Three words
The lovely 
kass gave me three words to use as writing prompts, and so I share the following thoughts:
1. Bookshelf
Bookshelves are for filling, obviously. That is, except when they are for emptying. One city of residence ago I had a flat on the second floor of a great old Victorian house and the front room had an entire wall of built-in bookshelves. Not fancy or anything -- more built ONto the wall not INto the wall. But it was a lot of shelf space. I don't think I quite filled the shelves, but I acquired rather more books than I actually needed or wanted to read because I could just keep putting them on those shelves. And then when it came time to move out of that apartment I went rather bonkers from stress (not solely due to the books) and ended up leaving several boxes worth of cast-offs for my father and sister to come dispose of after I'd left the state. IIRC, I think I also left a narrow freestanding bookcase tucked into the bedroom closet of that apartment that held dozens of Harlequin and Silhouette romances -- all purchased in periodic binges at the Super Kmart store 10 miles up the highway on the fringes of a more populous city. I didn't have fanfic yet, you see...
I know I brought some of the living room books with me to my new state because I still have some books from that time in college (three living spaces before the 2nd floor flat) when I joined QPBC. I saw them when I was getting ready for my latest move, into this tiny studio apartment that doesn't have room for bookshelves. The one and a half bookcases that I was using in my previous apartment are empty ad sitting in storage, along with several boxes of books, most of which are headed for Half Price Books or some charitable donation as soon as I can find time and energy to sort that out. I plan to save out only the most important books that I will want read again, plus any volumes of particular sentimental attachment -- I think I still have a couple childhood talismans that define me. The empty bookshelves are definitely going on to a new home where they can be filled with someone else's books. I might have room in this apartment to keep the much shallower wooden media case -- in the old place it held my DVD collection, but if I keep it it would hold a smaller mixed collection of DVDs, CDs, and books. I might make space for it on the wall between my bed and the (angled) TV cart, pretty much in the space created by the aforementioned angle.
In a different mood this could have been an entirely different meditation on "bookshelf," like telling you all the story of that time that I rewrote the library shelving training guide at my first job out of undergrad and had to invent terminology for elements of the library book stacks -- two decades of working in libraries later and I still find it preposterous that there's no standard term to refer to a single vertical section within a long row of shelving. It's standard practice in libraries and bookstores to go down that vertical section of shelves before moving up and over to the next one; repeat, repeat, etc to the end of the row, then jump the aisle and so forth. Right? In my training manual I declared them to be called Thomases, with an option on short ones to be referred to as a "Tom" or "Tommy." After all, as long as my staff was clear on terminology among ourselves, we could call it whatever we want, right? I mean, that's how language works! And so it was...at least until I left for library school.
2. Plate
More post-moving trauma here. I think I still have the set of plates and dishes that I bought at the Corningware Corelle Revere outlet store when I lived in the 2nd floor flat that I mentioned above. I didn't like any of the patterns, but I became rather enamored of a very simple, plain white set of dishes, especially the very round shape of the bowls and tea cups. I can't recall using them since I moved from Ohio to Wisconsin 15 years ago. Perhaps I did in my first or second apartment here. I tried to save the boxes I believed might still hold these plates when I moved last month, even as I was abandoning lots of whatever. See, I have a dishwasher in this apartment. That means I might actually consider using my real dishes again.
New apartment, fresh start, whole new world of possibilities. But not unless and until I deal with...
3. Box
Boxes, totes, bins, crates. They line my walls here in this room. They're crammed into every nook and corner of my storage unit. Tomorrow after I go see Spider-Man: Far From Home I will visit my storage area with a pack of new file boxes to unearth the plastic moving totes I rented from U-Haul, transfer the contents, and return the rentals only a week and a half late.
It's going to take a while to sort out my life and stuff, but I like where things are headed.
If you would like three words from me to prompt your own post, please hit me up in comments.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth (
comments)
kass gave me three words to use as writing prompts, and so I share the following thoughts:
1. Bookshelf
Bookshelves are for filling, obviously. That is, except when they are for emptying. One city of residence ago I had a flat on the second floor of a great old Victorian house and the front room had an entire wall of built-in bookshelves. Not fancy or anything -- more built ONto the wall not INto the wall. But it was a lot of shelf space. I don't think I quite filled the shelves, but I acquired rather more books than I actually needed or wanted to read because I could just keep putting them on those shelves. And then when it came time to move out of that apartment I went rather bonkers from stress (not solely due to the books) and ended up leaving several boxes worth of cast-offs for my father and sister to come dispose of after I'd left the state. IIRC, I think I also left a narrow freestanding bookcase tucked into the bedroom closet of that apartment that held dozens of Harlequin and Silhouette romances -- all purchased in periodic binges at the Super Kmart store 10 miles up the highway on the fringes of a more populous city. I didn't have fanfic yet, you see...
I know I brought some of the living room books with me to my new state because I still have some books from that time in college (three living spaces before the 2nd floor flat) when I joined QPBC. I saw them when I was getting ready for my latest move, into this tiny studio apartment that doesn't have room for bookshelves. The one and a half bookcases that I was using in my previous apartment are empty ad sitting in storage, along with several boxes of books, most of which are headed for Half Price Books or some charitable donation as soon as I can find time and energy to sort that out. I plan to save out only the most important books that I will want read again, plus any volumes of particular sentimental attachment -- I think I still have a couple childhood talismans that define me. The empty bookshelves are definitely going on to a new home where they can be filled with someone else's books. I might have room in this apartment to keep the much shallower wooden media case -- in the old place it held my DVD collection, but if I keep it it would hold a smaller mixed collection of DVDs, CDs, and books. I might make space for it on the wall between my bed and the (angled) TV cart, pretty much in the space created by the aforementioned angle.
In a different mood this could have been an entirely different meditation on "bookshelf," like telling you all the story of that time that I rewrote the library shelving training guide at my first job out of undergrad and had to invent terminology for elements of the library book stacks -- two decades of working in libraries later and I still find it preposterous that there's no standard term to refer to a single vertical section within a long row of shelving. It's standard practice in libraries and bookstores to go down that vertical section of shelves before moving up and over to the next one; repeat, repeat, etc to the end of the row, then jump the aisle and so forth. Right? In my training manual I declared them to be called Thomases, with an option on short ones to be referred to as a "Tom" or "Tommy." After all, as long as my staff was clear on terminology among ourselves, we could call it whatever we want, right? I mean, that's how language works! And so it was...at least until I left for library school.
2. Plate
More post-moving trauma here. I think I still have the set of plates and dishes that I bought at the Corningware Corelle Revere outlet store when I lived in the 2nd floor flat that I mentioned above. I didn't like any of the patterns, but I became rather enamored of a very simple, plain white set of dishes, especially the very round shape of the bowls and tea cups. I can't recall using them since I moved from Ohio to Wisconsin 15 years ago. Perhaps I did in my first or second apartment here. I tried to save the boxes I believed might still hold these plates when I moved last month, even as I was abandoning lots of whatever. See, I have a dishwasher in this apartment. That means I might actually consider using my real dishes again.
New apartment, fresh start, whole new world of possibilities. But not unless and until I deal with...
3. Box
Boxes, totes, bins, crates. They line my walls here in this room. They're crammed into every nook and corner of my storage unit. Tomorrow after I go see Spider-Man: Far From Home I will visit my storage area with a pack of new file boxes to unearth the plastic moving totes I rented from U-Haul, transfer the contents, and return the rentals only a week and a half late.
It's going to take a while to sort out my life and stuff, but I like where things are headed.
If you would like three words from me to prompt your own post, please hit me up in comments.
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth (
comments)