A list of things in my carry-on bag...

A list of things in my carry-on bag...

Cleaning up around the house this afternoon. I got back from New York Sunday night, and worked 24 hours out of 31 from Monday to Tuesday. I am just today getting around to unpacking, getting the dirty clothes into a hamper, getting books and playpretties put back into their place.

In fairness, I should note that I did dig my shaving kit out of my bag Sunday night, if only because my toothbrush, toothpaste, jock-itch powder and shampoo specially designed for flaky-skinned-motherfuckers were all in there, and I couldn't really do without...

Because I am feeling particularly obsessive compulsive this afternoon, here and now, a list of the things I dig out of my SwissGear backpack...

• In the front pocket, we find first my MP3 player. I'd loaded a few more songs onto my player before I left (Beatles, mostly--my Obladi kick the other day ended up with me finding a copy of the White Album), but I think that with the exception of an hour or so sitting in the Newark airport, I didn't listen to it. Good thing, because as they began calling for our flight, I started to lose a charge.
• A pack of Trident Wild Blueberry Twist gum. This is my current favorite gum. Judge that however you may--it unseated Big League Chew (any flavor), which was the undisputed Champion for nearly 20 years. I bought this at a newsstand at the Newark airport, leaving Sunday. Mostly to help my ears, on the airplane....the sound of a 6'4" man crying his lungs out because his ears are bothering is disconcerting to most travelers, flight attendants and pilots. In this day and age after September 11th, I figure paying a buck for a pack of gum is a safe hedge to keep me from being de-planed.
  
• The pair of earphones I was looking for before the trip. How's that for irony? I was looking for those boogers to pack them, and they were packed prior to my packing. They've probably been in there since the spring.
• Moving to the second pocket, we find:
  
• The Sunday New York Post. Bought at the newsstand in Newark, because I forgot that my folks had asked me to stow their newspaper in my bag. Had I remembered, I might have bought it still. Any time I hit the area, I like picking the post. It's a rag, but the pictures are generally the most entertaining....
• The Sunday Star Ledger. I was carrying this for the folks. I still have it. Being a newspaper nerd, I'll probably hold onto the front page.
• My copy of Joe Lansdale's Leather Maiden, which might be Joe's best outing in years. His last couple have been disappointing to me, but this one's a fine return to form. It's been a little while since I've had a book that I didn't want to put down. Just fun reading. Joe's a helluva storyteller...I always recommend him. I started reading it a couple nights before we left, and got maybe 40 pages in. I read the first half on the flight up, and got 20 pages from the end on the flight back. I was actually hoping for a long taxi to the terminal in Atlanta, to finish it there. (There was a long taxi...in a Big Stupid Tommy first, the plane actually got to Atlanta ahead of schedule...we had to wait for our berth to empty of another plane).
  
• IN the last pocket....
• A copy of Cormac McCarthy's Suttree, which I brought with me in case I finished Leather Maiden. I finished Leather Maiden in the car on the way up to Tennessee. I didn't start this one. I think it'll be the next thing I read.
• A copy of Marvel Essential's Avengers, volume 6. I got on an Avengers kick about the time Iron Man came out this summer, and have been picking up the Essentials on Ebay. This one's been my toilet reading at home, and I took it with me for that purpose up north. It didn't ever come out of my bag. I did crap in New York and New Jersey. How about them apples?
• A legal pad. I wrote a few snippets of dialogue, and a couple other small snippets. Nothing serious. I never go anywhere without my legal pad.
• Two ballpoint pens. One is a Papermate Write Bros, which I bought six packs of at work not long back. The packs were 3/$1. For 3 cents a pen, they write satisfactorily, though they do smudge to a small degree, and I warn you that if some bastard booby-traps one of the the pens by breaking the tip off and putting the lid back on? You'll be tattooed in the color of that pen's ink for a couple of days. The other pen is a Uni-Ball Signo, which I probably stole from my boss, at work. This is an amazingly good pen, and it may be close to replacing the PenTech Zebra as my favorite.....