I have a strange relationship with the fantasy genre. From roughly age 10-13, my literary tastes tended toward books with barbarians on the cover. I’d always been a voracious reader, but something just clicked when I worked my way through the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander and almost without meaning too, I found myself mired in various epic battles. Seventh and eighth grade were when I discovered Dungeons and Dragons, and though I only played the game on a few sporadic occasions it opened the door to the morass of tie-in novels. R.A. Salvatore and company lead me through the hormonal soup of my early teen years. I spent more time reading about dwarven gold and elven longbows than I probably should have.

Eventually I drifted away. I started reading selections from the canon in my A.P. English classes and Kerouac or any other book I thought might make me seem cool to disaffected young women. From there, I became an English major and my focus tended to the more literary, proper fiction. Part of me never lost sight of the genre. I would occasionally pick up the latest in a series I had followed in my younger days, but I never returned to the level of fervent fandom my 12 year old self felt when he would stay up all night turning the pages of slightly yellowed David Eddings paperbacks.

As much as I like to think of myself as a rebel nonconformist who does what he pleases without a care for what people think, I know deep down that the stigma of being a geek had something to do with my shift. I did consciously decide that at some point I wanted to have sex, and maybe walking around with a dog eared copy of The Might of the Dragon Emperor’s WarKillers: Tales From the Kingdom of Le’ve’n'ti’ri’a wasn’t the best way to accomplish that particular goal. The girls I wanted to woo needed to hear me drop knowledge about the sensitive and the weird, not relay the latest doings of lavender-eyed dark elves. This applied doubly to the cute girls behind the counter at Barnes & Noble and the art student with horned rim glasses who I took German I with.

I know it’s shallow, but I felt vaguely embarrassed to be seen reading fantasy literature. But I never entirely lost the urge. How do I know? Because as soon as I got my Kindle last year I immediately began downloading cheesy fantasy novels. I have made peace with my geekdom since my late teenage rebellion from it, but there’s still a social cost to reading trashy fantasy novels on the bus or train that I don’t know I am willing to pay. The Kindle removes that social cost. I can download the books without anyone seeing the covers. Since I’ve gotten it, I’ve still read literary fiction. I’ve read a few nonfiction books. But I keep returning to the apostrophe-filled prose of the fantasy genre. When I read them, no none around me knows that I’m not reading Cloud Atlas. The Kindle strips my nerdy tendencies bare. It turns my homescreen into an inescapable reminder that I am a huge nerd.

2. The Strokes are a band that I’ve followed since they first broke onto the scene during my first year in undergrad.

Julian Casablancas and company have delivered album after album of kick-ass songs. Maybe the didn’t turn out to be the Indie Messiahs who would change the Face of Modern Rock; as some of the more ardent critics proclaimed them after Is This It? but I have enjoyed the slow progression of their sound all the way down to Angles It’s been on daily rotation since I downloaded it from Amazon for $3.99 in one of the best daily deals Amazon has yet put out there. This album has a slightly 80s vibe to it, but in a good way.

3. Dragon Age II is my first real exposure to the series.

I did try to get into Origins but I was stymied by the difficulty level. I ended up not having fun because even when I micromanaged my party to within an inch of their lives, I still got schooled by nearly every Darkspawn we ran across. I was a big fan of Mass Effect games, so getting reacquainted with the BioWare approach to role playing wasn’t that hard. Dragon Age 2 is easier than its predecessor, in that it is actually possible for your followers to make rational decisions for themselves, such as drinking a health potion after they get knocked on their ass by orc-blades or not jumping in front of the toughest bad guy in the room when they are out of stamina. I also like the self-contained nature of the smaller scale adventure. Your hero basically just hangs out in the city and the setting changes temporally instead of spatially. That being said, I do wish that the you could check out more areas in the city and run through the same damn dungeon ten times. Nothing is more fun than setting up a cross class combo and having your rogue disorient an enemy just long enough for your spellcaster to bring the mystical pain. I also enjoy the way you go into conversational cut-scenes covered head to to in the gory ichor of your foes and just start chuckling with your buddies like it’s the end of Scooby Doo.

