Cold Turkey: Day Seven

I’ve decided this whole cold turkey thing is for the birds. I mean, it’s boring. I’ve distanced myself from the day-to-day routine of collecting so much that I’m finding out that I have no desire to do anything related to my previous habits. I don’t want to hit eBay, I don’t surf the comic sites, I don’t hit creators’ blogs. Hell, I don’t even want to read the stack of books I got last week.

Plus, I went through comic after comic this weekend and I can’t wait to be rid of them all. I just want to make room. Room for what, I don’t know. But I’d rather have a closet of nothing than a closet full of comics I don’t want. When Stephanie joked this weekend that I should just throw them all away, I didn’t immediately balk at the idea. What’s worse, I didn’t even think about all the money I could make…instead, I’m just thinking of being able to see the far corner of my closet again.

But it’s not just comics this experiment is affecting. I went to the bookstore this weekend and pretty much had no idea what I was doing there. I was lost. I didn’t want to look too hard in case I saw something I actually wanted. I was like a father going back to the playground where he used to play as a kid. There was some familiarity there, but the feelings were hollow.

And when my friend, Jason, told me to pick up a book he was particularly interested in, I just said, “I can’t buy anything this month.” It wasn’t hard to say at all. I didn’t even have to think about it. It just came out. Like I was used to saying it already. It was like he had offered me a Diet Coke and I simply turned him down because it’s not my thing.

But reading and buying is my thing. That’s what I do. It’s me. So who is this imposter I’m dealing with now? Who is this cold turkey character? Who knows, but I have to admit, I don’t think I like him much.