Over the years, I’ve made a conscious effort to pare down my collection.

Moving a dozen comic book boxes from one apartment to the next will motivate you to do that.

At first, I sold only to a serious collector, who gave me good money for some of my stuff.

And I had good stuff.

Giant Size X-Men #1. Excellent condition.

Todd McFarlane’s first issue of Spider-Man, and his first issue of Spawn.

Stuff like that.

Anyways.

I currently have (I think, because the store didn’t have comic book boxes today) three boxes of comics.

Ninety percent of them? Unread.

I’ve been going through the motions, collecting.

Always telling myself I’ll find a day to get into them.

During the pandemic, I started winnowing down the number of titles I collected.

And then stores closed for a few months; everything got backlogged. Not to mention the FUBAR DC Comics walking away from the one distributor who could guarantee the ship date and the delivery date.

I was there on day one when the Silver Snail re-opened.

But aside from picking up the last remnants of a DC event title and a few others, my pile was shrinking further.

The past three weeks, there’s been nothing in the pre-order that interested me.

I think I was down to five or six titles? If I’m being generous.

So today I made the choice.

I’m gonna continue to enjoy the hell out of the MCU movies and television shows, and give the DCEU a chance, but I’m selling off the last of my collection.

Once I can acquire the comic book boxes.

Because ya know, you’d think a comic book store would have them to sell.

You’d think.

You’d be wrong.

So it might be a little bit before the Final Purge.^TM

But it’s time I moved on from the comics.

Just don’t come for my coffee.

‘Cuz I’ll cut you.