ill-advised pants

Often I'll take up the cause of any really bad idea.

Personalized Shoe Laces

The gift shop at the old Springfield-Branson Regional Airport was good for one thing: personalized shoe laces. It was great for another thing: personalized watches. Maybe this blog should be about personalized items in general. No, I think I'll save that. One set of shoe laces reads "Daniel", and the other reads the rarely-used "Danny". This shoe lace collection was photographed with a nice yo-yo backdrop.

Yo-Yo's

In middle junior high school, I began a series of collections that would turn into junior-high-wide fads that everyone got involved in. Even teachers. Even guidance counselors. The first of these was yo-yo's. Where are these yo-yo's today? I don't know. No, they have done the way of so much lost stuff, to wait for us in that nowhere place where every forgotten thought and thing is.


Other Junior High collection fads I started included Pez Dispensers and... bubble accessories.

Twisty Ties

...pending...

Family Pictures

Old Pornography

Soon.

Pears!

Soon.

Stolen Soup Spoons

I love stolen anything. Stolen traffic signs, stolen copyrighted photographs, stolen kisses from the Hershey Factory in Pennsylvania... All of it.

Hangers

I'm fairly impressed with this picture. But it in no way shows the breadth of my hanger collection. And I never really even tried to collect them. I guess that is probably true for most folks. 'specially if you've moved into a new place where someone left hangers and you weren't about adding them to your collection. Bolstering it. Ooo. There's a collection idea. Bolsters.

Varied Tape

Lots of tape.

Gosh I love tape. All different kinds. I could befriend people merely on the fact that they love tape as much as I do. Some of the tape in this stack I'm not sure is tape. But, this includes duct tape, Duck tape, masking tape (which is, admittedly, not all that good at making masks), red electric tape I found somewhere and prize, and some drywall tape. Have fun!

Key Rings

This is not the best representation of my key ring collection.

Rusty Old Fence Staples

Flies

Ew. Rodgey has been killing flies since all the way back in prerecorded history. He hates them so much. And I don't understand why, what with his friendly disposition towards fleas. I prefer a fly to a flea.

Softballs

Frames

Why do I feel like I spelled frames wrong? Should it be a "ph"?

Those little pour nozzles

They always looks like little dogs weeners to me. 

Collectible Army Boots

As far as costuming is concerned, what the Army lacks in comfort they make up in volume. By what I've seen of my brother's collection, each soldier must be issued 12 sets of boots and fatigues, which they strew about wherever they're living. The middle pair of these boots is mint, and has never been worn.

Basketballs

Love 'em. For play on the court and off, nothing beats a basketball. Though they can be rough when used in dodgeball, as we did from time to time growing up, I think it's always good to keep a few basketballs around. Here we have four leather indoor/outdoor balls, and the moneyball.

Paint Cans!

Vintage Liquor

There's some Amaretto, some Kahlua, an old can of unsweetened orange juice, some rum. I think there's like a pine cone in there, too. And what looks like a bottle of Aunt Jemima.

Harpo's Cups

Before the Springfield branch closed, Harpo's Bar was a great source of cheap burgers, free dishwear and second-hand smoke. Sadly it closed it's doors in like, 2007, to accomodate a booming pilates industry. I had a set of 30 cups, but this small group is all that's left after the rest were Rodgeyed.

Shoe Laces

Junk Mail

Anyone has the potential to have as much junk mail as me. They just have to put the effort (or lack of effort) into letting it amass.

Vintage Ninja Turtle Pillow Cases

Forget about the foot in the foreground. This picture is about the fantastic pillow cases I have, which were not purchased together. One was from a garage sale, and one my mom got some place I don't know. Probably a garage sale.

Jordans

Before he was known as a bitter hall-of-fame inductee, Michael Jordan was considered the most prolific spokesperson of the 90s and mid 90s. Neither of these pairs of shoes are remakes, and neither of them get worn outside. Think of the fun that is, wearing another pair out to the car, and carrying these until I'm at a place safe to walk in them. I'd never wear them if I had the slightest inkling I'd be near a crowd. I love inklings.

Shoes!

I brought out all the right shoes for this one. This particular post has been causing a lot of excitement in my head. It just has so much to offer. Several pairs of adidas superstars, a couple pair of Jordans, an odd adidas hiking shoe with somewhat of a built-in spur, Clifford slippers I got my mom for Christmas and then acquisitioned, running shoes, some Nike Cortez, Chucks, Army boots and a bowling shoe.

Drawing Books

While not extremely exciting, or even mildly or at all exciting, I feel like this picture of the covers of all my drawing books to date will come in useful some day. 

Running Shoes

A fair post. It's evident that at least a little effort went into making this one. It's not entertaining at all though. And that's a major problem. Maybe I should throw in the word "vintage" to make things nicer.

Matching Notebooks

My poetry reflects my life. And many of the covers for my poetry collections mirror my notebooks.

Fur-collared women's coats

Slightly inspired by the musical "Cats" I started wanting to have a mane. Or, if I couldn't have a mane, a fur-collared woman's coat. So I bought a couple and had them altered where such things are done. One of these is my favorite, and one is not.

Notebooks from 8 years of college

For 16 semesters I made generous donations to the Mead Corperation. I like to help out needy corperations from time to time. Especially if they make one great line of three ring five subject notebooks. There's a lot of information in these books, both amusing and not. 

