Saturday, O Saturday
Today I'm selling books and doing laundry. The former is, by far, the more important thing.
All my life I've been a "collector," as my mother likes to put it. I make collections of just about anything: buttons, like-coloured tacks, folders with art on them, pencils, even old CDs I burned when I was thirteen. Since I moved away from home, this collection has followed me through two apartments and a rented room at my cousin's house. Every so often I make a pass at controlling the mess--I tell myself "No more!" and get rid of a few of the larger messes. Then I sit upon my couch for a few evenings in a row and end up returning to the bargain store for more DVDs.
This is the first time that I've touched my book collection in a massive way. For awhile I was obsessed with "trading in" my paperbacks for cheap, used-book-store hardback versions. I adore hardback books--the smell of them, the weight, the way that their bindings crackle and the good, large print on their pages. As such, my massive book collection never changed much in number (except to add new titles,) but did become very, very heavy. It never hits you just how bad that is until you're attempting to move and a box of books about kills your back.
So I sat down in front of my bookshelf this morning and took a good look at what was there. Most of it was Mercedes Lackey, with some other mixed titles... and the grand majority were books I'd never read more than once a piece. It was harder than I'd ever imagined to pick up that first book and box it away. The back of my mind kept screaming "But you might read it again someday!" and I would hesitate, hover at re-shelving it. Then I remembered just how much money I spent on that book I only read once, and took a good look at the dust growing on top of it.
In the book went, followed by a few score more. I now have a big traveling cart waiting to be taken to the used-book-store as soon as my pants dry. A part of me continues to want to repack it, and the rest is proud that I managed to load it up.
And the handful of dollars I get for them will be going toward a new storage unit for my art supplies.
All my life I've been a "collector," as my mother likes to put it. I make collections of just about anything: buttons, like-coloured tacks, folders with art on them, pencils, even old CDs I burned when I was thirteen. Since I moved away from home, this collection has followed me through two apartments and a rented room at my cousin's house. Every so often I make a pass at controlling the mess--I tell myself "No more!" and get rid of a few of the larger messes. Then I sit upon my couch for a few evenings in a row and end up returning to the bargain store for more DVDs.
This is the first time that I've touched my book collection in a massive way. For awhile I was obsessed with "trading in" my paperbacks for cheap, used-book-store hardback versions. I adore hardback books--the smell of them, the weight, the way that their bindings crackle and the good, large print on their pages. As such, my massive book collection never changed much in number (except to add new titles,) but did become very, very heavy. It never hits you just how bad that is until you're attempting to move and a box of books about kills your back.
So I sat down in front of my bookshelf this morning and took a good look at what was there. Most of it was Mercedes Lackey, with some other mixed titles... and the grand majority were books I'd never read more than once a piece. It was harder than I'd ever imagined to pick up that first book and box it away. The back of my mind kept screaming "But you might read it again someday!" and I would hesitate, hover at re-shelving it. Then I remembered just how much money I spent on that book I only read once, and took a good look at the dust growing on top of it.
In the book went, followed by a few score more. I now have a big traveling cart waiting to be taken to the used-book-store as soon as my pants dry. A part of me continues to want to repack it, and the rest is proud that I managed to load it up.
And the handful of dollars I get for them will be going toward a new storage unit for my art supplies.