I’ve gone a little nuts with the Ebay thing.

My auction insanity has deepened along two separate vectors: the madness of buying and a deep addiction to selling. Both activities keep me consistently logged in to the service, checking and rechecking MyEbay for any action, any infinitesimal shift in the bidding price of items.

The buying is easy to explain. There are any number of great deals you can finagle if you sweep in to the right auction at the right time, but there is more at work than mere frugality. The strength of Ebay lies in man’s greed and avarice. There is something tremendously satisfying of feeling like you are taking advantage of some poor sap who put his treasure out into the stream of commerce without a reserve and with free shipping. I enjoy the notion that I am swindling some sucker from Palookaville out of his hard-earned trade paperbacks. At the same time, the nature of the auction format ensures that I nearly always end up paying just slightly more than I wanted to but still less than the items would retail for. I work hard to restrain my competitive impulses and for the most part I am successful. But not always.

And the selling aspect of my addiction funnels into the buying. The items that I sell (primarily my comic books) go for less than I paid for them, but the income feels like found money. When a buyer pays me, the money sits in my paypal account. The convenience of using those funds to  pay for my next purchase is too tempting to ignore. The proceeds of my sales rarely make the transfer to my bank account.

Selling my possessions feels good. There is something liberating about shedding the barnacles that attach as I age and getting rid of my worldly goods. The feeling is addictive. The more I think about the unlikelihood of rereading my Eternal Champion novels, replaying Doom 3, or rewatching my Sopranos dvds the greater the pointlessness in leaving them sitting on my shelf. I have been a student for far too long to amass any serious material wealth but my geekier tendencies has filled my bookshelves with all manner of books, comics, games, and knickknacks. All of which I have enjoyed, none of which will ever serve me again in the future. So I commit them to the internet, letting Ebay find them an appropriate home. It feels better than simply dropping them off in a box at Goodwill, and offers some monetary compensation for my years of rampant consumerism.

I wouldn’t say this urge to purge has reached the level of compulsion, but it could progress that far. As it is, I now frequently buy book lots, read them, and then almost immediately post them for resale. Generally, I break even or lose money on the deal. I just chalk it up to the pleasure of reading the books and consider it a rental fee, which is a bargain for the hours of entertainment I get. Occasionally I  make a profit.

But I’m not accruing anything, no tangible objects of my culture. In my younger days I would look at my sprawling stacks of comics and books with a sense of pride. I would even sort of show them off when people came in my room. Although, I did make an effort to hide my comics when I thought I might be bringing a ladyfriend back to the boudoir. Ah, the insecurity of youth. At any rate, even as I enjoy clearing space and ensuring that my next move will involve carrying fewer boxes I feel a tinge of regret, an inescable shudder of loss. It makes me think about the nature of media, and how it is changing. It also makes me want a Kindle, under the theory that if I am not keeping the physical objects I might as well not even bother buying them and make the shift to digital media. But that feels like something that smarter men than I are already thinking about. But that is a post for another day. For now, I need to check on my auctions to see if there’s been any action since I last refreshed ten minutes ago.

1. Play More Video Games

Last year I sold my X-Box 360 because I was short on cash and couldn’t bring it with me to Australia since the power supply was incompatible with Australian sockets, which run directly off power generated from kangaroos jumping on trampolines and are shaped like jars of Vegemite. My reasoning was that I wouldn’t be able to play video games for over half the year anyway, and I could just buy it back when the urge to rain hot-lasered death on my pixellated enemies became unbearable. I spent a good chunk of last Christmas playing Fallout 3 and Dead Space on my brother’s PS3, and although that video game binge allowed me to get it out of my system for a while I knew that there would come a time when I once again had to buy myself a video game console. That time is now. The problem is that I kind of liked the PS3 experience and Infamous looks bad-ass. But bad-ass enough to make the switch back to Sony after so many years canoodling with Microsoft? Are there likely to more exclusive titles that will once again chain me to brand loyalty? Hard to say. The X-Box 360 had some great exclusives as well…

