Coupeville Sports

A small (very small) smidgen of my vast DVD empire. (David Svien photo)

Passions change.

For a great deal of my life, movies were my obsession.

I worked 15+ years in video stores, watched 10,000+ films (and then stopped counting) and spent much of my time trying to convince the world to see “Bottle Rocket,” then dodging the stuff thrown at me after people disagreed with my recommendation.

Dear people: I was right. You were wrong. Praise be to Owen Wilson’s crushed-in nose!

Since leaving the video store biz in 2009, I have watched a ton more movies, but didn’t actually own a single DVD until a couple months back.

Out of the blue, a friend cleaning out her house gifted me with a chunk of films and TV shows, and then, on a lark, I started to rebuild a collection from other people’s gifts and me running amuck and buying chunks of DVDs.

No movies, and then you look up one morning and the entire duplex is DVDs as far as the eye can see.

2,700 of them.

About that same time, I left my “real” job at Christopher’s on Whidbey after three years, unable to deal with the daily pain the dish pit inflicts on anyone foolhardy enough to enter its tropical climes.

It wasn’t the restaurant that drove me away, but the type of job.

Andreas, the chef/owner, bent over backwards to accommodate me and allow me time to cover games and make Coupeville Sports the vibrant, hyperventilating, low-paying thing it is.

But I couldn’t take the near-constant buzz in my fingers and the aching pain in my right shoulder any more (I don’t think I whined as much when I was washing dishes at 17 … OK, I probably did) and, sure enough, three weeks out, almost all of that is gone.

Of course, even as my pain recedes, so does the already-limited amount of money in my wallet.

My bills are fairly slim ‘n trim (no cell phone, no booze, cigs or Netflix, embracing a cruddy car — all that helps), but I do have one or two that have to be paid.

My landlord, for one, may appreciate I feed his cats, but that only carries so far.

So it was, last week, when something in my personal life hit me like an unexpected semi truck to the forehead and made me stop and reconsider things.

I’m not going in to what that was, but no, I am not sick if that’s what you’re thinking (just the opposite).

The particulars don’t really matter (it’s personal and will stay that way) but I have emerged with a new clarity and a new refusal to sink back into a dark hole as I have done in the past and thought about, for a long moment, doing again.

I don’t want to go back and get a “real” job. I want to do the one thing I do really, really well, and that is to write.

Will Coupeville Sports pay my limited bills? We’ll see.

I greatly appreciate those who have donated to me in the past, and those who have praised my efforts or offered words of encouragement.

If you feel like doing so, there’s a DONATE button on the top right of this page.

Whether it’s $1 or whether you decide to swoop in and fully fund me (I’ll try not to hold my breath…), every bit keeps us careening towards the three-year anniversary (Aug. 15) and our 4,000th article (not that far away actually).

But if you don’t feel like it, don’t, just go on reading for free.

Either way, I’m going forward, fully committed to Coupeville Sports and streamlining my life.

And that means all my DVDs go.

It was nice to have them back for a bit, to live in a video store again (seriously, my duplex is currently all bookcases, with DVDs lined up from “Abandon” to “Zu Warriors.”)

But, it’s not necessary. And I don’t need the constant temptation to buy more.

I lived that life for a long time, and I enjoyed it, greatly.

But times, and priorities, change.

Writing is my calling, always has been, with being a (Penn Cove) beach bum coming up closely behind.

Selling my movies, as I have already started to do (I’m having an epic $1 blow-out sale Saturday) makes sense (and, hopefully, a few dollars and cents).

It is time to live very simply, almost (but not quite) off the grid, doing what makes me happy, even if it barely covers the bills.

And I’m OK with that.