Granola Bars

I love buyin' a pile of something and then taking pictures rolling in it. Today it was the Ralph's brand of crunchin' oats 'n honey granola bars, made to look like the Nature Valley honey oats granola bars. When you're rollin' in a pile of them, you really can't tell the different between the store and name brands. So for my money, I say buy the knock-off brand and then throw that into a pile on your bed to splash around in, or to made a headress, as I did in this picture.

Shoes that don't match

Misprints of my last name

Many of these misspellings are my fault. For the tux rental, I told the business that my last name was Nee-well. For the one-hour photo, I believe I confused them by giving the spelling as "N-E-double u-e-double L." I take no responsibility for Mewell, or Neweu. Neweu doesn't look like it could possibly be someone's last name. Thanks!

G.I. Bro Letters

John Art

My roommate John acquired this art a while back when the neighbor below him died. That same neighbor got the bomb squad called on him one time. Or started a fire or maybe parked too close to a hydrant, I dunno. 

Strangely Large Pudding Cans

Poetry Collections

See above.

Army Clothes

Pens!

Much of this collection was made possible by a generous gift from the East Valley YMCA and some chick named Emily. All four of the Cox Health Systems pens are inoperable, and were made that way. Having ink pens close at hand is an important part of my life as a writer and ink pen hoarder.

Gay T-shirts

In high school I used to think it was extremely funny to wear boyband tshirts. I had a couple of 98 Degrees shirts, Ricky Martin, Hanson. Later I thought it would be funny to dye my hair in rainbow streaks. I always thought it would be really funny to have sex with a dude. I haven't yet followed through on that joke.

Thai Baht

This is my collection of 120 Thai Baht.

Sheet Music

"Vocal Selections From..." is the favorite phrase to use in cover art by the designers of Musical Theatre Sheet Music Books. Why Am I Capitalizing Everything? I Don'T Know. This Is Not My Collection. It Belongs To Ashley Cuellar.

YMCA Shirts

My Jerseys



This represents 8 years of intramural basketball here. With over 32 games played, I am the all-time leader in intramural games at Missouri State UniversityAnd two of the shirts are from high school parkboard ball.

Blue NBA Jerseys

These jerseys are nearly vintage. I purchased them to wear for Earth Monster Basketball games. Blue seemed like the easiest color to collect. Even though that meant an Iverson and a Garnett jersey. (Not Pictured: Dwayne Wade's jersey).

Superhero T-Shirts

They don't make a logo tshirt for my favorite superhero, Aquaman. So I made one myself out of a long-sleeve orange tshirt and green gauntlets. This collection has been amassed over several years. Iron man is a cool shirt. I've pretty much worn the life out of Captain America. The grey unrecognizable shirt beside the Green Lantern is another Green Lantern Shirt. I guess I'll do like they do in class pictures. Front Row left to right: Captain America, Fantastic 4, Bizarro, The Punisher. 2nd Row left to right: Iron Man, Velvet Superman, Spiderman, Green Lantern, Green Lantern. Back Row: Batman, Justice League, Superman. (Not pictured here: The Flash)

And here I'm in an aquaman shirt, beside a dude in a dress.

Webcam Pictures of Myself

A logical next step. After getting a webcam, of course I would amass pictures of myself. Interesting thing about me, or perhaps this is uninteresting, I spend most of my time during skype sessions staring at myself. My favorite of these pictures is the one with the slice of bread in the mouth.

Pictures of Fake Trees

Fake trees are plentiful in the Los Angeles area. They help to promote the non-green initiative found here. Also, they kinda look nice, nicer than unadorned cellphone towers at least. I love driver's photography, and this project let me showcase a lot of my skills. The 405 isn't dangerous enough on its own for me. But attempting to get a decent shot of of a fake palm tree in the middle of 4 lanes of traffic is just right.

Alternatively Acquired Bottles of Water

The sign at work said "Do Not Take: Water is for Mother's Day Pamper Party." And I fell in love. Sure Mother's Day had already passed. I still got great joy from taking all the water bottles I could stuff inside of stuff I brought to take water bottles in. It is one of my greatest joys, stealing useful items that don't hurt anyone if you steal them. Just like the oranges on the tree behind the Y.

Vintage ill-gotten oranges

I eat about 200 oranges a year from the tree behind the YMCA. I don't know who owns the tree. I don't care who owns the tree. 

Racquetball rackets

That must be confusing for children learning how to spell, to come across a phrase like :"racquetball rackets". Can we just spell words however we like? Are there no rules governing language? Is there a God? Poor children. My roommate, "The Racquetball Guy" has thousands of racquetball rackets in our apartment. I like to think of them as houseguests.

My roommate's guitars

He's a street musician, and these are his instruments. My favorite is the all-white "Peace" guitar. 

Cattle

My parents started their herd with 20 calves salvaged from a train wreck in Arizona, which they transported back to Missouri in a gutted school bus. Gutted school buses can be fun. I don't use the word cattle that often; I usually use the familiar form "cows". They are beautiful, delicious animals.

Letters from a crazy old tenant

 Her name was Denise Dunson, and for whatever reason, she began leaving large packets filled with letters she'd written each day on the doorknob to my office. I guess I had never told her she shouldn't. The letters smelled of incense, which I decidedly hate. Also, she chanted in kabbalistic prayer during some of the worst hours of the day for loud kabbalistic chanting, according to her neighbors. Mental disease can be ever so much fun. And although I eventually had to unsubscribe to her mailing list,  I've still got a couple trashbags full of letters like this.

Cement Blocks

Cement blocks played a lesser role in my upbringing than used bricks, tires, lumber or railroad ties. But they were still there. And they are here. You're welcome.