2. Get to Book-Stack Zero

I periodically tell myself that I can’t buy any more books until I finish reading the backlog that threatens the structural integrity of my nightstand. I take a solemn vow that I will in no way purchase another book, swearing that this time I will have the discipline to follow through. It usually lasts until the next Borders 40% off coupon arrives in my inbox or I pass the Books, Inc. on a Sunday morning stroll with nothing better to do than browse around until I inevitably buy something. (There is never anything better to do). My rate of reading is relatively swift, and will likely increase now that I am using Muni to get to work instead of walking to school. Reading on the bus is one of my favorite activities. Since I buy and read at roughly the same rate the stack of unread books tends to stay at a stable height, usually about four deep. Not huge (especially compared to The Girlfriend’s stack, which could take up an entire wing of the Library of Congress) but this summer, I aim to read every last book on the list. That means finally polishing off the Borges collection I’ve been savoring for the better part of a year by reading a few stories at a time. It also means choking down 1776 by David McCollum. I bought this last year when I watched John Adams and contemplated a career as colonial American lawyer. I always THINK I want to read about history, but the experience proves tough to get through. No matter how skillful the historian, I still need a little fictionalization.

3. Shape Up

Finals are a dangerous time for my waistline and I’m starting the summer off with the telltale snugness of my pants that always signal that I’ve tilted away from stout and toward chubby. Who would have thought that sitting motionless for eleven hours a day while reading hornbooks and constantly stress-eating would be bad for me? I haven’t exercised in forever, and my constantly expanding ass shows it. You know what that means: bootcamp! I can just work out on my own, but I find the collective experience of forcing myself to wake up early and endure an ordeal for a fixed block of time is a big help. I always lose weight and feel better when I participate in one of these things, so I plan on starting one soon. In the past, I have taken a pugilistic approach to getting in shape. Now I’m contemplating something a little less focused on boxing and more of a general fitness experience. San Francisco has many bootcamps to choose from, and even now I’m deciding which one suits me. Military? Fish-based? General Purpose? Whichever one I go with, I’m sure that it will help me get back on the right track.

4. Ship Out

I want to travel some. The work week will keep me in San Francisco from Monday to Friday, but each weekend is a new opportunity to get out. I’m not sure what my plans are post-graduation. This could very well be beginning of the end of my west coast tenure and I will make sure to hit up as many spots out here as I can while I still have the chance. I’m taking a trip to Portland, as I do from time to time. And after work finishes, I will hit up Vancouver before making a likely ill-advised return to Las Vegas before classes resume for the fall semester. Before then, I’m going to try to take as many day/weekend trips as possible and explore North California. So far, I’ve barely been out of San Francisco, and not really very far out of the Bay Area at all.

I realize that some of these goals don’t fit very well together, if not totally mutually exclusive. Sitting on a couch playing video games will definitely eat up hours I could spend traveling, and it’s not the best activity when you’re goal is to get in shape. Likewise travel isn’t the best way for me to get in shape, since I generally eat out and drink more than I should. Nevertheless, a summer that satisfies all these goals will be an awesome one indeed.

Also, wherever possible I plan to integrate beer into the aforementioned activities.

The summer of Sean begins.

For this reason, I have long been a proponent of doing away with antiquated traditions like the wedding ring. Why should I be forced to wear decorative frill just because I’ve gotten married. I concede the importance of a symbol of everlasting love, so I therefore propose the “Wedding Belt.” It’s circular like a ring and won’t annoy me like other jewelry

The reverse is also true; I push desks and tables away from me instead of sliding my chair away from them. (Often with greater force than is strictly necessary).