Well, I've received an eviction notice.  Or... some sort of pre-eviction notice.  Seems the city thinks my apartment is in kind of bad shape.  The city is wrong, fortunately. At the moment, my living room contains four or five big plastic crates, which usually dwell in my closets but were taken out and ransacked in search of a W-2 a couple weeks back. Also: two cardboard boxes, which once contained household goods (computer, desk chair) and have since adopted the ad hoc role of laundry hampers.  Needless to day, this makes things look worse than they are.  Once the former make their way back to the closet, and the latter to the dumpster, the living room will be restored to its usual condition (i.e. living.)  This will happen at some point in the next few hours.  The whole thing is ridiculous, because crates don't constitute a health or fire hazard anyway.  Not even laundry does, really... I guess laundry would burn if you set it on fire, but I wasn't planning to do that.

Also, there is a bicycle in the living room.  I'm not sure why this is a problem for the housing bureau, but I will just move the bicycle to another room or something. (They didn't tell me where they wanted the bicycle.)  Alternately, does anyone want a bicycle?

Also, the thirty-year-old linoleum tile in my kitchen has started to crack.  I am pretty sure this is my landlord's problem, and the law seems to agree on this matter. 

So I figure that they do not have a case against me.  I am a little worried that they are trying to force me out of the apartment for devious reasons of their own -- rent-raising? -- but if that is the case, I will gladly make a deal with them: they don't evict me, and I leave on my own next month.  I've been considering moving out anyway.

Every cloud has a silver lining, though.  In this case, my frantic cleaning exercises have uncovered a long-misplaced recording of myself performing comedy at the long-running, now-defunct open mic held at the Emerald Isle bar in lovely Dorchester, Mass. on October 29, 2002.  I started performing on October 7, so this is probably something around my fifth or sixth performance.  I haven't seen it in a few years, but I do recall a few details:

- I weighed about 300 pounds at the time, and as it was cold in Boston, I frequently wore a huge gray parka with a plaid lining.  This fashionable look caused a local comic who saw my second show (October 10, Comedy Studio, Cambridge) to make a message board post comparing my appearance to that of A Confederacy of Dunces' famous antihero Ignatius Reilly.  (Inadvertently foredooming me to despise that particular book when I read it a few months later.)

- I did an early version of the virginity joke, and also the "It's Raining Men" joke, and the Noah's Ark joke I still sometimes do.  I also did an inexplicable thing about  the words "gloves" and "socks" sounding like "love" and "sex".  That was the joke.  (The joke that I did.)

- You think Erik didn't start riffing until 2007?  Think again!  This tape opens with me exchanging words with host John David regarding a bit he did earlier concerning the Olsen Twins.  You've probably never heard Erik say the words "Question: Are we not men?  Answer: We are the Olsen Twins".  There's a good chance you've never even heard Erik say "Olsen Twins".  Well, you will hear that as soon as I can transfer this tape to an online-ready format. 

This process will most likely be a higher priority if I'm not evicted.