had a commercial use for this reasonably vast collection of things that drill, cut, drive, poke, pound, and prod. Having said that, I now use about four of them on a regular basis and couldn’t tell you today where a lot of them are—what with their tendency to grow legs and walk off—but I know I own a lot of them.

There are the books. Almost on principle I am tempted to exclude books from the land of “things” or “stuff.” As a writer and fan of writing, I tend to hold written works by others—with some categories of writing excepted—in the highest possible regard. They are acts of love, or at least intellect, and therefore are granted rights of display and permanence in our house that is way, way disproportionate to the amount of time I spend actually reading them or referencing them (buy it, read it, keep it for twenty years).

I personally own and use three computers, two printers, a scanner, three tables, two office chairs, two routers, assorted cables, and lots of office supplies for the purpose of earning money and staying out of the way of the other people in the