Guest Post: Sarah MacManus | Teenage Garage Sale

Hi Kim,

Thanks for the opportunity to unload some old stuff and clear out the attic. Do I have to sell it?! Some of it may have antique value by now.

Okay – first up…

1. A copy of the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album – on vinyl with the cutouts intact. First album I ever bought with my own money.
2. A copy of The Runaways first record – on vinyl. The first album I ever stole. I wanted to be Joan Jett when I grew up.
3. A copy of Times Square – the movie. Has Tim Curry in it. On VHS.
4. A large box of really badly written poetry.
5. The ancient stereo my big brother left for me when he joined the service. It has an 8-track player in it and the 1-800 number for the Dr. Demento show written on the turn table cover in grease pencil so I could easily call in and request Weird Al’s “My Bologna.” Again.
6. A stack of scripts from plays I was in or did tech for, including Sexual Perversity in Chicago by David Mamet, Camino Real by Tennessee Williams, Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov and The Birds by Aristophanes
7. A box of handbills from local rock shows and nightclubs. I used to walk around and take them off the telephone polls and tack them up in my room.
8. A selection of vintage undergarments and lingerie – I used to troll through charity shops and buy up old, hand sewn slips, nightgowns and petticoats.
9. A copy of The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving that I “forgot” to take back to the library.
10. An old IBM Selectric typewriter that my parents got me so I could be a ‘real writer.’
11. A pile of rejection slips from prominent literary journals and magazines that I acquired shortly thereafter, learning that it was going to take something a bit more than an electric typewriter.

Well, that’s about all that’s left.

I don’t really have to sell them, right? I was just getting ready to write some poetry, listen to some tunes and maybe start re-reading Hotel New Hampshire again.