Books, books, everywhere

I once saw Cyndi Lauper on a talk show and she was discussing the scene in "Harold and Maude" when Maude opens a big armour in her living room and it is filled with instruments: a mandolin, a trombone, a dulcimer, a guitar. "From that moment, I always wanted to have a closet like that" she said. "Filled with every instrument imaginable so that I could open it and just pull out instruments and just start handing them out.

I always kind of felt like that about books. I remember walking along a street with a friend of mine and we could see inside the windows of a house that had floor to ceiling bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. We talked about how we wanted rooms like that someday, filled with Thoreau and Emerson, Shakespeare and Hemmingway, Bill Bryson and Dave Barry. I wanted to live in a place where I was surrounded by books.

This week, I looked around my apartment and found that my wish had come true. I have stacks of books everywhere, like an absentminded professor. And it's cluttering up my mind.

So while I focused on the bedroom this week, I tried to corral some of those book piles.

May 11: While I was putting winter things into a storage trunk, I pulled some scrapbooks out of the bottom of the storage trunk. For some reason, I thought that would be a good place for them. Now, I have moved them to, the Project Box, where they belong.

May 12: I moved 3 books from the bottom shelf of the bedside table to the bookshelf. There's more room there, since I started the "3 book a month" thing.

May 13: From the drawer of the bedside table, I pulled a book that somebody had given me to read 2 years ago. It's been in the drawer ever since. I will never read it. I put it in the donation box.

May 14: In the drawer of the other bedside table, I found a cassette tape of "sounds of nature" that I used to play going to sleep when I lived in a more urban environment. Remember casette tapes? No? Ok, I guess I'm the only old one. Put that in the donation box. (I heard old people like to go to thrift stores)

May 15: Laundry day! One pair of socks to the donation bag.

May 16: And a Tshirt to the donation bag.

May 17: Moved 3 more books from the top of the bedside table to the bookshelf.

And because on 3 of the days I moved rather than got rid of stuff...just so it wouldn't feel like cheating...I visited the storage area of my parents house and pulled out: 3 books for donation, an old college directory that got tossed, and 2 old ceramic boxes that I had when I was little. I gave those to my neices when I babysat them on Saturday night.

Anyway... let that be a lesson to all you bloggie people...be careful what you wish for! You just may end up decluttering it someday.