This afternoon I decided to tackle the mess that is my bookshelf. For a librarian, my bookshelf was in a pretty atrocious state; with good reason though- I moved three times last year! And, my last move in December was a particularly fast and hectic one (my partner and I moved out of a bad-news apartment). I just haven't had the time the dedicate the attention my book library deserves.
I must confess, my bookshelf has been in varying states of disarray for the last year. Back in Houston, Kirke and I began packing in May of 2010 for our August move. We had so much stuff in our huge house that the only way to account for everything was to begin sorting. If we were gonna sort, we might as well begin to pack (so was my logic, I believe Kirke differed on the idea). Packing a whole three months prior to a move can kind of be a little overkill, so we decided to pack simple things first. Books it was!
When we finally made the move to Pittsburgh in August 2010, our books were among the last few items unpacked. I had a full three-weeks before classes at Pitt started and I told myself that organizing the books would be something I would do during this time off. Somehow, those three weeks escaped by and the books remained in unorganized, taunting me from the shelves.
Late in November Kirke and I were forced out of a bad living situation and scrabbled to find a more suitable home. Luckily, we found a much better place that we finally felt somewhat more like a home. The place was much bigger than our last and I thought finally, our books will be able to be showcased properly.
Rudie cat hamming it up on the empty bookshelf.
I was wrong again. Classes at Pitt started up in early January and I just did not have the time to concentrate on an organizational schema for the books. So, instead, they sat on the shelves- Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was mingling next to Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States and Vonnegut was all over the place! During this time I accidentally bought a near identical copy of Charlotte Perkins Gillman's Yellow Wallpaper because I couldn't find it on the shelf. I was horrified that I had given away a deluxe edition copy of my favorite short story. I found the original copy this morning hiding on a bottom shelf amongst some 17th century Dutch art books. The problem was out of hand, it had to be fixed!
Come back tomorrow and read the unexpected end to my adventure in book organization!
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