I have more possessions than I can count. Hell, I have more possessions than I know about. There are things that belong to me in other parts of the world right now. I left a notebook with all sorts of strange and interesting drawings in it in New Mexico when I got off of a tour bus. I left my favorite pair of brown slip on walking shoes in a hotel 20 minutes before that. Are these things that someone has taken and claimed for their own? Are they rotting in a landfill?
	It really doesn't matter to me anymore. I've gotten over it. It would be cool if someone said, hey, I found these, but it's not important.
	Right now, there are several possessions that people in the U.S. favor as being valuable (note that I didn't say America. America includes the U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, and all of South America. It's a friggin continent, people). These include : houses and property, Automobiles, T.V. sets, various large pieces of furniture, swimming pools, things of this nature. Big, expensive, can't live without them.
	F*ck that. I couldn't care less about my car right now. Or my room. Or the computer that I'm typing this on. The only thing that means anything to me right now is my girlfriend Sara and her jacket.
	Last night, after going to a haunted house and the Monroe homecoming dance (we won the game, by the way) she and I traded sweatshirts. It was a last minute decision, just before we went home.
	I love the way her jacket smells. It reminds me of her, and her house, and all the time I've spent in it (not much time, but important none-the-less). I can wrap it around a pillow and hug it and imagine that she's with me. I can put it on and memorize the rips and tears in the sleeves. I can toy with the lucky pennies and sharpies and lint in the pockets. I can pretend I'm not lonely without her.
	Smell is an interesting sense. The human imagination is mostly audio visual, and somewhat touch sensitive, but smells are a bit hard to remember and describe until you actually have the smell right there in front of you. Nobody starts a concept for a movie or a game or a book and says, Okay, what scent are we going for here? Christmas wouldn't be Christmas around my house if it weren't for Mom's coookies and a big ol' tree. Halloween wouldn't be the same without the scent of plastic masks and pumpkin pie and jack o' lantern candles.
	I'm not a fan of scented soap. Scented candles, sure. Scented food, of course. I'll even go for scented stickers. But scented soap is not on my list. Granted, some people need it because they are so hideously nasty that normal soap screams in terror and withers when it approaches their armpits. But for the rest of us...
	It's hard to approach this subject. I guess I'm trying to say that I like the way most people smell naturally much better than any foo-foo perfume or cologne they could put on. Every now and then I'll come across a scent that enraptures me (like Victoria's Secret vanilla lace. Mmmm... yummy), but for the most part I enjoy the simpler smells.
	Have you ever noticed that your friends houses seem to have a particular smell? You walk in and catch a wiff and get nostalgic about the things that you used to do with that friend, like play that card game where you get your hand smashed a lot, or whatever. Wait a minute, you say, my friend (Ted)'s house doesn't smell that way. Well then I ask you, does (Ted) use a lot of scented cleaners? Does (Ted) actually clean his room once a month?
	When I went to the National Boy Scout Jamboree (yes, I'm a widdle Boy Sprout) on the East coast for a week and then came home, it was a very strange experience indeed. I came in the door and smelled my house and I realized with a huge wave of nostalgia that I had missed it. It's hard to place when you live in it for so long, but go away for a while and it becomes apparent that your home has a particular smell to it.
	So enjoy your pretty cars, your fancy pools, your huge stereos... I'll be off sniffing things. Like Sara.

James "Muffin" Crockett
but right now I prefer Cid.

Note: It isn't my intention to seem one sided at all. I'll always have a place to go in my car, I'll always need a roof to sleep under, and a particular large friend of mine will always need scented soap; some things are just better free.