votary VOH-tuh-ree, noun: 1. One who is devoted, given, or addicted to some particular pursuit, subject, study, or way of life. 2. A devoted admirer. 3. A devout adherent of a religion or cult. 4. A dedicated believer or advocate.

Votary comes from Latin votum, "vow," from the past participle of vovere, "to vow, to devote." Related words include vow and vote, originally a vow, hence a prayer or ardent wish, hence an expression of preference, as for a candidate.

Ex.: Are you a votary of someone or something? If you’re reading this, and I think that you are, my guess would be “yes”, and I think I know who it is. Does his name start with a “C”? Does it end in a “y”? Does his last name have five letters, including an "a" and a "k"? Was he on AI2? Is it Corey Clark? HAHA! (Tm CHA) Just kidding! If you aren’t sure if you’re a votary or not, just ask a member of your intervention team.

One day not long ago, I was doing some tidying up in one of my main backup auxiliary Clay shrines and decided to re-organize things. I have some pretty good stuff, if I do say so myself. But I had reservations on whether any of it was archived properly or protected to the fullest extent possible, or displayed to the best advantage. As a result of several days’ work and loss of many brain cells, I’d like to offer some practical tips on maintaining your clack collection.

Magazines:

Of course, everyone knows the maxim “one to lick, one to keep”, so I see no need to go over that again. But what’s the best way to keep your periodicals in mint condition? For me, the secret is using mylar or polypropylene bags and backing boards. I’m not kidding. Something like this: http://www.bagsunlimited.com/cart/browse.asp?subcat=106. Um, unless that appears to be excessive or freaky or something, in which case I have no idea what anyone is supposed to do. What magazines? In any event, you’ll probably need two sizes, one for regular-sized magazines, and one for Rolling Stone and HITS.

I store all my magazines in clear plastic tubs, with dividers. They are sorted in alphabetical order by magazine title, and then by issue date. Or that’s how I would do it if I were all anal retentive and stuff, which I’m not. So do what you want. I’m just saying, that’s what I would do if I were to go all Clay Aiken fan on some magazines. Which I don’t even have.

CDs:

I have a few sealed copies of the Clingle, the Sway, both kinds of MoaMs, MCWL, AIW and ATDW. I bought some little bubble-wrap bags at Wal-Mart that are supposed to be for Christmas ornaments, but they work great for this. They are the same size as a cd jewel case, and you can see through them enough to know what’s in there. The bubble wrap keeps the cellophane all nice and tidy and protects the plastic case from scratches or breakage. The bags are even big enough for the larger speciality cd cases, such as for the SingaMoaM, the ChinaMoaM, and the JapaMoaM. And, as a bonus, you can pop the bubbles to soothe your frayed nerves while you’re hiding in your shrine when the kids get home. Or so I’ve heard.

I also have the radio promo cds for Invisible and The Way. I want one for Solitaire, but haven’t been able to find one yet. I also don’t have any of the early Clay stuff, but if you do, you might want to keep those in a safe deposit box. Or send them to me, and I’ll keep them for you forever. If anything in the preceding paragraph makes me look like a psycho, forget I even said anything.

Ticket Stubs:

I have all of my concert ticket stubs, except I can’t find my Raleigh NC State Fair stub for some reason. I wonder if somebody stole it. Actually, that sounds about right, since I took a seat from a Raleighite anyway. Oh well. Karma’s a bitch sometimes, ain’t it? It serves me right.

Anyway, I decided to laminate my ticket stubs because they were getting all bent and dog-eared, and I already had a heat laminator, so I figured, why the heck not? But let this be a lesson to everyone - DO NOT laminate real Ticketmaster tickets. Something happens to the paper and it turns completely black when it gets hot. So now I have about six pieces of laminated black paper in my collection. I cried. It was sad.

Pins:

I only have a few pins. That pin collecting craze got out of hand, if you ask me. I was looking at some of the newer pins on one of the fan sites, and there are about 8,000 different kinds now, including “A Celebration of Clay’s Socks” and “DTTL/DTTR - Festive Occasions and Everyday”, which are so over the top it’s just plain scary. Honestly, I don’t know who would buy such a thing. PM me if you have extras. Thanx.

Misc.:

I have a few other mementos and souvenirs that required special handling, such as a few autographed items (but nothing personalized, boohoo), my wedding registry, the skin off my hand after he touched it, and a jacket I was wearing when I think he looked at me once. There’s also that piece of Dentyne Fire gum that I found on the sidewalk next to Clay’s bus in Baltimore last December. I’m not positive that it is his, but you never know. It has a tooth mark in it that looks suspiciously like one of his pretty little square cuspids, and it kind of smelled like his spit. He sprayed spittle on me once when I was in the audience, so I’m an expert on that. I keep the gum in a humidity-controlled environment, sort of like a terrarium. Except it’s for gum.

Ok, I just re-read that last paragraph. I was just kidding. Really. cough

If you have clack-collecting tips of your own, feel free to share them here. I’ll take credit for all the good ideas, and I’ll blame somebody who isn’t here today for the bad ones, so it should all work out just fine.