Lately, I’ve been flooding Craigslist, posting many of my toys for sale. In my manic desire to scrape up half of one percent of the trillion dollars required for a down payment in the greater NYC area, I’ve decided that sacrificing gadgets and gizmos is just and noble.

Thus far, I’ve sold off a beautiful Nikon 17-55/2.8 DX lens.

Also on the chopping block are:

• My restored 1979 Vespa P200E
• My Nikon D200

Unposted items are:

• My insanely amazing custom Tim Scruggs pool cue
• My Dual 867 G4 and 17” Cinema Display
• Quite possibly, my Liberty LO100 biscuit-cone resonator (think Dobro)
• Very possibly, my Konica Minolta DiMAGE 5400 II 35mm film/slide scanner

Who knows what else I’ll dig out.

The point of this post is not only to take inventory (and to get a bit more attention on these items), but to point out that, should each item sell for its asking price, I’ll have added only $7200 towards the cause. That’s 1/10th the price of a down payment for a decent house in Jersey.

One tenth.

Ten percent.

Ten percent of twenty percent of a house.

Some folks say you are a ‘real’ New Yorker the day you start talking endlessly about getting out of the city.

I’m the mayor of this motherfucker. I’m the Statue of Liberty.

ADDED I decided against selling the scanner. The cue, I’m sending off to Tim Scruggs for a refinish and rewrap. I sold the G4.

Hi. My name is Toby Joe Boudreaux. I’m gonna be a pappy.

My wife, Michele, being unfathomably old already and seeing the label “Crazy Cat Lady” screeching towards her, asked if I would consider politely knocking her ass up.

I am, above all else, a generous gent, obsessed with satiating the needs of all women nearby, and therefore could hardly refuse such a request.

Hence, progeny.

Seeds sown. Metaphors uttered.

I’m quite excited to have a kid, I must say.

I’d hate to disparage the place, and I prefer to adhere to the “Dance with that who brung ya” rule, but my time in Georgia taught me very little about fatherhood – or fathers, for that matter.

I learned that at least one addiction is requisite, and that a firm one-to-three vice-to-arrest correlation must be maintained at all times. I learned that jobs aren’t really that important, and careers are for yankees. I learned that it’s imperative to leave town before your offspring can pick you out of a lineup.

Luckily, I refuse to learn from others. As Michele’s own father taught me to ask, “What good can come of that?”

I imagine our child will crap a lot, and throw up, and cry. It’ll have a pasty white belly and tiny genitals. The costs will be significant, but so will the joy. And so on and so forth.

Lately, friends have been breeding. It’s not unlike 1999, when everyone I knew was starting a company.

I missed out on that boat – probably because it required knowledge more complex than General Weiner Usage.

This time, I’m on board.

Daddy on board.