packing

I spent the weekend packing. That is to say, I spent the weekend packing my books, which means I spent the weekend reading.

I am incapable of putting the books in the boxes without stopping to say, for instance, "You know, I really don't remember what happened in Goblet of Fire. And there's less than a week before the next book comes out! I had better refresh my memory."

Yes, that book is seven million pages long. Yes, I sat down and read the whole thing. Then I read half of Order of the Phoenix. (I skipped all the annoying parts, like Grawp, and read all the good parts, like the DA meetings.) Thank god I have three more weeks before I have to move, because I am not exactly what you would call focused. And at least my books are mostly packed, or at least all present and accounted for.

I had books everywhere: on four bookshelves, in boxes in the garage, in boxes in the closet, on shelves in the closet, at the bottom of my hamper, in a broken dresser. Books. Everywhere. I did a few sweeps just to make sure I got all my books into one room, if nothing else. And I put together a bunch of boxes and assigned them each a different book category, and began filling them with books.

There is Genre (mysteries, fantasy, and Michael Crichton); Children and YA books; Babysitters Club (it�s the biggest box, I have a fuckload of these); Art; Writing; Non-Fiction; Classics; Modern Classics. There's also this Travel/Chicklit/Harry Potter box, I'm not really sure what's going on there.

Now I have a bunch of poetry books left to pack (I need more boxes for these, as about half of my shelf space is dedicated to poetry), some memoir books (can probably fit in with Non-Fiction), and some miscellaneous books that I will either find room for or just put in the garage sale pile, because they defy my organizational principles.

Yes, I am weird about organizing my books. You can see why I started packing a month in advance! But I actually have fewer books than I thought I had, because most of these boxes aren't even full. Maybe I will top them off with sweaters or something.

As I ran my errands this weekend, I kept having to remind myself that I won't be living in El Cerrito for much longer. I actually really enjoy El Cerrito. The parking is plentiful and easy, I have two great grocery stores, a great movie theater, local burger places, my favorite hanging out bookstore, and the Starbucks around the corner where the Boy of Inappropriate Age currently works. I don't know much about my new neighborhood except that the grocery store is about 1/3 the size, and old, with bad parking. And does not carry my yogurt.

However, there are a lot of things to love about the new neighborhood. I'm right by the lake, which will be a great place to ride my bike and walk the dog. (Probably not at the same time, I wouldn't want to give the dog a heart attack.) We have a great old theater. A piano bar, good restaurants, little neighborhoody stores. And I'm sure tons of stuff to discover after we move there.

And my new place is a ten minute drive from my old place, so if I feel the need for my favorite day of movies, popcorn, shopping and big chain bookstores, it's only a few extra minutes away.

I am now stressing out about making our place look "nice," now that we can finally do things like throw parties and host book groups and live like grownup people. But all my furniture is so crappy! (Except my favorite orange table which, ironically, Ian thinks is ugly. I plan to paint it.)

I was inspired by re-reading Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui over the weekend, which talks in hippy fashion about the objects you collect, the reasons for hanging onto them, their energy, and the ways you can let go of the objects you don't either really use or really love.

It's kind of a goofy book, but a lot of the things it says have really stuck with me since I first read it. And somehow I was struck by the idea that, even if our furniture is not particularly cool or whatever, if people like us enough, they won't care what kind of couch they're sitting on. I know everyone wants to impress people with their good taste and stylishness and so forth, and I am no exception, but you know, my loved ones will continue loving me, no matter what my furniture looks like. And also, the dog is larger than most of the furniture. Perhaps people will be too busy looking at the dog to notice the furniture.

Plus I have a kitchen, so if all else fails, I can always distract them by baking them a pie. "Please like my new house. Here is pie. And, um, by the way, that's not a couch, it's a dog. Please get off him."

It'll be great!





you should also know about

molibs
reading list
the adventure list page
wish list.

Older:
aftermath - 2005-08-12
what you wish for - 2005-07-26
packing - 2005-07-11
i think i cancun - 2005-07-05
4 the of july - 2005-07-04

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